The European Commission and the UK government look set to be heading for another set of negotiations in September to resolve issues around the NI Protocol.

Towards the end of July both sides put forward proposals.

First the UK released a command paper, which set out substantial changes to the protocol, including that all goods moving from Britain to NI would be exempt from customs processes and regulatory checks if staying in NI.

It would mean that the so-called sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks on agri food would only apply on goods that would move into the EU single market (Republic of Ireland).

For NI farmers, it would remove the bureaucracy around getting the likes of seed potatoes in from Britain, allow in breeding sheep, and facilitate cattle going to shows and sales in Britain (allowing them to return to NI).

Problem

While there is merit in some of what the UK proposed, the problem is that the UK is effectively saying to the EU to trust it to ensure that the EU single market is protected. That trust is currently lacking.

It would also help if government ministers admitted that they knew what they signed up to, rather than pretending that the problems created by the protocol are all somewhat of a surprise.

The EU followed the UK command paper with its own proposals to simplify the protocol, and rather predictably they are pretty limited in scope.

They include a proposal to get around the current requirement that an animal taken to a show in Britain must stay for six months – instead those which participate in “events and exhibitions” would be allowed to return to NI, so long as the period outside NI does not exceed 15 days.

A separate EU document also points out that work is ongoing to find a solution that will allow sheep and goats to move from Britain to NI.

At present, all sheep and goats for breeding moving from a third country (Britain) to the EU must be from scrapie-monitored flocks.

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