The future of North-South relations could be addressed at the start of Brexit negotiations early next year, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has told the Taoiseach.
Speaking in Brussels after a meeting of the European Council yesterday, Mr Kenny said Mr Juncker was aware of the importance and complexity of the issues Brexit raises for the island of Ireland.
Mr Kenny said the next meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council on November 18th offered an opportunity for Ministers from both sides of the Border to identify the key issues.
“It would be very important that the Assembly . . . would be able to give their combined view as to what their requests for Northern Ireland are. This will not be easy, and there will be very tough negotiations with the UK government from the European view when the negotiations start,” he said.
Established under the Belfast Agreement in 1998, the council co-ordinates cross-Border co-operation in a number of policy areas.
Theresa May used her first EU summit as prime minister to reassure other leaders that Britain would take a constructive approach to next year's withdrawal negotiations.
“I’m sure there’ll be difficult moments. It will require some give and take. But I firmly believe that if we approach this in a constructive spirit, as I am, then we can deliver a smooth departure and build a powerful new relationship that works both for the UK and for the countries of the EU,” she said.
Sanctions row
Ms May spoke briefly about Brexit after dinner with other leaders in the early hours of yesterday morning but the summit was dominated by a row over new sanctions on
Russia
and the future of a trade deal with
Canada
. Under pressure from
Italy
, EU leaders watered down a threat to impose sanctions on Russia over its bombing of civilian targets in
Syria
.
EU leaders left Brussels on Friday with the future of a trade deal with Canada, which took seven years to negotiate and had the backing of all 28 national governments, uncertain. Parliamentarians in Belgium’s French-speaking region of Wallonia are blocking the deal.
Canada's trade minister Chrystia Freeland walked out of a meeting with the regional MPs yesterday, declaring the deal dead.
Earlier, the Taoiseach said he does not believe that there are any impending state-aid cases against Ireland from the European Commission similar to that against Apple.
Tax arrangements
In an interview in
The
Irish Times
yesterday, EU competition commissioner
Margrethe Vestager
said her department was assessing approximately 1,000 tax rulings from across the EU. She declined to rule out any further inquiries into Ireland’s tax arrangements with companies and it is understood that the State provided details of up to 300 tax rulings it offered to companies.
Mr Kenny confirmed that Ireland provided details of all tax rulings between 2010 and 2012 but said the commission had opened a state aid investigation in respect of only one case.
“No other state aid cases have been opened against Ireland arising from the information submitted to the commission, nor have we any indication that there are any other cases under consideration,” he said. “That is not to say that at some future point the commission might not wish to reverse that.”
