EU ambassador rejects Liz Truss’s demand to rewrite NI protocol

theguardian.com:

The EU ambassador to the UK has rejected Liz Truss’s demand that the Northern Ireland protocol be rewritten, and issued a blunt warning of retaliation if the government passes a law disapplying aspects of the agreement.

“Unilateral calls for unilateral; action calls for action,” João Vale de Almeida told journalists at Westminster.

He lamented the continuing distrust between the two sides, and argued little had changed in the past 18 months since the government was threatening to pass the internal markets bill.

“I’m worried about the low levels of trust that exist today, between the EU and the UK: between our leaders, between all of us that are involved in this relationship,” he said.

“Some people call it a saga. If this is a saga, if I look at the new season of the saga, it looks pretty much like a similar plot. Not much has changed.”

“We have the same narrative,” he added. “Using legislation to override an international treaty. I feel myself back in the fall of 2020, with the internal markets bill.”

Vale de Almeida insisted there was no prospect of a change in the negotiating mandate given by the EU to its Brexit representative, Maroš Šefčovič – a demand made repeatedly by the foreign secretary.

“We were told that we should get a new mandate. Well, I can tell you very clearly, what the member states are telling us is very simple: you don’t need a mandate, and even if you ask for one, you will not get it,” he said.

“We can’t renegotiate the protocol: the ink on the signatures is hardly dry”.

Truss set out her intentions in a dramatic statement earlier this week, in which she said she preferred a negotiated solution but set out plans for a bill that would rework aspects of the protocol.

The stakes in the dispute have been raised