EU hits back after UK moves to change post-Brexit trade rules
The EU has threatened to use "all the measures at its disposal" after the United Kingdom signalled it would introduce legislation to change the post-Brexit status of Northern Ireland.
Britain says its move to change the legally binding treaty — an apparent breach of international law — is an insurance policy in case it can’t reach an agreement with the bloc to end a long-running dispute over post-Brexit trade rules.
“Our preference is to reach a negotiated outcome with the EU,” said Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
The announcement drew a sharp response from the EU, which has long accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of trying to wriggle out of a deal that his government negotiated and signed as part of the U.K.’s exit from the bloc in 2020. The spat raises the chances of a trade war between Britain and the 27-nation bloc that is — even after Brexit — its major economic partner.
Britain's Conservative government says post-Brexit trade rules -- which London signed up to -- are hurting the economy and undermining peace in Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK that shares a border with an EU member state.
When Britain left the bloc and its borderless free-trade zone, a deal was agreed to keep the Irish land border free of customs posts and other checks, because an open border is a key pillar of the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.
Instead, to protect the EU’s single market, there are checks on some goods, such as meat and eggs, entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
The arrangement is opposed by British unionists in Northern Ireland, who say the new checks have put a burden on businesses and frayed the bonds between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
The Democratic Unionist Party,
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