The British government is to present the EU with a new legal text to rewrite the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol signed by Boris Johnson just two years ago.
The UK wants to change the agreement it negotiated for Northern Ireland because it says it is not working – and wants to remove the role for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the accord.
But the EU says the fundamental treaty cannot be renegotiated.
Northern Ireland has been hit by shortages of goods, and community tensions have risen over the accord, with threats being made against staff at ports.
In a speech in Lisbon on Tuesday, Brexit minister Lord Frost, who negotiated the agreement, will repeat his demands for it to be changed, which have so far been rebuffed by Brussels.
He will claim: “Without new arrangements in this area, the protocol will never have the support it needs to survive.”
This week, Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s Brexit lead, promised proposals to respond to the UK – but he said removing the ECJ’s role would cut Northern Ireland off from the single market.
Lord Frost is expected to tell his audience in Lisbon that the relationship with the EU is “under strain”.
“No one should be in any doubt about the seriousness of the situation,” he will say. “That is why we are working to reflect the concerns of everyone in Northern Ireland, from all sides of the political spectrum, to make sure that the peace process is not undermined.
“The EU now needs to show ambition and willingness to tackle the fundamental issues at the heart of the protocol head on.”
Lord Frost will add: “By putting the protocol on a durable footing, we have the opportunity to move past the difficulties of the past year.
He will propose the new legal text to the European Commission as the “foundation” for a new protocol that aims to support the Good Friday Agreement.
And he will say the European Commission had been “too quick to dismiss governance as a side issue”, claiming that “the role of the ECJ in Northern Ireland and the consequent inability of the UK government to implement the very sensitive arrangements in the protocol in a reasonable way has created a deep imbalance in the way the protocol operates”.
The UK has threatened to trigger Article 16 of the protocol if its demands are not met – effectively suspending the deal.
