Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he would be” flexible and reasonable ” in new negotiations with the UK over the Brexit deal. He admits that the original agreements on the Northern Ireland border issue were “perhaps a little too strict” and is willing to compromise.
Varadkar is aimed at both British and Irish hardliners who do not want to make concessions in the stalled talks on Northern Ireland. ” Mistakes have undoubtedly been made on both sides, ” said the new prime minister. London wants to abandon the agreements made in Brexit, because they would be unworkable. Dublin and the European Union, on the contrary, wanted to stick to the rules, which stipulate that the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland remains open and that trade and traffic between British and Northern Irish soil is controlled.
According to the Irish prime minister, the problem can be solved with slightly less stringent agreements, something that the European Commission also thinks so. The British newspaper The Times also suggested a few weeks ago that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would consider sailing a less hard course than his predecessors. He would be willing to adapt some rules to EU standards in order to remove trade barriers. This is extremely sensitive within Sunak’s Conservative Party.
The pressure to find a solution is mounting as 19 January, the deadline for Northern Ireland to have a new government, approaches. The Northern Ireland unionist party (DUP) has been blocking a new formation for months and wants the trade problems to be resolved first. If the January 19 deadline is not met, new elections will follow.
Varadkar was already Prime Minister of Ireland between 2017 and 2020 and was then closely involved in the creation of the Brexit agreement. Last month, he took over the premiership from his coalition partner Micheál Martin. The leaders of the two centre-right parties, who are actually rivals, are replacing each other because both parties do not want to rule with the left-wing Sinn Féin left party, which is working hard for the reunification of Ireland and Northern Ireland and now leads the opposition. For the first time since May, Sinn Féin has been the largest party in Northern Ireland.
