European leaders have voiced hopes of turning the page with the British government, following a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol intended to end the poisonous disputes of the Brexit years.
“This new framework will allow us to begin a new chapter,” the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said at her joint press conference with Rishi Sunak. “It provides for longlasting solutions that both of us are confident will work for all people and businesses in Northern Ireland.”
Ireland’s foreign minister, Michéal Martin, said he shared that hope “that today’s announcement allows the EU and the UK to open a new chapter in their relationship”, describing the two allies as “natural partners in addressing the global challenges we face, whether supporting Ukraine or addressing climate change”.
EU diplomats gave a cautious response to the Windsor framework, the 200-page document that will sit alongside the legally binding Northern Ireland protocol, which remains in place. To avoid leaks the EU’s most senior diplomats and MEPs were only briefed on the contents of the agreement on Monday, after Von der Leyen and Sunak revealed some details to the world.
The EU has made a notable concession with the “Stormont brake”, giving the UK government the right to reject new EU laws in Northern Ireland, subject to strict conditions, including the backing of 30 members of the Northern Ireland assembly.
“The Stormont [brake] will get a lot of scrutiny. But there’s a double lock on the door,” said on EU diplomat, referring to the fact the veto can only come into force with the support of 30 MLAs and the UK government has to prove the new EU law in question would “have a significant impact on the day-to-day lives of businesses and citizens” in the region.
Philippe Lamberts, a Belgian Green MEP who has followed Brexit since the 2016 referendum, said he would preferred to have avoided it, but “having understood the conditions of its application and the safeguards, in case it is abused by a combination of bad will in Stormont and in Westminster, I think it is a risk worth taking”.
He expected member states to back the overall Windsor deal: “My gut feeling is that this will get through.”
Member states will want to scrutinise the Stormont brake and other details carefully, but may be reassured that some of the briefing from London ahead of Monday’s announcement was over-egged. The European court of justice retains its role as the ultimate arbiter of EU law.
Neither has EU law on state subsidies or VAT been abandoned for Northern Ireland. Rather the UK government has been granted more control over these policies, when there is no risk of damage to the EU single market. For example, the UK government can apply lower VAT rates on heat pumps destined for Northern Irish homes and cut excise duties on beer served in Northern Irish pubs, as these are not destined to cross into the single market.
The EU now hopes to move beyond small beer. Privately EU insiders are exasperated that the relationship with the UK has been defined by haggling over sausage shipments and pet passports, when a brutal, epoch-changing war is unfolding on the other side of the continent.
But closing the Brexit chapter proved impossible under Boris Johnson, who threatened to walk away from the key aspects of his 2019 Brexit deal, via the Northern Ireland protocol bill, which raised the prospect of a trade war with the bloc. Relations thawed during Liz Truss’s short premiership, as the EU and UK found common cause in support for Ukraine, but it was only under Sunak that the mood improved dramatically. The decision to go slow on Johnson’s protocol bill in parliament improved confidence in Brussels, as did what one senior EU official said was “a greater sensitivity to what we thought was necessary to protect the EU’s internal market”.
Von der Leyen also struck up a good rapport with Sunak over their shared support for Ukraine. “We have so much in common. We’re fighting for the same values. We’re standing on the same side, shoulder by shoulder,” the European Commission president said on Monday.
EU insiders are still wary of whether Sunak can sell the compromise to his party and the DUP. “That’s the million-dollar question,” said the EU diplomat, who joked they had given up trying to predict the outcome of UK domestic politics. Lamberts, who has described Brexit as a “boring” side issue, said it was time to move on. “We have a war, we have a pandemic, which is actually still going on, we have the climate challenge, we have many big, big issues,” he said.
He welcomed what he saw as change from the British government. “The will to pacify the relationship between the EU and the UK is long overdue.”
Georg Riekeles, a former Commission official who worked for the EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, said the Windsor agreement had substantially altered the protocol in the areas of VAT and excise, agrifood, health standards, checks and controls and trade. “Not only a lot of clever communication, this rewrites the history of Brexit,” he tweeted.
