NI Grace Period Extension To Delay EU-UK Flare-Up To Autumn

Critsina Gallardo at Politico tweets: "...The EU and the U.K. are set to announce a three-month extension to a post-Brexit grace period allowing chilled meats to continue to flow from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič is expected to announce the agreement at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, after the U.K. requested to postpone a ban on shipments of chilled British meats into Northern Ireland be delayed from July 1 to October 1."

• "An EU source told me the British "have accepted not to modify its legislation [on food standards], which for the time being is aligned with that of the EU. That is different from the concept of 'dynamic alignment' which produces so much allergy to them." The deal is good news and will dial down the tension for a few weeks. But trust levels remain very low. A second EU official told me: "We will have to see what they do. They say one thing and then they do another."
• The agreement of an extension to the grace period on chilled is widely expected after the UK threatened to make the move unilaterally, risking forcing the EU to take legal action. In the event, a mutually-agreed decision was deemed the less inflammatory option.
• However, of course it should be noted that this simply pushes the issue into the long grass, with a similar 'sausage war' scenario potentially erupting in the autumn.