PARIS — The European Commission’s decision Friday to block vaccine exports across the Irish border by triggering an emergency provision of the Brexit withdrawal deal “was a mistake,” said the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.
“Many decisions have been taken in a hurry because this situation is serious, and mistakes can be made. This is what happened on Friday, it was a mistake that was corrected very quickly, the same evening, so there was no effect, except probably politically,” Barnier said Tuesday during a hearing at the French National Assembly.
The EU rowed back on the plan hours after it was announced following strong reactions from London, Belfast and Dublin.
The Brexit deal guarantees an open border between the EU and Northern Ireland, with no controls on exported products. But the Commission on Friday proposed invoking Article 16, which allows the EU and U.K. to suspend any aspects they consider are causing “economic, societal or environmental difficulties.”
The EU is seeking to keep coronavirus vaccines manufactured within the bloc for use at home, and the move was designed to stop vaccines from being exported to Britain via Northern Ireland. But it would have effectively imposed a customs border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, anathema to the Good Friday Agreement.
“We would like to reiterate to our Irish friends that we will work to preserve the terms of this agreement and the fact that there are no borders … it’s one of the major conditions for peace in Ireland that there are no borders, that peace is fragile,” Barnier said.
