Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 27 June 2018
46. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the details of his engagement with the EU Brexit negotiating team and the UK Government with a view to ensuring regulatory alignment on agriculture matters after the UK leaves the European Union; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27759/18]
View answerMy officials and I maintain intensive contact with the EU Taskforce. My most recent meeting with Michel Barnier took place yesterday, immediately in advance of the General Affairs Council (Art. 50). Such meetings provide an opportunity to take stock of progress in the negotiations and to communicate Ireland’s priorities, including in relation to agriculture, with a view to shaping the EU’s negotiating position with regard to the draft Withdrawal Agreement, including its Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland, as well as the EU’s approach to the framework for the future EU-UK relationship. My Government colleagues and I also engage frequently with our UK counterparts. I have spoken with the Minister for the Cabinet Office, David Lidington, on a number of occasions in recent weeks. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and The Marine, Michael Creed TD, recently met his UK counterpart, Michael Gove. Such engagement provides an opportunity to underline the importance of finalizing the Protocol as an integral and indispensable part of the Withdrawal Agreement.
The draft Protocol includes provisions which foresee full alignment with those rules of the EU's internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the Good Friday Agreement. As set out in Article 5 of the draft Protocol, this arrangement would include alignment with the provisions of Union law on sanitary and phytosanitary rules as well as provisions of Union law on the production and marketing of agricultural and fisheries products.
As concerns the framework for the future relationship, I welcome that the Guidelines on the future EU-UK relationship adopted by the European Council last March confirm the EU’s readiness to initiate work towards a balanced, ambitious and wide-ranging free trade agreement (FTA) insofar as there are sufficient guarantees for a level playing field. The EU proposes that such an agreement should cover all sectors, including agriculture, and should address, inter alia, disciplines on technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and a framework for voluntary regulatory cooperation.
Last week, the EU and UK negotiating teams published a Joint Statement, which set out the progress made since the March European Council. Disappointingly, the progress reported on the Protocol falls very far short of the EU’s, and the Government’s, expectations.
On Friday, the Taoiseach will meet with his EU27 counterparts to take stock of developments in the negotiations and discuss the way forward. Ireland will seek to ensure that the EU sends a clear message to the UK that it must respect the commitments it has made and that, in the absence of agreement on a backstop, it will not be possible to finalise the Withdrawal Agreement as a whole, including the transition arrangements.
At the same time, progress should also be made on the future relationship and in this respect I look forward to seeing the UK’s white paper which they have promised to publish around 9 July.
Everything, including all elements of the Withdrawal Agreement and the framework for the future relationship should be wrapped up by October.
