The U.K. government has proposed a 'backstop' plan that would see the country continue to apply the same customs rules as the European Union for up to a year after a nearly two-year transition period following its planned withdrawal from the bloc in March 2019.
The measure, designed to avoid a politically contentious hard border between Northern Ireland in the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland, would only remain in place until a new customs arrangement is agreed upon. Despite the broadly perceived lack of progress in negotiations, the government anticipates that such arrangement will be in place by the end of December 2021 at the latest.
"The UK's proposal is that in the circumstances in which the backstop is agreed to apply, a temporary customs arrangement should exist between the UK and the EU," the government wrote in a technical note published June 7, after a last-minute deal saw Prime Minister Theresa May include an end date in the backstop plan, at the insistence of euroskeptic Brexit Secretary David Davis.
Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, the breakthrough bill in the Northern Ireland peace process signed in 1999, there can be no hard border with Ireland, meaning no physical infrastructure or checks. May's Conservative government also depends for its parliamentary majority on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, which wants a frictionless border and will not tolerate any special arrangements for the province different to those governing the rest of the U.K.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, welcomed the proposal via Twitter, but set three questions by which the EU would examine the idea. "Is it a workable solution to avoid a hard border? Does it respect the integrity of the single market/customs union? Is it an all-weather backstop?"
The backstop border proposal comes as the lower house of the U.K. Parliament is due to vote June 12 on amendments to its European Union (Withdrawal) Bill introduced by the House of Lords. The amendments, which the government wants to overturn, include calls for Parliament to be given a meaningful vote on the outcome of talks with the EU and for the U.K. to remain in a customs union with the EU.
The pound sterling fell 0.3% to €1.1357 by 6:44 p.m. in London.
