The EU and UK remain as far apart as ever on the Irish Border backstop after the latest round of Brexit negotiations which concluded in Brussels on Friday.
At talks between the UK Brexit secretary Dominic Rabb and the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier, the EU side sought details of how border controls in the UK will work.
Both sides have pledged to maintain an open border in Ireland but have made no progress on agreeing how it would work.
“There is an urgent necessity to work on the text of an operational backstop,” Mr Barnier said at a press conference after the talks had concluded.
“To that end I have asked Dominic and his team to give us the necessary data required for the technical work that we have to do now on the nature, the location and the modalities of the controls that will be necessary.
“The backstop is critical to conclude these negotiations. As I have already said, without a backstop there is no agreement.”
Without an agreement, the UK would crash out of the EU next March.
However, senior British figures afterwards continued to insist that the UK position has not moved and that there can be no border checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
The so-called backstop is intended to guarantee no return to a hard border in Ireland even if the UK and the EU fail to agree a trade deal.
Different perspectives
The problem remains, however, that Brussels and London retain very different perspectives on where those backstop controls – for example, veterinary checks and standards on animal exports – should be located.
London remains adamant that controls on the Irish Sea are not acceptable and it continues to push its version of the backstop, that all-UK standards continue to match EU standards, and so obviate the need for any borders in or between Ireland and the UK. The EU says that it is willing to make special arrangements for Northern Ireland, but not for the whole of the UK.
Mr Raab insisted that the UK remains committed to the full implementation of the joint agreement made in December – containing the pledge of a backstop – but warned that any solution to the backstop issue “must be workable for people in Northern Ireland”.
Despite progress on other issues, the talks over the past two weeks are understood to have gone nowhere on the backstop, although British sources were again promising the imminent publication of the document "mapping" the 49 areas of joint cross-Border projects which are seen as essential underpinnings of the Belfast Agreement.
After the talks, Mr Raab characterised his own attitude as “stubborn optimism”.
Mr Barnier said that good progress has been made on future security co-operation, notably the exchange of data, from fingerprints to airline passenger information, co-operation on the rule of law and penal issues, and money laundering. Progress has also been made on extradition, and on the UK involvement in the Galileo space programme, specifically the civil dimension of its work. Differences remain on the military side of the programme.
However, the UK is still refusing to guarantee to protect products with Europe’s “geographical indicators”, such as Champagne and Parma ham, insisting it will introduce its own system to which European products could apply.
Both sides are hoping to agree a withdrawal treaty and a statement on future trading relations at a summit of EU leaders on October 17th, though both sides concede that this deadline could be missed.
