There is ongoing and regular contact between the Government and the European Commission, at all levels, in relation to our preparedness and contingency measures for Brexit, including a no deal scenario. This has included, for example, the visit to Ireland on 4-5 February of the Commission's Brexit Preparedness Group to review our comprehensive, cross-Governmental preparations.
We are working closely with the Commission on how to mitigate against the negative impact on our trade and economy, and to ensure connectivity with the rest of the EU's Single Market, including via the landbridge.
More recently, discussions have had an additional focus on how to protect the Good Friday Agreement and avoid a hard border in the case of no deal, while also protecting the integrity of the Single Market and Customs Union and Ireland’s place in them. Ireland and the EU are at one in our determination to do all we can, deal or no deal, to avoid a hard border and to protect the peace process.
The latest meeting with the Commission at official level took place in Brussels on Friday, 29 March, and was attended by officials from the Departments of the Taoiseach, Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Agriculture, Food and the Marine, as well as the Revenue Commissioners. Discussions will continue this week.
If the UK decides to leave without the Withdrawal Agreement, initial, temporary arrangements will be required. Such arrangements will be suboptimal compared to the backstop, and, while we are absolutely determined to avoid physical infrastructure at the border, it would be difficult to avoid serious disruption to the functioning of the all-island economy. There are no easy answers. The seamless trade we enjoy today would not be possible, and the benefits of the backstop for businesses in Northern Ireland will be lost, at least in the short term.
For any sustainable long term solution, discussions between the EU, Ireland and the UK will be required, not least given the UK's obligations under the Good Friday Agreement as a co-guarantor of that agreement. For such a solution, it would be impossible to escape the need for close alignment with the Single Market and Customs Union, and the backstop would be the starting point for these discussions.
This is also why the Withdrawal Agreement is of such importance. It represents the only way to ensure an orderly UK withdrawal, and we continue to work as a priority to support its ratification.
