Brexit dispute over Northern Ireland: A "ceasefire" between London and Brussels

In the dispute over the interpretation of the Brexit agreement, the European Union and the United Kingdom seem to have agreed on a diplomatic ceasefire.

In recent months, the British had demanded that the Northern Ireland Protocol - and thus the Brexit treaty - be renegotiated because the agreement did not work in everyday life and it would endanger the fragile peace in Northern Ireland.

In the EU, the move met with determined opposition, as they insisted on adhering to the protocol to the letter.

While both sides are officially holding onto their positions, they now seem ready to accept the status quo of restricted goods controls for the time being.

Jochen Buchsteiner

Political correspondent in London.

• Follow I follow

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

• Follow I follow

A statement by the EU minister, David Frost, shows that London will once again extend the transition periods for goods controls between Northern Ireland and Great Britain agreed in the exit treaty - this time no end of the period was mentioned.

The government will "continue to apply the Northern Ireland Protocol on its current basis" to provide security and stability to the economy while talks on a permanent solution with the EU continued, the text said.

Frost announced that London had already offered the EU a "standstill" at the end of July, according to which the transitional arrangements should be stabilized without the EU taking legal countermeasures.

The EU Commission then announced that it would not intensify the legal proceedings against Great Britain that were initiated in March.

Further talks have taken place since then.

Defused the "sausage war"

The EU Commission took “notice” of the British decision on Monday evening. "Our attention is still on finding long-term, flexible and practical solutions for the practical implementation of the protocol", it said in a prepared statement. One will continue to work “constructively” with the British government. That was a completely different tongue than in March. At that time, London unilaterally extended a transition period for the first time, during which the protocol does not yet have to be applied in full for certain products. Brussels then spoke of a “breach of contract” and opened infringement proceedings. In the current communication, the Commission merely refers generally to the contractual obligations of both parties. The procedure started in March will "currently" not be continued.

This was justified internally by the fact that this time the British decision was not taken by surprise. There had been technical discussions over the summer to solve practical problems. A kind of armistice was agreed in the "sausage war" - British newspapers had written about it because, among other things, it was about how long chilled British meat products can still be delivered uncontrolled to Northern Ireland. The next deadline for this would have been the end of September. It opens up the space for negotiations on solutions to specific problems, it said on Tuesday. Renegotiating the Northern Ireland Protocol is out of the question. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ruled that out in July.

Nonetheless, it is astonishing that the Commission is now ready to forego new deadlines altogether. So far, the argument has always been that the internal market should be protected - after all, because of the lack of controls on the Irish island, British goods could quickly end up in the internal market. However, the government in Dublin does not seem too concerned about this. She probably also expects that London for its part will refrain from border controls for European imports to the British island, which were planned from October 1st. Irish suppliers would benefit greatly from this, as they already have an increasing share of business in Northern Ireland.

Last weekend, Frost held talks with Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin and Northern Ireland's new “First Minister”, Paul Givan, at a conference in Oxford. The Guardian newspaper speculated that the general political climate also favored the compromise. French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte recently discussed the Brexit issue. According to a diplomatic source, the conversation was shaped by the feeling "that developments in Afghanistan have shown the importance of having a good relationship with Great Britain". The intention had become clear to moderate the issue.