Ireland’s 60-year-old Prime Minister Micheál Martin said 11 th hour talks with the United Kingdom were continuing to beat the Dec. 31 deadline, where a no-deal Brexit would take place. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said that “genuine progress” was being made but offered no guarantees the European Union [EU] would accept terms for a trade deal offered by 56-year-old British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, concerned that EU restrictions would impact U.K.’s fishing rights, something impinging on British sovereignty. British people voted [52%-48%] June 23, 2016 to end its ties to the EU started in 1993 with the Treaty of Maastricht. Whether admitted to or not by the EU, exits polls showed that U.K. citizens wanted out because the EU forced EU states to accept Syrian and other Mideast refugees, spreading terrorism to the U.K. and European continent.
EU policies, led by 66-year-old German Chancellor Angela Merkel and 42-year-old French President Emmanuel Macron, backed the Saudi proxy war to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Eight years of proxy war killed 500,000 Syrians and displaced 15 million more to neighboring countries including the EU, causing the worst humanitarian crisis since WW II. Now the chickens have come home to roost, with the EU and U.K. haggling over trade arrangements, primarily over fishing rights, in the Irish Sea, where Britain and Ireland routinely compete in their fishing industries. Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin doesn’t want the U.K. plundering the Irish Sea, compromising Ireland’s fishing industry. Also at stake in any trade deal between the EU and U.K. is the Northern Ireland border that’s been a passport free zone since 1993 when the U.K. joined the Brussels-based EU.
Time is running out on the EU and U.K. as they approach the Dec. 31 deadline to ratify a trade deal that respects the EU’s many conditions to preserve Ireland’s fishing industry and right to continue passport free trade between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Any trade deal wants to respect the April 10, 1998 Good Friday agreement that essentially ended 80 years of strife AKA “the Troubles” between Ireland and Northern Ireland, a sovereign part of the U.K. Part of the Good Friday agreement was to allow passport free travel and trade between the Republic and Northern Ireland. “Sometimes you can get a good result in extra time,” Martin said, concerned that time was running out on a trade deal. Remaining obstacles to a deal are (a) fishing rights, (b) dispute resolution mechanisms and (c) level playing field on trade, including state aid to companies on both sides of the border.
European Commission chief Von der Leyan said the days ahead were “decsive,” requiring both sides to make concessions to put a bilateral trade deal together. “We need to establish robust mechanisms, ensuring that competition is—and remains—free and fair over time. In the discussions about state aid, we still have serious issues, for insurance when it comes to enforcement,” Von de Leyan said. EU has strict environmental and pay-scales, health and welfare benefits, including pensions, something the EU wants to guarantee for businesses doing business in Northern Ireland. EU officials want a legal mechanism to adjudicate disputes if the U.K. doesn’t meet EU standards, especially in the fishing industry, where the U.K. has its own standards for its fishing industry. EU officials fear the U.K. will plunder the Irish Sea, dominating certain well-delineated fishing zones.
Johnson told parliament that the EU can’t impose restrictions over the British fishing industry, both in terms to fishing rights but, more importantly, how the U.K. runs its fishing industry in terms or quotas, pay-and-benefits. “The reality that we must be able to control access to our waters” Johnson said, to assure progress on fisheries. Whether admitted to or not, Martin sees the U.K. of taking advantage of the fishing industry because the U.K. operates without regard to the strict EU regulations regarding health-and-safety issues, but, more importantly, the environment. U.K. officials don’t want the EU dictating how the U.K. fishing industry operates, essentially demanding the U.K. continue the same agreement while the U.K. was part of the EU. When it comes to resolving disputes, including “transition periods” and “review clauses” there’s no mechanism for resolving disputes.
EU officials want to impose production standards on the U.K. fishing industry, something Johnson finds objectionable, because it doesn’t respect sovereignty. It’s hard for EU officials to accept that Britain will operate with its own standards when it comes to production or any aspect of its fishing industry. Johnson’s will allow a ”runway” on a trade deal but won’t allow the EU to call the shots into the indefinite future. When it comes to the thorny Ireland-Northern Ireland border, maintaining a passport free travel-and-trade zone, both sides agree that the Good Friday Agreement should be continued, allowing an open border between the two countries. Continuing EU standards for an agreed to window would allow a deal to be inked in the next week. EU officials fear that once the restrictions are lifted, there will be no way for Ireland to resolve disputes with the U.K. if they arise in the future.
