‘Unlikely’ UK and EU will reach agreement over NI protocol, says Donaldson

The DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has said it is "unlikely" the UK and EU will reach agreement over the Northern Ireland protocol and he therefore expects the UK government to take "unilateral action" and trigger Article 16.

“In the absence of the EU stepping up and putting firmer proposals on the table, more realistic proposals on the table, I think a positive outcome in terms of an agreed solution is unlikely,” he said.

“The sense I have is that the talks are moving towards a conclusion now, one way or another. There’s no point in dragging this out, and let’s not forget that every day the protocol continues to operate it harms the economy,” he said.

Ireland and the EU expects the UK to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol in the coming weeks, which would effectively suspend the operation of the protocol, the part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement which avoids a hard border on the island of Ireland by placing a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea.

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Unionists are opposed the protocol and have called repeatedly for it to be replaced.

Speaking to reporters in Belfast on Tuesday, Mr Donaldson defended the UK's right to trigger Article 16, saying the UK government was "right to make contingency plans" and it was an agreed mechanism and the UK was "perfectly entitled" to trigger it.

He said he hoped "we don't get to a situation where there is a trade war between the UK and the European Union, I don't think it's in anybody's interests that that is the outcome" and criticised reports the EU was preparing to take retaliatory action of the UK triggered Article 16.

“I think it is unfortunate the EU is ramping up the rhetoric, is talking about contingency plans, is talking about the possibility of a trade war.

“That does nothing to suggest that they are genuinely engaged in trying to find a solution here.”

‘Solutions and stability’

The North's First Minister, Paul Givan, and Deputy First Minister, Michelle O'Neill, took part in a virtual meeting with the UK's chief Brexit negotiator, Lord Frost, on Tuesday.

Speaking afterwards, Ms O’Neill said she made clear to Lord Frost that it was “time to dial down the rhetoric, that the wider community here want solutions, they want to make the protocol work ... they certainly don’t want to see the spill out of the language, the incendiary language actually from the British government and the DUP, that’s now spilling out on to our streets and we now see street disorder – none of us want that.”

She also said she had asked the UK government to remove the threat to trigger Article 16 “because that’s not what the majority of parties here want, what the wider business community want.

“What we need to find is solutions and stability, certainly not another period of instability, uncertainty, and all that that brings with it,” she said.

"It's my assessment from the conversation today – however, I caveat everything I say with the fact that this is David Frost, the man that negotiated the protocol and who's now trying to renegotiate the protocol – but his statement today was clearly in the line of that talks are going to continue, that they want to find solutions and that they don't want to trigger Article 16.

“However, again, I caveat that with the fact that this is the man that actually negotiated in the first place,” she said. – Additional reporting PA