Government believes EU-UK deal paves way for much softer Brexit

The deal reached between the European Commission and the British government on Friday paves the way for a much softer Brexit than had been initially envisaged, the Government believes.

Officials and Ministers in Dublin believe the addition of a clarification to assuage the Democratic Unionist Party that Northern Ireland will not be isolated in the Brexit process may help to keep Britain closer to the EU.

The document agreed between the EU and the UK reached the threshold of “sufficient progress” in the areas of citizens’ rights, the financial divorce settlement and Irish-specific issues.

The negotiations are now expected to advance to the next stage which focuses on the transition period after Brexit takes effect in March 2019, and on the future EU-UK relationship.

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Ireland secured a commitment that there will be no hard border with Northern Ireland even if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

In such a scenario there will be regulatory alignment between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and no “regulatory barriers” between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Dublin believes it is now possible for the UK to leave the European single market and customs union while maintaining a relationship that closely mirrors the existing structures. It could, however, hinder the UK’s ability to strike its own free trade deals, a key goal of some of those in favour of Brexit.

Full alignment

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar welcomed the agreement as not the end of the Brexit process, but the "end of the beginning". He predicted discussions would now move on from "this simple binary soft or hard Brexit idea".

The British government played down the implications of a promise of “full alignment” of policies to support an all-island economy in Ireland if other ways of avoiding a hard border cannot be agreed.

A senior official at the Department for Exiting the European Union in Westminster said the commitment applied only to the six areas of North-South economic co-operation identified in the Belfast Agreement. These are transport, agriculture, education, health, environment and tourism.

He said 142 cross-Border policy areas identified by the taskforce of the EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier were subsets of the original six, and insisted the commitment did not undermine Britain's declaration it will leave the single market and the customs union.

Guidelines

Ahead of next week's European Council summit, Brussels on Friday began to set out the scope of discussions on the EU-UK future relationship. The European Council issued a set of guidelines setting out a mandate for talks on transition by the UK after Brexit.

These are based on an assumption that the UK will continue to act as a member state for a period probably of two years, although without the right to attend meetings. The guidelines insist it will be expected to abide by all the rules of the internal market and to enforce the union’s external borders.