EU will not renegotiate Northern Ireland protocol, says European Commission - Guardian News

[TexasTowelie]

The EU will not renegotiate the Northern Ireland protocol agreement, the European Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, has said in response to Britain's decision to override some post-Brexit trade rules for the region.

'Renegotiating of the protocol is unrealistic,' he said. 'Any renegotiations would simply bring further legal uncertainty for the people and businesses in Northern Ireland. For these reasons, the EU will not renegotiate the protocol'.

[3Hotdogs]

1. What is the protocol?

Who wanted to change what, to what and why?

[TexasTowelie]

2. From Wikipedia:

The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, commonly abbreviated to the Northern Ireland Protocol, is a protocol to the Brexit withdrawal agreement that governs the unique customs and immigration issues at the border in the island of Ireland between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the European Union, and on some aspects of trade in goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.[1] Its terms were negotiated in 2019 before the 2019 general election and agreed and concluded in December 2020. The UK-Ireland border has had a special status since the thirty-year internecine conflict in Northern Ireland was ended by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. As part of the Northern Ireland Peace Process, the border has been largely invisible, without any physical barrier or custom checks on its many crossing points; this arrangement was made possible by both countries' common membership of both the EU's Single Market and Customs Union and of their Common Travel Area.

Upon the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, the border in Ireland became the only land border between the UK and EU. EU single market and UK internal market provisions require certain customs checks and trade controls at their external borders. The Northern Ireland Protocol is intended to protect the EU single market, while avoiding imposition of a 'hard border' that might incite a recurrence of conflict and destabilise the relative peace that has held since the end of "the Troubles".

[3Hotdogs]

3. Thanx