The First and Deputy First Ministers in Northern Ireland (NI) have written to the European Commission, urging for an agreed approach to be found that will allow UK supermarkets to continue to operate as normal from 1 January 2021.

Several NI food retailers are supplied from distribution centres in Britain and, under the terms of the Irish protocol in the withdrawal agreement, goods entering the North from Britain are required to have veterinary health certificates and inspections from 1 January. This would be a major logistical challenge and prohibitively expensive at an estimated €200 per certificate.

NI supermarkets are looking for a trusted trader arrangement as all goods they bring in from Britain are exclusively for their NI stores.

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Senior officials in the Department of the Environment Agriculture and Rural Affairs (DAERA), when appearing at last week’s meeting of the Stormont Agriculture committee, said they are working on the assumption that they will have to do checks on between two and four containers per sailing.

Controls

For these controls to work at NI ports, they are also dependent on counterparts in Defra having businesses in Britain ready for the changes, but “DAERA does not have visibility of the plans that Defra intends to put in place to deliver this essential element of the process”, acknowledged DAERA permanent secretary Denis McMahon.

An EU spokesperson told the Irish Farmers Journal: “We are currently exploring all options available under EU law. Discussions on this will continue with our UK counterparts in the Joint Committee and the relevant Specialised Committee.”

Potatoes

There may also be an issue with potatoes coming into NI from Britain after 1 January. At the Stormont Agriculture committee last week, DAERA officials explained that Britain must get listed as an approved third country by the EU for this trade to continue but there may be some gap after 1 January in getting that listing in place.