Coveney optimistic deal on Northern Ireland can be achieved

Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said he is more optimistic than he has been for some time that a deal can be reached on the Northern Ireland protocol.

He told an audience in the United States that there would be a big effort to try resolve the Northern Ireland protocol issue before the end of the year.

He also said he was a realist but he believed there was a potential “landing zone” if there was compromise on all sides.

Mr Coveney suggested that in essence a compromise agreement could involve differentiating between goods coming from Britain that were staying in Northern Ireland and those potentially moving on elsewhere.

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He said both sides were working on a system of data sharing.

He said the EU had certainly shown a willingness to comprise and be flexible “on applying a different level of risk management on goods that we know are staying in Northern Ireland versus goods that are at risk of going into the EU single market”.

Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for international Peace in Washington on Wednesday he said the new British prime minister Rishi Sunak and his Cabinet were giving clear signals that they wanted to negotiate a solution “rather than some type of unilateral interpretation of what a solution might look like from London”.

He said in most people’s view that would cause an awful lot more problems than it would solve and ultimately potentially lead to a lot friction between the UK and the EU.

He said this was the last thing that was needed given the other things going on in Europe.

Clear signals

In a Q&A session, Mr Coveney said there had been a lot of turnover among British politicians dealing with Northern Ireland in recent years. He said this along with the pressure on all of these to find a way forward given the political internal pressures within the Conservative party in London had been a real driver of instability.

Mr Coveney said the current prime minister has sent clear signals to Dublin and to Brussels that under his leadership he wanted try find a negotiated solution.

“That does not mean he won’t try to drive a hard bargain. He will.”

“There are issues the British Government want resolved that will be difficult to resolve.”

Mr Coveney said his relationship with the new Northern Ireland Secretary was a good one and he had positive initial meetings with the new British foreign secretary.

“The mood music is a lot better than it was before. But ultimately this is about a legal agreement. It is not about warm commentary – that is helpful too – but there are complex issues that need to be overcome.”

In his address to the meeting the Minister said that “the last several years have required us to navigate challenges never foreseen by the architects of the Good Friday agreement”.

“It was clear from the outset that the UK’s decision to leave the EU had the potential to be profoundly disruptive for Northern Ireland and for the island of Ireland as a whole. ”

He said in the absence of progress on the protocol “politics in Northern Ireland has broken down, with no executive or assembly in place”.

“Six months on from elections, formation of the institutions continues to be blocked by a single party. The people of Northern Ireland deserve much better than this political limbo. ”

“I appreciate the concerns that lie behind this position. However, there is no justification for preventing the democratically elected representatives of Northern Ireland from assuming their responsibilities.”