Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 28 March 2018
44. Deputy Stephen S. Donnelly asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the length of time the Government is willing to let the Brexit talks proceed in 2018 without wording on the Northern Ireland Border backstop being agreed by the UK and EU; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14254/18]
View answerThe draft wording for the backstop was published by the EU on 28 February 2018. It was rejected by the UK, however. The British Prime Minister said emphatically it represented a threat to the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom. Last Monday, many of us were taken by surprise when the EU's task force released the Brexit document which showed no progress had been made on agreeing the legal wording for the backstop to ensure no border around Northern Ireland. Last Friday, the Taoiseach said the wording may not be agreed until October. How long will the Government allow phase 2 continue without clarity on that specific legal wording which needs to be in the final document?
That is a fair question which recognises that this is a negotiation on which we need to make progress. We have a focus of the British negotiating team and the EU task force on getting a legally operative wording which is true to paragraph 49 agreed in December. Nobody is resiling from that. However, the draft the EU produced, which I happen to agree with as it is a good and loyal interpretation of paragraph 49, was not agreed with by the British Government. It is up to the British Government to come forward with proposals which will have the same outcome as to what was committed to in paragraph 49 in terms of maintaining full alignment with the rules of the Single Market and customs union to avoid any hard Border.
Ireland asked for a review of guidelines in June to allow us to reassess the approach of the British Government on a whole range of issues before any deal is concluded by October. I am certainly hopeful that we will see some progress on the Irish backstop issue by June. This will allow us to make an assessment as to whether we are on track to get a draft withdrawal treaty or withdrawal agreement agreed by October. June is a significant date from an Irish perspective. If there is no progress or no significant effort made at making progress on a backstop which can provide reassurance to the Irish Government by June, then we will have to ask some serious questions. If it is not possible by June, will it be possible by October?
We have an opportunity in June to reassess where we are. That will be an important point from an Irish perspective. Ultimately, we have to get this done by October to allow the European Parliament to take the time it needs to ratify any withdrawal agreement.
I am concerned by that. The longer we go on without agreed wording on the Border, the more it becomes one of many legitimate priorities across the EU member states. The talks were set up to ensure we could get agreement on a reasonably small number of important issues, including for us the Border in phase 1, before agreeing a transition and moving to phase 2. It was recognised right at the start that this was going to be incredibly difficult. We have the December agreement. The EU and UK sides immediately had different views of it, however. We had the EU say this was its interpretation and legal wording. I agree with the Tánaiste that it was a fair representation by the EU. However, we must be cognisant that it has been rejected emphatically by the UK.
The concern is that this should have been closed off by now, before moving on to phase 2. Now, many of our neighbours - our friends and our allies - have legitimate interests as well. We could get to a point in October where hundreds of billions of euro of trade and the future relationship between the UK and Ireland are being held up, and there might be reasonable pressure from our neighbours to water it down.
I must ask the Deputy to conclude.
Why has the Tánaiste allowed it to go on? Why, at the end of phase 2 before moving on, will he not insist on asking our UK colleagues to agree to the wording on what they agreed to in December?
It is important for people to understand how these negotiations are actually working. There is a negotiation to conclude a withdrawal agreement and there is conversation just starting on what a future relationship might look like. That conversation will go on way beyond October. There is no question of there being a free trade agreement signed off on by October. The best we can hope for is to have a withdrawal agreement by October which then gets ratified by the European Parliament. Then there has to be some sort of framework agreement which sets the parameters within which we can get a future trade and future relationship agreement negotiated signed off over time. The European Union cannot even legally negotiate a free trade agreement until Britain is out of the European Union because it cannot negotiate for one with a member state.
It is important not to fudge and merge these two issues into the same debate. What we need is a withdrawal agreement which has an Irish backstop in it. The British Government has agreed to do that. Then, we will have a future relationship debate, which, hopefully, will result in the backstop being unnecessary because we will have an option A which does not require any borders, North, South, east or west. We have to have the assurance mechanism and the backstop in the withdrawal agreement just in case that is not possible. We are on our way to doing that.
Nobody is suggesting that a free trade agreement will be signed, sealed and delivered by October. It will take years to do that. The Brexit talks were, nonetheless, structured in phases 1 and 2. The whole purpose of that was to make sure we got closure on some important issues. The so-called withdrawal bill, reciprocity of people's rights and the Irish Border were the three which received the most attention. It was during phase 1 that we had considerable support from the other 26 EU member states.
Respectfully, it is not me who is merging the withdrawal framework with the detail of a free trade agreement.
I would suggest that the Minister, the Government and the EU have allowed the merging of phase 1 and phase 2. Surely we should have been looking for closure on the Border before moving on to phase 2 and surely that is what the talks were structured to do. The Minister has answered the first question, which is October. Why did the Minister not make a call? Did he consider making a call for the Council meeting that has just gone to say that this really is the beginning of the future relationship talks and that we must get closure and agreement on something that was agreed in principle in December?
The Deputy says that I mentioned October. I also mentioned June and I think June will be a very important gauge for Ireland with regard to whether this is moving in the direction in which we need it to move. If it clearly is not, then we have some decisions to make with the task force. I believe we will have absolute solidarity in that as we have had at every step of the way so far. Ireland's problem is the EU's problem. Michel Barnier repeats that virtually every time he talks on this issue. I think the EU task force will expect significant progress on the Irish Border issue by June and so do we. To be clear on that, I have always said, any time I have been asked questions on phases 1 and 2, that all of the issues in phase 1 would not be closed off entirely before phase 2 starts but that we needed to make sufficient progress in phase 1 on phase 1 issues in order to move on to phase 2. That was the test. It was not closure but sufficient progress. We made sufficient progress in December and we have subsequently made more progress in the last round of negotiations and agreements on the Irish Border. The British Government is now committed to ensuring that there is a backstop in the withdrawal agreement. The EU task force is making it very clear that, without that backstop, there will be no withdrawal agreement.
