The UK will extend Brexit grace periods in Northern Ireland

LONDON / DUBLIN, September 6 (Reuters) – Britain plans to further extend post-Brexit grace periods on some imports of goods to Northern Ireland, Brexit Minister David Frost said on Monday intended to give London and Brussels more time to talk about trade with the province.

The fate of British-ruled Northern Ireland was the most controversial issue in the British negotiations over its exit from the European Union, which was completed on 31 December, and has continued to provoke friction.

To avoid imposing a hard border on the island of Ireland, Britain agreed to leave some EU rules in its Northern Ireland province and to accept controls on goods arriving from other parts of the UK.

Since then, London has said the deal is not working and wants to change it, while the EU refuses to renegotiate the treaty.

“To provide space for future discussions (with the EU) and to give certainty and stability to companies as long as these discussions take place, the government will continue to operate the protocol on the current basis,” Frost said in a written ministerial statement.

“This includes the grace periods and easements currently in place,” he said.

The European Union took note of Britain’s plans, but said it was not pursuing legal action against London.

“Currently, the Commission is not moving to the next stage of the infringement procedure initiated in March 2021 and is not opening any new infringement for now,” the blog executive said in a statement.

Officials in London and Brussels have tried to prevent the dispute from escalating into a full-blown trade war.

The European Commission agreed in July to freeze legal action against Britain for having made changes to the protocol according to which Brussels says it is in breach of the Brexit treaty.

Now London has indicated it would extend grace periods, suspending new controls on multi-channel trade due to the launch in a few weeks.

Ireland is a key player in post-Brexit trade negotiations and Irish Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who spoke after a meeting with British Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, said he hoped the British measure would lead to attempts to to reach a more permanent solution.

“The expectation is that the UK will announce a new extension of grace periods, not only in relation to Northern Ireland, but also with EU and Irish imports into the UK,” Varadkar said in an interview with the UK. Irish state broadcaster RTE.

“It is important that we use the period of any extension that may actually occur to start working and try to establish more permanent actions … to ensure that the protocol becomes more viable,” Varadkar told RTE.

But Varadkar warned that any more permanent guaranteed solution between London and Brussels should be within the limits of the existing agreement.

Varadkar said Gove had told him Britain “does not want to stray from the protocol, but wants to make it more viable.”

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said last month that he believed the problems could be resolved with the right political will. Read more

Reports of Conor Humphries in Dublin and James Davey in London, Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Edited by Michael Holden and David Clarke

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