What Is The Windsor Framework To Resolve Post Brexit Issue Between UK And EU?

What Is The Windsor Framework To Resolve Post Brexit Issue Between UK And EU?

In This Article, We Will Read About Issue Between UK & EU On Northern Ireland, What Is The Windsor Framework?, What is Stormont Brake?, etc.

Context

In News?

• On February 27, 2023 in Windsor, England, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen Windsor Guildhall sign off an agreement on the Post Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland.
• The agreement has the potential to transform Britain’s uneasy relationship with its most important trading partner i.e. EU.

Background

After the UK left the European Union in 2020, the status of Northern Ireland became a bone of contention. Britain’s government complained that the Post Brexit trading arrangement for the region, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, was stifling the local economy. It threatened to impose its own solution.

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What Is The Issue Between UK & EU On Northern Ireland?

• After the UK left the European Union, Northern Ireland remained its only constituent that shared a land border with an EU-member, the Republic of Ireland.
• Since the EU and the UK have different product standards, border checks would be necessary before goods could move from Northern Ireland to Ireland.
• However, the two Irelands have had a long history of conflict, with a hard-fought peace secured only in 1998 under the Belfast Agreement, also called the Good Friday agreement.
• Fiddling with this border was thus considered too dangerous, and it was decided the checks would be conducted between Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland (which together with Great Britain forms the United Kingdom). This was called the Northern Ireland Protocol.
• Under the protocol, Northern Ireland remained in the EU single market, and trade-and-customs inspections of goods coming from Great Britain took place at its ports along the Irish Sea.

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What Is The Windsor Framework?

• Windsor Framework is a solution to allow Northern Ireland to remain within the EU’s single market and customs union while rolling back many of the cumbersome checks imposed on goods arriving from mainland Britain under the original Brexit deal.
• The UK government had complained that the burden of new paperwork was disrupting trade and effectively created an internal border within a sovereign country.
• The new framework includes a “green” and “red” lane system that will separate goods traveling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland from those continuing into the EU. Those not destined for the bloc will be subject to lighter border controls.

What is Stormont Brake?

• The new Stormont Brake means the democratically elected Northern Ireland Assembly can oppose new EU goods rules that would have significant and lasting effects on everyday lives in Northern Ireland.
• For this, they will need the support of 30 members from at least two parties. The British government can then veto the law.
• This provision, the Sunak government hopes, will persuade the DUP to allow Stormont to restart functioning.

Challenges Ahead?

• To secure a durable settlement, Rishi Sunak needs to convince the DUP(The Democratic Unionist Party which is based in Northern Ireland) and several Brexit-supporting members of his party to endorse the agreement.
• The hope is that the DUP will then re-form Northern Ireland’s power-sharing administration in time for the 25th anniversary of the region’s 1998 peace treaty in April.
• If they vote against the deal, Sunak may have to rely on votes from opposition parties, which could damage him politically.

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