Northern Ireland: what are EU and UK proposing and will deal be done?
The UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020 and all EU rules fell away at the start of 2021. Soon after, a row broke out over the Northern Ireland protocol, the tortuously negotiated agreement to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, by keeping Northern Ireland in the EU single market and customs union.
The UK demanded a rewrite of the protocol in July. At first the EU said it wasn’t prepared to do more than tinker around the edges, but by October the European Commission had offered some substantial changes including scrapping customs red tape. After weeks of non-stop talks, each side has now taken a step towards agreement.
The commission revealed on Friday it was prepared to rewrite EU law on medicines to ensure stable supplies
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