The European Union ramped up its legal campaign against the UK over breaches to the Brexit deal, days after legislation allowing Britain to scrap parts of the Northern Ireland protocol cleared the House of Commons.
On Friday, the European Commission launched four additional infringement proceedings against the UK, claiming the government had failed to comply with customs and value-added tax rules it signed up to. Britain has two months to respond, after which the European Commission said it is ready to take further measures.
The move marks an escalation of tensions as Britain’s ruling Conservative party prepares to elect a new leader. Both Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, the two candidates to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, have ruled out withdrawing the controversial legislation which would let Britain unilaterally rewrite key parts of the Northern Ireland protocol.
Johnson, who negotiated the accord in 2019, has since argued that the protocol — which effectively kept Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market for goods at the cost of creating a customs border in the Irish sea — is causing disruption in Northern Ireland and should be amended.
The EU had put forward a number of proposals to tackle several of the UK’s concerns — among them, the flow of medicines between Britain and Northern Ireland and the volume of paperwork that businesses need to file when moving goods across the Irish sea.
But the British government has said the proposals aren’t enough and instead has sought scrap parts of the deal — a move the EU has warned would violate international law.
The Commission had initially refrained from legal action to provide space for talks, but the UK’s lack of engagement and the introduction of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill “go directly against this spirit,” the Commission said in a statement. Last month, the bloc started legal action over the UK’s failure to provide trade data and comply with animal and plant health rules.
The legislation was approved by the House of Commons without amendments this week. It is now with the upper chamber, the House of Lords, where amendments are still possible. If the Lords makes amendments to the bill after it returns from recess in September, it is then sent back to the Commons for those changes to be considered.
