MNI BRIEF: EC Urges UK Not To Take Unilateral NIP Approach

The EU Commission has again urged the UK government to engage with it on efforts to make the Northern Ireland Protocol more flexible rather than adopting a unilateral approach. The comments Tuesday come ahead of a speech by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, in which she is expected to call for the disapplication of the Protocol.

The spokesperson said that the Commission would issue a statement following the speech by Truss this afternoon, adding there remained scope for EU-UK talks to make progress on the basis of the proposals made by the Commission last October, which aimed to inject greater flexibility into rules affecting trade between the UK mainland and Northern Ireland.

“When we came forward with the flexibilities last October we said that this was not a take-it-or-leave-it type package and the Vice President (Maros Sefcovic) said on Thursday that there is still potential to be explored in our proposals,” the spokesperson said.