Manchester (United Kingdom) (AFP)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday promised new proposals in Brussels on Brexit "very soon" but without explaining how he intended to solve the puzzle of the Irish border, attracting ulcerated reactions.

Less than a month from the planned date of an exit from the European Union that he has promised to achieve at any cost, the head of government is eager to detail his intentions on how he intends to avoid a Brexit without agreement, with potentially painful consequences for the UK economy.

Brussels and London fail to agree on concrete alternatives to the "safety net", a mechanism to avoid the return of a border in Ireland between the British North Province and the EU Member State south, after Brexit.

"We are going to make a very good proposal, we are going to formally do it very soon," Boris Johnson told the BBC from Manchester where his Conservative Party's annual convention is being held.

According to the Irish television channel RTE, the government plans to organize customs controls several kilometers from the border, in dedicated centers. Goods transported from one site to another would be monitored in real time by mobile phone or by locating devices embedded in the trucks, according to an informal London plan cited by RTE.

- Clearance Centers -

Boris Johnson denied that his plan included "clearance centers", while acknowledging that there should be controls if the UK leaves the customs union and the single market. It's "just the reality," he said.

Asked by parliamentarians on Tuesday, Brexit Secretary of State James Duddridge said the government had "no plans for physical checks at the border".

He said that "these technical documents are not our final proposals to the Commission" but "working documents".

If officials of the European Commission refused to comment on RTE's information, these leaks were criticized as involving the return of a border.

On the Irish side, Foreign Minister Simon Coveney swept away these plans. "It is time for the EU to receive a serious offer from the British government for a #Brexit agreement to be reached in October, Northern Ireland and Ireland deserve better," he tweeted.

Speaking to the BBC, the head of Sinn Fein (a Republican party fighting for a reunited Ireland), Mary Lou McDonald, blasted the leaked proposals in the press, saying it "sabotaged" the peace process in Northern Ireland.

In 1998, the signing of the "Good Friday" agreement ended three decades of "turmoil" in Northern Ireland, violence between Republican nationalists (Catholics), supporters of the reunification of Ireland, and loyalists Unionists (Protestants), defenders of maintenance in the British Crown.

Ireland fears a resurgence of violence in case of a resurgence of a land border and checks between the two Ireland.

The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German Parliament, Norbert Röttgen, said on Twitter that Boris Johnson's plans were "not serious and violated the law".

- More than two weeks -

On Tuesday, Boris Johnson reaffirmed his desire to achieve the Brexit on 31 October, a deadline that has already been postponed twice, even though the Parliament passed a law requiring him to request a further postponement if he does not reach an agreement with the EU by 19 October, just after the next EU summit.

"We have only two weeks left and there are no credible solutions on the table," said Ireland's Secretary of State for Europe Helen McEntee at RTE.

Boris Johnson said he was working "very hard" on reaching an agreement, ensuring that progress had been made. The conservative leader pointed out that London had made a "big concession" by accepting that Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland follow the same rules in the agri-food sector.

On agricultural trade, "decisions on sanitary and phytosanitary rules would continue to be taken in Brussels without the United Kingdom having a say," he said.

© 2019 AFP