The Labour government has committed to “resetting” relations with Brussels, making striking a deal on food safety and animal and plant health a priority.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, minister of EU relations, visited Belfast this week to discuss post-Brexit trade. The Labour MP for Torfaen said that securing an ‘ambitious’ agri-food deal with the EU will help facilitate a freer movement of goods from the UK to Northern Ireland.
The Cabinet Office minister responsible for EU relations said that a negotiated sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement between the UK and EU would benefit both parties. He engaged with various stakeholders to understand the post-Brexit trade challenges that necessitate checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from across the Irish Sea.
The Labour government has committed to “resetting” relations with Brussels, making striking a deal on food safety and animal and plant health a priority.
Speaking to reporters in Belfast, Thomas-Symonds said that formal negotiations would not be able to commence until early next year, as the newly-elected European Commission is not yet in place following recent EU-wide elections. He stressed the importance of preparatory work ahead of these talks, with Northern Ireland being a key focus.
“I wouldn’t expect hard-edge formal negotiations to begin until the early part of next year, but do I hope that an SPS agreement, an ambitious SPS agreement, is going to ease the situation in terms of GB-NI trade, absolutely,” he said.
The devolved institutions at Stormont were resurrected earlier this year following a two-year hiatus, during which the DUP vetoed governance structures in protest of the legal and economic barriers created between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK due to Brexit.
The Northern Ireland Protocol, which was agreed with the EU by Boris Johnson, and its successor, the Windsor Framework, secured by Rishi Sunak, both require checks and additional regulations on goods moving from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. These agreements ensure Northern Ireland affiliates with EU rules to maintain an open border on the island of Ireland.
Thomas-Symonds expressed Labour’s intention to operate the Windsor Framework in “good faith” until a new SPS deal is reached. “It’s really important that we have a good faith approach to the implementation of the Windsor Framework, we voted for the Windsor Framework as an opposition party,” he said.
The success of these negotiations is likely to help alleviate trade tensions and also set a precedent for future UK-EU cooperation.
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