The vice-president of the European Commission has urged Liz Truss to restart post-Brexit negotiations and abandon her highly controversial plan to unilaterally override the protocol with new legislation. Mr Sefcovic said the EU was willing to compromise but was willing to resume talks based on proposals to reduce protocol controls set out last October. Physical checks on GB-NI goods will only be carried out when there is reasonable suspicion of illegal trade in contraband, illegal drugs, dangerous goods or poisoned food, Mr Sefcovic told the Financial Times. “If the data is uploaded into the system, when the goods are put on board from Britain … I believe we can process them remotely while traveling to Northern Ireland,” he added. Mr Sefcovic said this usually meant checks on “two trucks a day” – adding that there was almost no difference between the UK’s demand for “no checks” and the EU’s offer of “minimum checks, done invisibly way”. . Ms Truss’s Protocol bill – designed to end controls on goods agreed in the Brexit deal – sparked outrage in Brussels and the launch of legal action, as well as warnings from British business groups of a possible trade war. The government wants to scrap the current protocol rules with a new system that would create green and red channels differentiating between GB products destined for use in NI and shipments due to cross the Irish border. Mr Sefcovic said he was “encouraged” by Ms Truss’ comments as her preference remained for a negotiated settlement. Although the new prime minister also told parliament that any deal “must deliver on all the things we set out in the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill”. The Vice-President of the European Commission said: “We are ready to work in an open, constructive and intensive way”, pointing to the looming deadline for the political confrontation in Northern Ireland. With the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) refusing to rejoin power-sharing arrangements, an election for the Northern Ireland Assembly will be called on October 28 if the deadlock remains. DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said any “renewed negotiations” would still require a “change of attitude” from the EU. “They must recognize that if we are to reach a solution, it requires them to accept and respect integrity of the United Kingdom, its internal market and Northern Ireland’s place within it’. Respected Brexit analyst Mujtaba Rahman, managing director of Eurasia Group, said he had been told by senior UK officials that Mr Sefcovic’s offer “doesn’t go far enough and is not particularly new”. British officials have pointed out that the aim of the green lane “is to eliminate all red tape for goods going from Britain to NI – not just physical checks”, the analyst added. Ms Truss’ new Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, said last week he believed there was still a “fairly obvious landing zone for negotiations” with the EU. He told MPs: “I very much hope and believe that is the case today. I think everything can be resolved through negotiations, but we have legislation that we will use if not.” Ms Truss told PMQs: “We need to fix the issues of the Northern Ireland protocol which have damaged the balance between communities in Northern Ireland. I’m determined to keep doing it.”
