Insight
The US and the Northern Ireland Protocol: Time to Walk the Walk by Sam Lowe, 7 May 2021
The US wants the UK to diverge from EU food hygiene rules and to prioritise political and economic stability in Northern Ireland. But what if the UK can’t do both? Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has called on the UK to “prioritise political and economic stability” in Northern Ireland. This remark was made in the context of the difficulties being experienced in Northern Ireland as a result of Brexit and the UK’s decision to erect a customs and regulatory border within its own territory, so as to avoid a border on the island of Ireland (as per the Withdrawal Agreement’s Northern Ireland protocol). But paradoxically, it is the UK’s hope for a trade agreement with the United States, and America’s demand that any trade agreement requires the UK to diverge from EU food hygiene (sanitary and phytosanitary, SPS) rules, that is making it more difficult for the UK to mitigate the disruption in Northern Ireland by aligning its SPS regime with the EU’s. Here, the US could create political space for the UK, to the benefit of Northern Ireland, by either publicly removing divergence on food hygiene as a precondition for a trade deal with the UK, or ruling out a trade deal with the UK in this presidential term (which would coincide with the Protocol’s consent vote in 2024), and thus opening the door to temporary EU-UK SPS alignment. The UK’s decision to prioritise regulatory flexibility for Great Britain, and the ability to strike new free trade agreements, over continued economic integration with the EU created a problem: there would either need to be a customs and regulatory border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, or a customs and regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With the former deemed unacceptable by both the UK and the EU, ultimately (and somewhat begrudgingly) Boris Johnson accepted the latter. Now, as well as traders being required to make customs declarations using the newly created trader support service, food products moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland require additional declarations and are subject to border inspections. It is these regulatory checks, particularly on products of animal origin, that are causing companies the most problems and account for most of the interventions at the border. More friction is expected as the year goes on, and grace periods – such as the one allowing for chilled meats to continue to enter Northern Ireland – expire. CER INSIGHT: The US and the Northern Ireland Protocol: Time to Walk the Walk 7 May 2021
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