Re: The comings and goings of the European Union
Reply #53 –
Re Northern Ireland. One problem with that matter has been the uncooperative attitude if the EU. That, with Ireland and the UK have obligations to support the Belfast agreement but have refused to offer tangeable support, claiming that the UK caused the problem and should solve it by itself. A semantic nonsense: if one has a responsibility one should attempt to support it on some way, not play a blame game.
At the moment there is a fuzzy situation, with alignment with EU regulations for those specific areas related to the Belfast agreement which acts as a diplomatic placebo for tthe Irish but that is, in the end, secondary to reading a good overall agreement. Alignment, by the way, does not mean identical, it means equivalent.
Incidentally, I support rjh on this, the DUP were right to object and saw things clearly when others didn't.
The argument to be used by the UK is clear --- if Northern Ireland can have, effectively free trade with thd EU then so can the rest of the UK.
In the event that there is no deal, the approach by the UK can simply be to declare, unilaterally, on their side an open border between The UK and Ireland, while again unilaterally, that all goods not more than 90% made in EI shall be tagged for later application of tariffs or summer confiscation. There will be some leakage, but who really cares. As for the free mivemdnt part, that would be civered by other means since no-one not from Ireland eould have a valid vusa.
Of course, the Irish or the EU could put up a birder, but that would be their problem, but I doubt they would shirk their responsibilities to that extent.