DUBLIN (Reuters) – The European Union is willing to offer Britain flexibility in the implementation of trade rules governing Northern Ireland if London produces a “detailed road map” of its plans for the British region, Ireland’s foreign minister said on Monday.
Simon Coveney told Irish state broadcaster RTE in an interview that there had been “some back and forth” between the two sides in recent weeks, and that if London provides a road map of how it plans to proceed, the EU could look at flexibilities, including extensions to grace periods.
The EU Commission “would then be open to looking at more flexibility and more pragmatism in terms of some of the difficult elements of the (Northern Ireland) Protocol from an implementation point of view,” Coveney said.
(Reporting by Conor Humphries)
