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The government has announced it is extending grace periods covering trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland indefinitely, as talks with the European Union over finding long-term fixes continue.
As PoliticsHome reported earlier on Monday, the government had consulted Brussels about extending the grace periods until 2022, with an open-ended extending being its preference.
Lord Frost, who oversees the UK’s relationship with the EU, said in a Written Ministerial Statement that the UK would delay the expiration of the grace periods while discussions with the EU over changing the Northern Ireland Protocol continue.
This would “provide space for potential further discussions” and “give certainty and stability to businesses,” Frost said.
The EU is not expected to formally agree to the extension but it is not expected to publicly object it, either. The bloc took legal action against the UK when Boris Johnson took unilateral steps to alter the Protocol earlier this year.
As things stand, a delay to checks on goods of animal origin like meat, fish, and dairy products entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain is set to expire at the end of this month. Businesses moving these goods across the Irish Sea will face significant new paperwork as a result.
A ban on chilled meats entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain — or what has been dubbed the “sausage wars” — is also set to come into force on 1 October when a grace period recently agreed by the UK and EU falls away.
Northern Irish business groups have warned that this array of new paperwork will make it harder and more costly for retailers to get products into the province, and are urging the UK and Brussels to extend the grace periods currently in place to avoid significant disruption.
The government wants to effectively reneogitiate the Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed with the EU as part of Brexit talks, arguing that it is causing an unacceptable level of disruption to people and businesses in the province.
A UK move earlier this year to unilaterally extend grace periods angered the EU and prompted the European Commission to launch legal action against the government. However, Brussels is not expected to react as strongly this time.
European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic, who is Lord Frost’s opposite number in Brussels, is expected to respond to the UK announcement while visiting Northern Ireland later this week. He is set to hold a press conference in the province on Friday.
The EU has said it is willing to make changes to how the Northern Ireland Protocol operates but only within the existing framework of the treaty, whereas Boris Johnson wants to rewrite it.
In July the government set out how it wanted the treaty to be overhauled in a 20-page command paper. All checks on goods heading from Great Britain to Northern Ireland should stop, the paper said, arguing that businesses should be trusted to self-report the destination of their products.
Goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland have been subject to checks and paperwork since 1 January, by virtue of Northern Ireland continuing to follow the EU’s trading rules. This was agreed to avoid a contentious hard border on the island of Ireland.
The government argues the EU is taking an overzealous approach to enforcing the rules, while Brussels argues the friction is the direct result of what Johnson signed up when he agreed to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
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