Yahoo – AFP,
Julien LAGACHE with James PHEBY in London, December 1, 2017
Traffic crossing the border into Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic (AFP Photo/Paul FAITH) |
Dublin
(AFP) - The European Union will not accept Britain's Brexit offer if Ireland is
not satisfied with proposals for future border arrangements, EU President
Donald Tusk said in Dublin on Friday.
Tusk spoke
after meeting Ireland Prime Minister Leo Varadkar ahead of a Monday deadline by
which the EU wants to hear British proposals on sticking points if Brexit talks
are to advance.
The EU
chief backed Ireland's demands for British guarantees that there will be no
hard border between Ireland and British-controlled Northern Ireland after
Brexit, which might upset the fragile peace in the region.
"If
the UK offer is unacceptable for Ireland, it will also be unacceptable for the
EU," Tusk said at a joint press conference with Varadkar.
"I
realise that for some British politicians, this may be hard to understand but
such is the logic behind the fact that Ireland is the EU member while the UK is
leaving.
"This
is why the key to the UK's future lies -- in some ways -- in Dublin," he
added.
All sides
agree there should be no return to physical border checks after Brexit, but
Dublin's demand for written guarantees from Britain has proved an obstacle to
an early agreement, threatening to delay the wider negotiations and causing
tensions with London.
Varadkar
said there had been "some progress" on border talks, but warned
Britain: "I'm prepared to stand firm with our partners if needs be if the
UK offer falls short."
Dublin
wants "reassurance" that regulations on issues such as food safety
and animal welfare would be maintained in Northern Ireland, to avoid damaging
cross-border trade once Britain leaves the EU's single market and customs
union.
"We
can't be asked here to leap into the dark by opening up a phase two discussion
in the hope that these issues might be resolved," Coveney told BBC radio.
Britain
insists the issue of the Irish border can only be resolved as part of
negotiations on its future partnership with the EU.
Tusk
appeared to acknowledge the point, saying: "It is clear that we cannot
reach a full agreement on every single detail at this stage, especially that
the final outcome will be linked to the future relations between the EU and the
UK."
Demonstators
set up a mock customs checkpoint at the Ireland-Northern Ireland
frontier to
protest against the potential introduction of border checks after Brexit
(AFP
Photo/Paul FAITH)
|
Ireland
should 'wind its neck in'
A British
newspaper reported on Thursday that the two sides were close to a deal that
would avoid regulatory divergence between Ireland and Northern Ireland, even if
the rest of Britain moved away from EU rules.
The Times
said this would involve devolving powers to the assembly in Belfast to allow
them to keep similar customs arrangements to Ireland on agriculture and energy.
But the
pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the largest in Northern Ireland,
reacted angrily to any suggestion of creating separate rules for the province.
It warned
that agreement on those terms would threaten its support for British Prime
Minister Theresa May's Conservatives, which keeps her minority government in
power.
"If
there is any hint that in order to placate Dublin and the EU, they're prepared
to have Northern Ireland treated differently than the rest of the UK, then they
can't rely on our vote," DUP lawmaker Sammy Wilson told the BBC.
Former
Northern Ireland first minister Peter Robinson, a former leader of the DUP,
called on Dublin late Thursday to stop interfering, saying: "In layman's
terms, the South needs to wind its neck in."
Brexit
cannot destroy peace
The British
government says negotiations are continuing with Ireland, but its proposals for
a solution were savaged on Friday by a committee of MPs, who warned that a
"hard border" in Ireland seemed inevitable.
This has
raised fears that the Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal that erased the
border and ended generations of conflict in Northern Ireland that killed 3,500
people, could be under threat.
"We
cannot allow Brexit to destroy this achievement," Tusk warned Friday.
EU leaders
meeting in Brussels on December 14 and 15 will decide if there has been
"sufficient progress" on the Irish border, Britain's financial
settlement and EU citizens' rights to move on to trade talks.
A deal is
close on the latter issues, but failure to make headway on Ireland would deal a
major blow to Britain's hopes of agreeing a new trade deal with Brussels before
it leaves the EU in March 2019.
#UPDATE Dublin holds key to Brexit talks breakthrough, EU's Tusk says https://t.co/4ib0zste5T pic.twitter.com/xeBWP21YY7— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 1, 2017
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