EU not involved in 'domestic' negotiations between the DUP and Government on the Irish Sea border

There has been much speculation about the nature of the EU’s role in political developments because any significant changes to how goods enter Northern Ireland from Great Britain would require their approval under the Windsor Framework.

This week, The Telegraph reported that British negotiators held secret talks with EU officials over possible “wriggle room” in the framework. The newspaper reported that senior British officials “conceded there was no room for any renegotiation of the Windsor Framework” – something Brussels has consistently said is not on the table.

Today there are reports in the same newspaper that a deal might involve renaming the Windsor Framework’s Green Lane as the “UK Internal Market Lane”. The green lane is currently accessible only through the UK Internal Market Scheme.

The framework – like its predecessor the Northern Ireland Protocol – sets the rules by which goods enter Northern Ireland from Great Britain. Goods destined for Northern Ireland enter via the ‘green lane’ – if they are deemed not at risk of entering the EU single market – and the trader is signed up to the UK Internal Market Scheme. Goods destined for – or at risk of entering – the EU market are subject to full EU checks, controls and customs rules. The onus is on the business to prove goods they are bringing into NI won’t end up in the EU.

Last year, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson asked the government to work with him to ensure that “where goods are moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland they are not subject to EU customs processes that are neither necessary or fair or right”. When asked by the News Letter about this possibility in November last year, Brussels refused to comment.

However, senior DUP figures have this week highlighted fundamental concerns about the Windsor Framework’s impact on the ability of the UK government to legislate for Northern Ireland on the key areas of trade and immigration.

In the House of Commons, deputy leader Gavin Robinson warned that the Rwanda Bill will not apply in Northern Ireland because of the continued role of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR) and the European Convention on Human Rights’ role in the Good Friday Agreement. The Windsor Framework commits the UK to “no diminution of rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity” in Northern Ireland – and keeps the CFR in place here in a way it isn’t in the rest of the UK.

The East Belfast MP said: “Heavens knows we’ve had enough difficulty around the creation of a trade border in the Irish Sea that we are having to deal with, that we cannot casually and mistakenly or through misplaced hope, walk ourselves into the creation of an immigration sea border in the Irish Sea”.

The UK government has said the Rwanda Bill will apply to all of the UK.

In the House of Lords on Monday, the DUP’s Lord Dodds accused the government of a “lack of transparency, honesty and frankness” over proposals which “extend to parts of the United Kingdom but do not apply there”. Lord Dodds said the government should be “open and transparent about what they have created and what they are about in relation to legislation which is restricted for Northern Ireland”.