EU offers UK an 'olive branch'

Brussels says fewer goods crossing the Irish Sea will require border checks

The European Union has offered to reduce trade checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea into Northern Ireland ahead of a key legal deadline on agreed grace periods.

The move would allow the United Kingdom and the EU to avoid a diplomatic flashpoint over post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland, reported the Financial Times.

Officials on both sides are seeking to avoid any confrontation ahead of the Thursday deadline, and around the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on Monday, the newspaper said.

Maros Sefcovic, EU vice-president, told the FT that the EU has proposed to reduce checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea to just "a couple of lorries" a day in a move described as an olive branch to Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss.

Sefcovic said the border could be made invisible if the EU had real-time access to data on goods entering the country.

He said that physical checks would only occur "when there is a reasonable suspicion of illegal trade smuggling, illegal drugs, dangerous toys or poisoned food". He added that the proposals would mean there was almost no difference between the UK's demand for "no checks" and the EU's offer of "minimum checks, done in an invisible manner".

The implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol on trade has soured the relationship between Britain and the EU. The protocol keeps the province subject to certain EU trade regulations, while it remains politically part of the UK.

There had been recent EU concerns that, in her new role, Truss would be more combative on details of the Brexit agreement and would immediately seek to trigger a clause in the protocol to unilaterally maintain the grace periods, but these have now been allayed, said the FT.

The newspaper cited EU officials as saying the "best scenario" would be for the UK to continue with the grace periods without triggering the Article 16 safeguards clause. The UK government is expected to make a written request to extend "light touch" implementation of checks, to which the EU will not object.

Following the death of the queen last Thursday, any trade talks, which have been deadlocked for nine months, are now only likely to resume after a 10-day period of mourning is over, noted The Guardian.

Ireland's Prime Minister Micheal Martin told reporters on Monday that the comments from Sefcovic showed evidence of "his flexibility, his desire to be solution-driven, and what you're witnessing this morning is further solutions, proposed ideas around resolving the protocol issue".

Martin said he spoke with the Britian's prime minister last week and that they would "meet again on these issues".

"I do believe genuinely there's a view across that we should do everything we can to resolve this issue," he said, adding that the "European Union and the UK really should sort this out so that we can focus on the bigger issues geopolitically that are facing the European Union and UK, who are good partners on these more fundamental issues".