Both the EU and UK have issued publications recently on how they envisage the Northern Ireland (NI) Protocol operating and the House of Lords has added its own report which describes both the EU and UK approaches to operating it as being “fundamentally flawed”.

The House of Lords report criticised the UK government for its lack of clarity, transparency and readiness, while the EU was criticised for lacking balance, understanding and flexibility.

No doubt the EU representatives would push back on this, as they believe they have been the ones that have been flexible and are only asking the UK to implement what it signed up to.

Negotiations ahead

What is certain is that September will be a month of intense negotiations between the EU and UK around the NI Protocol. The extension period for processed meat ends and, even more importantly, the UK is scheduled to start implementing sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) controls on animal and plant produce.

Certification will be required from 1 October and checks are scheduled to begin on 1 January. There is considerable speculation that the UK will push these dates back because it is not yet in a position to implement these controls.

There is also a major problem looming for Ireland, particularly in the meat sector, as it appears there isn’t adequate veterinary cover in place to cope with the extra certification work.

Veterinary alignment best solution

The best way to solve these problems is for the UK to participate in a single veterinary area with the EU, but so far this has been politically unacceptable to the UK. This has disadvantaged the UK agri-food industry because the EU has border controls in place which frustrate exports from Britain (but not NI), while UK imports from the EU have been uninterrupted.

The UK has been effectively participating in the EU veterinary area for imports without getting the benefit for exports.

Logic dictates that the UK should align with the EU on veterinary issues to solve all problems, including the NI Protocol, but it being logical doesn’t mean it will happen.

If the best solution to the NI Protocol isn’t possible, then the next best thing is designing a bespoke controls model for trade between Britain and Northern Ireland. The current arrangement for volume trade between countries doesn’t work for trade within a country.

It doesn’t matter what the UK signed up to, a model has to be designed that enables both the UK single market and the EU single market to function separately from each other and within the area where they intersect, which is NI.

Re-imagining border controls

This new design has to involve the EU outsourcing the implementation of border controls to businesses involved in commercial trading. Instead of everything having to be checked at Larne port by Department of Agriculture officials under EU supervision, let the checks and scrutiny be done at the point of destination and by company staff under EU supervision.

In the case of Asda, for example, which receives several trucks daily from its distribution centres in Britain, it would mean moving 200m from Larne port to its Northern Ireland distribution centre, where loads are broken down and distributed to its Northern Ireland stores.

If controls can be implemented on a business-to-business basis – as opposed to a port-to-port basis – in the case of Northern Ireland, the political sensitivity can be defused. Controls could be even more robust, as major retailers have well-established controls for stock purposes that EU controls could be bolted on to.

It may be more difficult for doing personal business or for micro businesses that were bringing in small volumes of product from Britain.

Perhaps a de minimis principle could be developed, enabling small quantities for personal use to be excluded for SPS controls and a variation of this for small businesses that were trading small volumes, the quantity to be negotiated and agreed.

The bottom line is, irrespective of what the UK signed up for and what sanctions the EU imposes by way of penalty for failure of implementation, the EU needs UK buy-in to make the NI Protocol work. That gives the UK government negotiating leverage they may not be strictly entitled to, but they have it and need to use it responsibly.

Northern Irish exporters of dairy, meat and fish enjoy market access to the EU that is the envy of their counterparts in Britain. Solve the movement from Britain to NI and NI really has the best of both worlds. For the Republic of Ireland, that isn’t the case, as export certificates and inspections look like they will be a part of life.

A model has to be designed that enables both the UK single market and EU single market co-exist separately and, in the case of Northern Ireland, together.