Irish foreign minister accuses UK of dismissing EU’s Northern Ireland plans prior to their publication

Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney has said the UK government had “dismissed” the EU’s proposed changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol, set to be published on Wednesday.

Mr Coveney told RTÉ earlier today: “Each time that the EU comes forward with new ideas and new proposals to try and solve problems, they are dismissed before they are released – and that’s happening again this week.”

He went on: “David Frost accuses me of raising issues on social media. It’s a bit rich, quite frankly, because he is briefing British media effectively to say, ‘Well, the EU can make the changes that they need to make, but actually it’s not enough, we want more’”.

The Protocol was implemented to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in the wake of Brexit, and by keeping Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market for goods.

In a speech in Lisbon on Tuesday, Brexit minister Lord Frost will outline the UK’s approach to the ongoing dispute

After reports that the UK will seek the removal of the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) oversight from the deal, Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney took to Twitter to criticise this approach, writing: “EU working seriously to resolve practical issues with implementation of Protocol – so UKG creates a new “red line” barrier to progress, that they know EU can’t move on…. are we surprised?

“Real Q: Does UKG actually want an agreed way forward or a further breakdown in relations?”

Lord Frost hit back, tweeting: “1. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process… …the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper. The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.

He went on: “2. We await proposals from @MarosSefcovic. We will look at them seriously & positively whatever they say. We will discuss them seriously and intensively. But there needs to be significant change to the current situation if there is to be a positive outcome.”

This morning Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s minister for European affairs, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Monday morning that he thought “everybody is seeking a way to make the Protocol work better,” but seemingly missed the UK’s concerns over ECJ oversight as a “theoretical” issue.