The EU "loses patience" again with London: "We have had a lot of flexibility"

The EU has started the week reading on the front pages of the British press the accusations of the British negotiator Lord Frost of being “too inflexible”, and breakfast has choked. The European Commission is losing patience for the umpteenth time because if there has been anything, community sources explain, it is “flexibility”, generosity and adaptation. The UK is no longer in the EU, neither in the single market nor in the customs union. Brexit was consummated, on December 31 the so-called Transition Period ended and just a few weeks ago the European Parliament ratified, with many doubts, the trade agreement that should establish future relations. But the UK is not living up to its end of the deal and doesn't seem to have any intention of doing so.. So his partners, irritated, warn that they are going to study “all the tools at their disposal to respond. There was an arbitration and it was not valid, there is an infringement procedure and it has not been enough. So we will have to consider other ways,” they warn from Brussels.

There are three different agreements and documents and there are problems with all of them. There is the Withdrawal Agreement, there is the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, to address the unique lace of the island of Ireland, avoid hard borders for life and guarantee the viability of the Good Friday Agreements and peace in the area. And there's the trade deal. The UK is calling into question basic elements of the first, deliberately delaying the second and inevitably compromising the third, according to Brussels. The Government of Boris Johnson, which does not seem to have much intention of assuming the responsibilities signed, throws balls out and says that it is all a problem of the EU, for being very rigid. British companies, and those in Northern Ireland in particular, are discovering the cumbersome paperwork and bureaucracy when you are not inside the EU, they are not liking it and they are surprised, as if it had not been the warning that since 2016 made them almost every day.

“We are being responsible. We have negotiated four years to have a Protocol that meets the objectives set, that there are no borders and guarantee peace. There was agreement, the new UK government said no, it was renegotiated and when it was agreed, with flexibility, we were willing to discuss a flexible approach to implementation.. We have been extremely constructive,” a senior community official said today..

There are all kinds of problems, but what worries the 27 the most are two things: the arrests of European citizens, who have even spent days in jail because the British authorities did not accept their entry to look for work, even if they had arranged interviews. And the clear boycott to implement the necessary infrastructure to carry out the phytosanitary and customs controls that were agreed years ago.

Both issues will be addressed this week in London by delegations from both sides. On the one hand, there is a meeting on the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement and the Irish protocol, of the joint committee led by Frost and the community vice president Maros Sefcovic. And another from the so-called partnership council, for the rest of the topic. “Every document, article and paragraph of the Withdrawal Agreement was the object of extensive discussion.”. We do not intend to change the agreement. When there are problems, they have to be resolved within the framework agreed with the United Kingdom and using the appropriate bodies,” a senior community source explained today in Brussels..

June 30 is the deadline for Europeans in the United Kingdom and Britons residing in the EU to have their papers in order. There are some doubts, problems and certain delays and the situation of tens of thousands of people is concerned.

But then there is the matter of Irish controls. To avoid hard borders, and having a trade agreement, the idea is that there would be non-total controls, remote monitoring. With great faith and blind trust, despite repeated challenges and unilateral breaches. It was not a good way, but it was the best possible agreement to avoid disaster.

It was established that the EU would have access to the system to be able to verify, monitor, but not supervise each transaction. That would be going back decades and would make it unfeasible to maintain trade flows, and given that Northern Ireland is in difficult terrain, halfway between the single market and British trade integrity, it would be costly and dangerous for stability.. The idea was that these controls would be ready on January 1, when the Transition Period ended.. London said it was not on time and was given flexibility, but almost six months later there is no trace of the necessary work and no apparent willingness to carry it out. “To avoid borders and the integrity of the single market, the EU and the UK must go hand in hand and in good faith. We know that there are difficulties in the implementation and that is why we are working with them at all levels, but with pragmatic solutions within the framework of the protocol”, the same source breaks down..

The EU demands that the electronic system come into operation to be able to remotely monitor the products, to know that what enters Northern Ireland through Ireland, without restrictions, does not end up in the United Kingdom irregularly. He asks that the promised personnel be hired to do the work, that they are given the agreed training and that there be a fixed infrastructure, and not temporary barracks as up to now.

London says there is a lack of imagination and flexibility, and the EU has responded today that there are dozens of examples where it has shown flexibility when the UK has spotted problems or dangers. Such as in the supply of medicines, where it has opened its hand. On food, dangerous plants, guide dogs, VAT clearance, etc. “In December we accepted broad flexibility, we asked what they needed and we gave it to them. But the UK has not implemented its commitments. It’s hard to trust a partner in those circumstances,” lamented that European source responding directly to Frost.