The warning from European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič comes just days before the new prime minister is expected to confirm he will press ahead with new laws to dismantle the Northern Ireland settlement. Truss and Sunak have both pledged to uphold the Northern Ireland Protocol bill in their leadership campaigns, despite the threat of a retaliatory trade war with the EU. “Unilateral action is, of course, of great concern,” Sefcovic told an audience that included invited ministers from the British and Irish governments. “It is not just the UK government changing our bilateral agreement and amending the terms under which goods can enter the EU single market and reach our consumers.” He added: “This is simply legally and politically unthinkable. This clear breach of international law is extremely damaging to the mutual trust and respect between the EU and the UK.” Speaking at the British and Irish Union conference in Oxford, Šefčovič said the two deals the UK has with the EU were based on “trust” and depended on “meeting legally binding commitments”. “There are no two ways about it,” he said, adding that a unilateral move would send a message to the rest of the world that the UK leadership is not interested in working with the EU in a precarious time of war and a cost-of-living crisis. It also set a counter-narrative to Truss, who claimed earlier this year that the UK had no choice but to take unilateral action because 18 months of talks had broken down. Shevtsovitch said the UK had failed to buy into the proposals the EU made in October or the prospect of further compromises beyond those plans. “In short, they were dismissed without consideration. The UK has not even engaged in meaningful discussions with us since February,” he said. “It’s not a take-it-or-leave-it offer,” he added, but the proposals “have never been taken seriously by my counterparts.” Shevtsovitch said the talks broke down in February after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, instead of continuing, the UK took unilateral action. And he reminded the audience that some of what Brussels has proposed is about UK concerns but has not been seriously discussed. These include the ‘express lane’ or ‘green lane’ in Truss requirements, for goods destined for the Republic of Ireland, and an 80% reduction in controls on agricultural produce and plants and a 50% reduction in customs controls. He said the EU had been calling on the UK government to work with Brussels on the issues in Northern Ireland for “over a year” and that demand continued under the new prime minister. The protocol, which required checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, was designed to bypass the border on the island of Ireland as a quick way for Boris Johnson to achieve Brexit. But it is deeply opposed by conservative Eurosceptics and the trade union community and has led to power-sharing paralysis in the Stormont assembly. The recently deceased David Trimble had said the protocol “tears the heart out” of the Good Friday Agreement.
