London: The United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) have reached a new post-Brexit trade arrangement for Northern Ireland, British media reported on Monday.
It came as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Britain on Monday after long disputes between the two sides over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Earlier, Rishi Sunak had sealed a deal with the EU to end the dispute over the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol.
At a joint press conference with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, in Windsor, the prime minister said: “We have now made a decisive breakthrough. Together, we have changed the original protocol, and are today announcing the new Windsor framework.”
He said the deal would help restore the previously strained relationship with the EU and go much further than previously thought to fix the “democratic deficit” by giving Stormont ministers a direct say in EU laws applying to Northern Ireland. “This is the beginning of a new chapter in a relationship,” he said.
The agreement is the culmination of four months of intense negotiations led on the UK side by Sunak along with James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, and the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, the Guardian reported.
Von der Leyen says, as soon as the deal is agreed, the EU will begin the process of admitting the UK into the Horizon programme. That is good news for researchers, she says.
