From midnight there should be no more controls on goods from the British Isles.
(Photo: dpa)
Belfast/Dublin An open dispute over the implementation of the Brexit agreement has broken out between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland’s Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots on Wednesday ordered all inspections of goods coming from the British Isles to be suspended from midnight. The Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dublin immediately criticized that the Brexit agreement on Britain’s exit from the European Union would be broken.
The background to the dispute is the Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit treaty. This is to ensure that EU rules apply in Ireland without introducing border controls between Ireland and Northern Ireland. As a result, controls on the movement of goods have shifted to the border between the British mainland and Northern Ireland. Northern Irish nationalists are up in arms, seeing it as a sign of separation from Britain.
Poots, a member of the Protestant Democratic Union Party (DUP), which opposes the Northern Ireland Protocol and insists on close ties with Great Britain, cited a legal opinion that the measures should not have been introduced without the consent of the Northern Ireland regional government.
“I have now issued a formal order to end all controls that were not in effect on December 31, 2020 at midnight today,” Poots said. New Year’s Eve 2020 was the last day of Great Britain’s EU membership; the Brexit regulations only came into force on January 1, 2021.
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Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill of the Catholic-leaning Sinn Fein party, criticized Poot’s move as unlawful interference in national and international law. Last week British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said that threats by the DUP to halt controls were a matter for the Northern Ireland regional government to resolve.
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