With the “Windsor Framework” as the agreement was naturalized, the thorniest pending issue in the Brexit case is removed, two years after Britain’s exit from the European Union: the commercial and legal status of Northern Ireland, the only British territory that has land borders with the European Union.
The importance of this development can hardly be underestimated.
1. It prevents the visible, until yesterday, controlled open trade war between London and Brussels and creates an atmosphere for a certain rapprochement in the post-Brexit era, which was already facilitated by the mobilizing of both sides against Russia on the Ukrainian issue.
2. It then allays fears of a blow-up of the 1998 peace deal on Northern Ireland and a resurgence of ethnic conflict in the region, a threat that would be on the agenda if, in the absence of a deal with the UK, the EU was forced to restore the ” hard’ border between Northern and independent Ireland.
3. It boosts domestically and internationally the political capital of Rishi Sunak, who, four months after becoming prime minister, is credited with succeeding where his predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss failed, sending reassuring messages to markets and stabilizes the previously fragile state of the British economy.
Ideally, Sunak hopes to cash in on his increased political capital by persuading Joe Biden for a free trade agreement between the United States of America and Britain, a key goal of all Brexiteers. Of course, the American President does not seem to be in a hurry for similar agreements, on the contrary, he is rather leaning towards protectionism, but his probable visit to London and Belfast next month on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement will make us wiser.
Τhe rift between EU-UK
On December 31, 2020, when Britain officially left the EU, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson can celebrate that he implemented Brexit in its harshest version, but the truth is that in order to achieve it, he had made a painful compromise with Brussels : in order to avoid the return of the hard border with strict customs controls between Northern and independent Ireland, the Europeans demanded and succeeded in effectively moving this whole to the sea that separates Northern Ireland from the rest of Britain. In addition to customs controls, this meant that Northern Ireland would have to apply the laws of the EU it no longer belonged to and be subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. As it was next, Belfast Unionists who swear by the Kingdom of the United Kingdom felt “betrayed” as the famous Northern Ireland protocol pushed them into the arms of Dublin.
At risk of being seen as a national underdog, Johnson tabled a law to repeal the Protocol, bringing the risk of a trade war with the EU to the fore. Against this background, the compromise that Sunak managed to extract from Brussels looks particularly favorable.
What the deal says about trade through Northern Ireland
The new agreement, “Windsor Framework”, which derives its name from the region where it was signed, among other things provides for the creation of two zones. The first, the green one, will concern products that will be traded between Northern Ireland and Great Britain and there will be almost no control on them since they will be goods that will be sold within the same country. The second, red, will be created for products destined for the UK to Ireland and other EU countries. It will continue to have the controls in place today.
Rishi Sunak described the new solution as a “turning point”, which he said on the one hand brings about the necessary changes for the smooth implementation of Brexit and on the other hand protects the peace agreement of Good Friday. As he meaningfully noted, from now on food that is on the shelves of British supermarkets will now be able to be sold seamlessly on the shelves of stores in Northern Ireland. At the same time, it becomes easier to send parcels between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but it also becomes easier to shop online between the two regions. Ursula von der Leyen, in turn, spoke of an agreement that “will work for everyone as it respects and protects both markets.”
Finally, it is worth noting that next Friday Rishi Sunak will meet in Paris with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in the framework of the Franco-British summit. The agenda of the talks between the two leaders includes, among other things, two very important issues – two “thorns” that the British Prime Minister has promised to resolve in 2023. First, the rapid increase, after the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU, of irregular immigrants crossing the English Channel. And secondly, the restrictions faced by English fishermen in the same area after Brexit, as they are not allowed to fish in the maritime territorial waters of an EU member state. Often, because they overlook this new regulatory framework, tensions are created and even fishermen are arrested.
