London, Brussels avoid trade war over meat

Europe softens stance and will extend grace period as solution to ongoing woes

A major standoff between the United Kingdom and the European Union looks to have been avoided over the issue of moving chilled meats between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

As part of the Brexit agreement, reached just before Christmas last year after months of talks, Northern Ireland, while still being part of the UK politically and thus no longer within the EU, remains in the EU's single market for goods.

This means that goods crossing the Irish Sea are subject to customs checks, as if they were leaving the British mainland to enter EU territories, a move which has caused fury among members of Northern Ireland's Unionist community, who are loyal to the British state and do not want to be given any different kind of treatment.

Since January, British producers have not been able to sell chilled meat products in the EU single market, but Northern Ireland has been exempt from this for six months, as part of the Northern Ireland Protocol section of the Brexit agreement, in order to allow its supermarkets to establish alternative supply chains.

This was due to finish at the end of June, but with no alternative arrangements in place, and with Britain's Brexit Minister David Frost expressing ever-greater doubts about the protocol, six months after he negotiated it, a major trade dispute looked possible.

But on Wednesday, both the EU's chief negotiator, Maros Sefcovic, and the British government were expected to issue statements saying such a situation had been avoided, and that the grace period had been extended.

The European Commission published a statement on June 17 saying the British government requested an extension until Sept 30, and "the Commission will now assess this request".

Sefcovic, who is a vice-president of the commission, told a committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday he was confident an extension would be granted.

"After all the internal contacts I have had, I remain confident we can find a solution in the next 48 hours that will address both sides' needs and concerns," the BBC quoted him as saying. "I hope to be bringing such optimism to Northern Ireland more in the future."

He suggested an "obvious" way to get rid of checks and restrictions for goods crossing the Irish Sea would be for the UK to come to an agreement aligning post-Brexit standards on animals and plants with regulations from Brussels.

However, given how much Brexit was sold on freeing UK industries from the bureaucracy of EU membership, this would prove to be deeply unpopular with Brexit supporters, so it may be rejected by the British government.