Irish EU Min Talks Up Protocol Deal After Call w/UK Counterpart

Ireland's European Affairs Minister Thomas Byrne tweets: "Positive call with UK Europe Minister Leo Docherty this morning. I welcomed the change in mood music from London and the UK’s stated commitment to an agreed solution on the Protocol. Crucial now that we see progress made on the EU-UK technical talks."

• Select comments from Tony Connelly at RTE: "with EU UK talks kicking off this afternoon (Thurs) via videolink, here is what's different to the talks that ran into the sand on February 11. There's the whole reset thing [...]and a sense that the UK is more willing to engage with the EU's proposals of last October..."
• "The structure will be different. [...] This time around teams will have deep dive explorations of the issues with Sefcovic and James Cleverly having more regular political contact."
• "The NI Protocol Bill: the UK has told the European Commission that they won't speed up the Bill's progress through Parliament, but they won't slow it down either. The Commission made it clear that if this is a good faith negotiation the Bill will have to be paused somehow ...and that if the bill becomes law and is enacted while the talks are ongoing then that changes everything."
• "Timetable: this will take months. The UK has floated the idea of a deal by the 25th anniversary of the GFA next April; the EU would like something shorter and is concerned about the Oct 28 deadline to restore the NI institutions. Split the difference and end of year might be a more realistic deadline. Even if the deadline is April both sides would need to have had closure on most of the issues by year end."