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London (dpa) - According to a British expert, the infringement proceedings against Great Britain mean a further deterioration in the relationship between London and Brussels.
"Currently, neither side wants to give in," said the political scientist Simon Usherwood of the German press agency.
This gives rise to fear of “more cases like this” in the coming years.
Above all, it will be exciting to see whether the proceedings will actually end up in court, said the expert.
"Then the negative impression that both sides have of each other will intensify and it will be even more difficult to rebuild the trust that was so badly damaged by the Brexit process."
The European Union initiated the procedure on Monday.
The background is a dispute over Brexit special rules for the British province of Northern Ireland.
Brussels accuses London of arbitrarily changing agreements and thus violating the Brexit treaty.
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"The biggest test will be whether the UK accepts a decision against itself," Usherwood said.
Admittedly, due to the lack of alternatives, London would hardly dare to terminate the EU exit treaty or the trade agreement.
"But the situation is still far from finding an amicable solution to this situation," said the expert from the University of Surrey.
The trade expert David Henig from the think tank European Center for International Political Economy told the dpa that the step of the EU Commission was inevitable.
Relationships remained extremely difficult.
"Much of this difficulty is due to the UK government's attempt to reconcile its promises regarding trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland with the treaty they signed," said Henig.
The so-called Northern Ireland Protocol in the Withdrawal Treaty provides that some rules of the EU internal market continue to apply to Northern Ireland.
This should make controls at the land border with the EU state Ireland on the common island superfluous.
But this creates a goods border between Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain.
Imports need to be controlled.
As a result
, supermarket shelves in Northern Ireland were temporarily empty.
As a result, Great Britain unilaterally extended an agreed grace period.
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The EU will stick to its interpretation of the Northern Ireland Protocol, said Henig.
As a result, relations between London and Brussels would continue to suffer from the British government's difficulties with the protocol.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210316-99-839352 / 3