Union's rights in enforcing and implementing the UK Withdrawal Agreement and the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement: extracts from the vote and statements by Seán KELLY (EPP, IE), by Andreas SCHIEDER (S&D, AT) and by Danuta Maria HÜBNER (EPP, PL).

statement

Strasbourg

EU - United Kingdom (T)

plenary session

vote

KELLY, Seán (EPP, IE)

HÜBNER, Danuta Maria (EPP, PL)

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

SCHIEDER, Andreas (S&D, AT)

negotiations on future EU-UK relations (T)

Union's rights in enforcing and implementing the UK Withdrawal Agreement and the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement: extracts from the vote and statements by Seán KELLY (EPP, IE), by Andreas SCHIEDER (S&D, AT) and by Danuta Maria HÜBNER (EPP, PL)

Title: Union&apos;s rights in enforcing and implementing the UK Withdrawal Agreement and the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement: extracts from the vote and statements by Se&#225;n KELLY (EPP, IE), by Andreas SCHIEDER (S&amp;D, AT) and by Danuta Maria H&#220;BNER (EPP, PL)

SOUNDBITE (English, Roberta METSOLA, EP President, announcing the opening of the voting session (4 shots)

SOUNDBITE (English), Se&#225;n KELLY (EPP, IE), Rapporteur, Negotiations are progressing well from what I am told, that they will come to an agreement, especially in relation to the protocol in Northern Ireland, which essentially means coming to an arrangement how goods will flow from the UK into Northern Ireland without breaching the EU rules in relation to the Single market. So they are discussing green and red lines, green for goods that would be staying in Northern Ireland, red for those that might finish up in the single market. So if they reach an agreement on that, that would go a long way to dealing with the difficulties which we've had in particular in relation to the Protocol Bill. But also I think it would obviously cause the UK to think twice about putting any unilateral bills through the Parliament because there is a complete change in attitude in the United Kingdom since the Prime Minister soon took over as opposed to his two predecessors, Truss and Johnson.

SOUNDBITE (English), Se&aacute;n KELLY (EPP, IE), Rapporteur, I think the practical implications are going to be immense. It means that we will have no hard border in the island of Ireland, that the goods will flow freely from the UK to Northern Ireland, that Northern Ireland will be still able to enjoy being in the single market in the European Union and the market of the UK. But most importantly of all, it would mean that we are now honouring the agreements in relation to the withdrawal agreement and the TCA, which the UK has signed up to as part of international law, and therefore we would be actually re aligning ourselves with the most important word of all, trust.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andreas SCHIEDER (S&amp;D, AT), Rapporteur, It is a very complicated legal text which at the end is giving the possibility to the European Union to react when the UK is, let's say, not fulfilling the treaty which was agreed after Brexit. So what is the background on this that we saw in the aftermath of Brexit, that a lot of things had been agreed with the UK and the EU and the European Union, but in the end had not been implemented or not implemented 100%, that there had been some trade barriers and other things. And with this report we give to the European Commission the possibility to react in a due manner.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andreas SCHIEDER (S&amp;D, AT), Rapporteur, To break apart a union is very complicated. So there is a lot of trade issues, there is a lot of other issues like social issues, like product safety or consumer rights, environmental issues and other ones. And as, let's say now the domestic market, the United Kingdom is out of the domestic market, but Ireland is in. Of course, to implement, let's say, some easy way of of rules. This sometimes isn't easy. And sometimes the British authorities, let's say, did not wake up in the Brexit world, which they wanted to have.

SOUNDBITE (English), Danuta Maria H&#220;BNER (EPP, PL), Rapporteur, Somehow on the British side, we always saw the preference for the unilateral measures. And so that's why when there is no possibility of recourse to the dispute settlement system, we just have to be prepared and have also at our disposal unilateral measures to apply when there is a breach by UK of the agreements. And in Europe this is the Commission that we are empowering to have the possibility of reacting to the breach of our agreement. And this regulation is exactly about this. And in this regulation we have the list of situations where the measures can be applied, we have the list of measure, we have also the system of keeping informed, keeping us in the European Parliament informed that for us extremely important because we are strongly engaged in the whole Brexit process. So that's why, to avoid breaches to protect both citizens and Single market.

SOUNDBITE (English), Danuta Maria H&Uuml;BNER (EPP, PL), Rapporteur, They are on the edge of finding agreement and it is extremely important. It's not easy for the UK citizens because of Brexit. Today we know that the economic situation is also very difficult, so to find agreement and to have really all the things which are important, which is a special system that is allowing us to as European Union, to protect our single market, because we will have access to real time information on the goods which are going both which are going to the island of Ireland, going either to stay in the Northern Ireland or to move to European Union, to the Republic of Ireland. We will also have, if we have agreement, we will also most likely have also the simplification of the customs declarations. We will have also simplification of procedures.

SOUNDBITE (English), Danuta Maria H&Uuml;BNER (EPP, PL), Rapporteur, So it looks like we might have a sort of big reduction of problems that we have in the implementation and enforcement of Irish protocol once those talks are finished.