LAST UPDATE | 18 Feb 2023

EU CHIEF URSULA von der Leyen has briefed the Taoiseach about the state of negotiations on the Northern Ireland Protocol ahead of talks with Rishi Sunak.

EU and UK leaders are meeting today in a bid to resolve the Northern Ireland Protocol, despite reservations among Eurosceptic Tory backbenchers.

There is mounting speculation that the EU and UK could unveil a deal aimed at breaking the impasse over the contentious post-Brexit trading arrangements early next week.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar spoke this morning to von der Leyen, who briefed him on the state-of-play ahead of her meeting with Sunak.

A Government spokesperson said that Varadkar expressed his “strong wish” to see a positive outcome that provides a new foundation for relationships and that he hoped for an agreement that “can pave the way for restoration of the institutions under the Good Friday Agreement”.

Varadkar and von der Leyen agreed to stay in contact over the coming days as the matter progresses.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the fringes of the Munich Security Conference today to try to get an agreement over the line.

Ahead of his trip to Germany, Sunak stressed that “there’s more work to do” as he vowed to continue “intensely” negotiating with the EU.

“We have not got a deal yet,” he told reporters in Downing Street.

“That’s why both the Foreign Secretary and I, but also the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, will continue talking to the European Union to try and find solutions to protect Northern Ireland’s place in our internal market and the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, resolve the practical issues and address the democratic deficit.”

The term “democratic deficit” is used by unionists to describe the application of EU rules in the region without local politicians having an influence on them.

Sunak said he had “positive conversations” with the five main Stormont parties in Belfast yesterday, although DUP Leader Jeffrey Donaldson has reportedly said the current proposal “falls short of what would be acceptable” to the party.

The UK and the EU have been engaged in substantive negotiations over the workings of the protocol, which was included in the Withdrawal Agreement to ensure the free movement of goods between the Republic and Northern Ireland after Brexit.

Unionists claim it has weakened Northern Ireland’s place within the UK and the DUP has used its Stormont veto to collapse the powersharing institutions in protest at the arrangements.

Senior figures within the DUP and the European Research Group of the Tory party want any deal to remove the oversight of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Northern Ireland as well as deal with trading.

While it is understood the EU and the UK are close to signing off a deal that would reduce protocol red tape on the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, there is no expectation that Brussels is willing to agree to end the application of EU law in the region.

The EU says a fundamental plank of the protocol – namely that Northern Ireland traders can sell freely into the European single market – is dependent on the operation of EU rules in the region. 

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he is “quietly confident” that an agreement between the UK and the EU could be reached soon. 

“A lot of progress is being made, we are not there yet but certainly a lot off trust has been built up between the European Commission and Ireland and the British government,” Varadkar told reporters in Limerick yesterday.

“I do believe the prospect is there of having an agreement possibly within a week – it’s not finalised we haven’t all seen the final text yet, but we are getting there,” he said.

I’m quietly confident that within the next week or two we could be in a position to sign off on an agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom and that would be a big boost I think, first of all because it would allow us to normalise political and trading relationships between Britain’s and the European Union and Ireland, putting an end to a very difficult period that started with the Brexit referendum.

“But most importantly, it opens the prospect of getting the Assembly and Executive up and running in Northern Ireland so that people have a government functioning in Northern Ireland and have the Good Friday Agreement working again.”