As the EU and UK continue to prepare for the trade negotiations, there are clear signs that all is not well when it comes to implementing the divorce part of Brexit, in particular the Irish Protocol.
This has to be done in parallel with the trade talks, and the Protocol will need to take effect on 1 January 2021 - just ten months away.To recap, the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland ensures there will be no hard border on the island of Ireland.
That’s putting it at its simplest. But that has to be converted into something that is legally clear and watertight for businesses, politicians and consumers.The regime will be implemented by a Joint Committee, made up of European Commissioners on the EU side, and cabinet ministers on the UK side. There will also be a Specialised Committee, made up senior officials from both sides, but it will be the Joint Committee which makes the decisions.
This is spelled out in an internal paper circulated by the European Commission to member states on 4 February, and seen by RTÉ News. "That in itself is particularly difficult to envisage," he concluded, noting that a newly formed and fragile Stormont Executive was being bounced into this with just 10 months to get it right.
In other words, figuring out how this Venn diagram will operate legally is entirely up to the UK government. Article 12 of the Protocol makes it clear that "in particular, the Court of Justice of the European Union shall have the jurisdiction provided for in the Treaties in this respect". Colin Murray told the Committee that when it came to implementing the Protocol, the Withdrawal Agreement Act handed powers both to ministers in Westminster and to Northern Ireland ministers in Stormont, and in places these powers overlapped.
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