BRUSSELS: In reaction to the UK's "unilateral" moves to rewrite elements of the Northern Ireland Protocol in the post-Brexit arrangement, the European Union (EU) has taken legal action against it.
According to the Xinhua report, the European Commission announced that it had opened infringement proceedings against the United Kingdom "for failing to comply with significant parts of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland" and for failing to implement the protocol despite repeated requests. It stated, "This is a flagrant violation of international law."
The UK government announced earlier this week that a bill introduced on June 13 will allow it to "address the practical problems the protocol has created in Northern Ireland in four key areas: burdensome customs processes, inflexible regulation, tax and spend disparities, and democratic governance issues." The European Commission, on the other hand, considers that the UK is breaking international accords.
"International obligations help to build trust," stated Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic. "Aggressively acting on one's own is not constructive." It is not acceptable to break international accords. The protocol is not being followed by the United Kingdom. "I am still convinced that we can achieve our goals if there is a genuine political determination to make the protocol function," he said.
Two new infringement actions against the UK were launched on Wednesday for failing to comply with the EU's sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) laws and for failing to supply the EU with specific trade statistics data in relation to Northern Ireland, as required by the protocol.
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