The EU and U.K. are “jointly committed to redoubling our efforts to addressing outstanding issues” following a diplomatic spat over vaccine controls at the Irish border, officials from both sides said Saturday.
European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič and U.K. Cabinet Minister Michael Gove spoke via phone after Brussels set off a political firestorm by moving to override the Brexit deal as part of an effort to limit coronavirus vaccine exports. That decision was quickly reversed following immediate fallout in Dublin, London and Belfast.
In identical tweets Saturday evening, Šefčovič and Gove wrote: “Our shared priority is making sure the Protocol works for the people of Northern Ireland, protecting gains of the peace process and avoiding disruption to everyday lives.”
The statement came after Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster said the U.K. should suspend the free flow of goods across the Irish border in retaliation for the EU’s clumsy attempt to block vaccine exports to Britain.
Foster told BBC Radio 4 that the European Commission’s unilateral — albeit short-lived — suspension of the Northern Ireland post-Brexit trade protocol on Friday was an “absolutely incredible act of hostility.”
Foster, who leads the Democratic Unionist Party, called the Commission’s move “disgraceful” and said it showed that arrangements for the Irish border under the Brexit deal must be reconsidered.
Later she told Ireland’s RTE: “The protocol is unworkable, let’s be very clear about that, and we need to see it replaced because otherwise there is going to be real difficulties here in Northern Ireland.”
The leader of Ireland’s Sinn Féin opposition Mary Lou McDonald tweeted Saturday afternoon: “Calls for a tit for tat invocation of article 16 by the British government are utterly reckless. The protections of the Irish protocol were hard won. No one should place those protections in jeopardy. Brexit causes real damage to Ireland we need to protect our island.”
The former top civil servant in the U.K.’s Department for Exiting the European Union, Philip Rycroft, told Sky News there was a “risk” that the EU had lowered the bar for invoking the article, thus weakening the Brexit deal.
“It was wholly disproportionate to what they were seeking to achieve — it was unnecessary. But it bears all the hallmarks for a bureaucracy that is under huge pressure, acting before it was thinking straight,” he said.
Meanwhile, the U.K.’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said he had a “constructive conversation” with Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s trade commissioner, on Saturday amid the ongoing clash over vaccine deliveries.
“I was reassured the EU has no desire to block suppliers fulfilling contracts for vaccine distribution to the UK. The world is watching and it is only through international collaboration that we will beat this pandemic,” Raab wrote on Twitter.
This story has been updated.
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