Progress, but no solution to Ireland’s Brexit problem – POLITICO.eu

Demonstrators dressed as custom officials set up a mock customs checkpoint at the U.K.-Irish border crossing in Killeen to protest against the potential introduction of border checks after Brexit. The U.K. has issued a position paper saying it aims to avoid any border checks with Ireland | Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images

The UK wants no checkpoints, no scanners, no cameras. But that means flexible and imaginative solutions will be needed.

By Charlie Cooper and Simon Marks

8/16/17, 8:00 PM CET

Updated 8/16/17, 11:35 PM CET

LONDON It was billed as the U.K.s solution to the intractable problem of the Northern Irish border.

To the Irish government, as well as businesses and traders on both sides of the Irish Sea, it looked like progress but far from a solution.

The position paper, the second of a series setting out more detail about the U.K.s Brexit stance, certainly told us things we did not already know.

The U.K. government has gone beyond its previous rhetoric of no hard border, and now says it wants to avoid any physical border infrastructure whatsoever. No checkpoints, no scanners, no cameras. The open border approach will apply to both people and goods moving across the 310-mile border.

In another positive sign for those farmers and manufacturers who want to maintain the current seamless, invisible frontier, the paper proposed harmonizing the U.K.s post-Brexit food standards with the EU. This could restrict the U.K.s room for maneuver in future free-trade agreement talks with other countries who might demand a looser regime but the calculation appears to have been made in Westminster that it is worth it to keep a soft border in Ireland.

Irish businesses are not just worried about the land border, but about their east-west trade with the U.K.

There was also support, as anticipated, for residents of Northern Ireland, who can choose whether to be British citizens, Irish citizens, or both, keeping these rights and thus being able to claim EU citizenship even after Brexit. And the U.K. government signaled its intention to maintain the islands common energy market, which it said had helped reduce power prices as well as boosted renewables and security of supply.

The European Commission said Wednesday that it would carefully study the paper, though a spokesperson for the EUs executive cited an oft-repeated phrase from the EUs chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, that frictionless trade is not possible outside EU rules.

In Dublin, Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, welcomed the principles of the position paper but said he was still lacking detailed answers on the border issues.

There is no straightforward solution to this. If there was we would have heard it by now. This is going to require a unique political solution, he told reporters at his departments office.

Precisely what the solution will be will depend on the future customs relationship the U.K. has with the EU. London offered two proposals on Tuesday, one of which could completely remove the need for a customs border in Ireland, but would require complex tracking of goods.

The other, to maintain a seamless border, would mean flexible and imaginative solutions. One of these, floated in the paper, would involve smaller regional traders, who make up more than 80 percent of the cross-border traffic, to be exempted from customs processes because they dont represent economically significant international trade. The paper also proposed a registration system for major traders so-called Authorized Economic Operators.

In either scenario, the Irish business lobby fears a major uptick in costly regulation unwanted extra red tape of the kind Brexiteers often denounce when it emanates from Brussels.

Irish businesses are not just worried about the land border, but about their east-west trade with the U.K. For the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (Ibec), the simplest and best solution would have been for the U.K. to remain in the EU customs union. London has ruled this out, and while Irish firms welcomed Tuesdays confirmation that the U.K. will seek a transitional arrangement very similar to the customs union, there is still a sense of exasperation that the simplest solutions staying in the customs union and single market were never on the table.

U.K. Brexit policy continues to be dictated by domestic party political concerns, not rational economic considerations, said Danny McCoy, Ibecs CEO. We all stand to lose out as a result. A fundamental rethink of the U.K. position is needed if we are to avoid a significant economic hit to key sectors of the economy.

Labour MP Pat McFadden, a supporter of the cross-party, pro-EU, Open Britain campaign, agreed, saying the government was needlessly attempting to reinvent the wheel with its proposals to avoid a hard border.

In Northern Ireland, the position paper was warmly welcomed by the Conservatives Westminster allies, the Democratic Unionist Party, who said it contained many of their ideas.

We are pleased that the relationship between the DUP and the Conservative Party can be seen to bear fruit in many ways, including in the EU exit negotiations, said DUP MP Sammy Wilson, a member of the Brexit select committee in parliament.

Republican party Sinn Fin, with whom the DUP are yet to agree a deal on forming a new government in Belfast, were less enthusiastic.

The U.K. position demonstrated that Northern Ireland was a fleeting concern for the British government. We are collateral damage, said the partys northern leader, Michelle ONeill.

Kalina Oroschakoff contributed reporting.

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Progress, but no solution to Ireland's Brexit problem - POLITICO.eu