Authorities in London are reportedly ready to slap the EU with formal proceedings for the first time over the union’s allegedly breaching parts of the Brexit agreement.
The United Kingdom will reportedly launch formal proceedings against the European Union as early as this week over accusations that Brussels is in breach of the agreement enabling Britain to leave the transnational union.
Since its initially signing in late 2020, the Brexit deal has been a source of political chaos both in the UK and EU, with the status of Northern Ireland, in particular, being a sticking point for both parties, having been left largely inside the EU’s single market and outside the UK’s own economic zone despite being an integral part of the UK.
In what appears to be the latest chapter in the long-running dispute between the two parties, the UK is to imminently launch dispute proceedings against the EU, with The Telegraph reporting Westminster as now alleging that the EU is illegitimately blocking parts of the Brexit agreement from coming into force over another dispute to do with the Northern Ireland protocol.
The dispute reportedly centres around the EU’s Horizon research programme, which the UK has not reportedly been admitted as a member of despite paying £15 billion (~$18 billion) for the privilege.
This has meant that the UK has been denied access to the EU’s Copernicus satellite system — which is used to take images of Earth — as well as the bloc’s Euratom atomic energy regulation treaty.
While The Telegraph notes the dispute as likely to be the first of its kind launched by either the UK or EU, the row ultimately represents only the latest of many flashpoints between the two powers, with the European Union in particular launching legal actions against Britain over its attempts to pull Northern Ireland away from Brussels.
Having initially left the six-county region on the island of Ireland within the grips of the EU, UK authorities have since put forward a bill allowing Westminster to unilaterally scrap parts of the agreement it now deems non-functional, outraging those in Brussels.
“The Bill fixes problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol, which currently treat people and businesses in Northern Ireland differently from those in the rest of the UK,” Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss — who helped spearhead the bill — previously said in regards to the piece of legislation.
“It will enable us to deliver reasonable, practical solutions, like establishing a green channel to ensure goods moving and staying in the UK are freed from unnecessary costs and paperwork,” she went on to say, while also insisting that the measure would avoid “a hard border on the Island of Ireland”, a red-line issue for nationalists in the region who have multiple times waged terror campaigns against British authorities.
However, while Truss has been at times rather enthusiastic about sabre-rattling on the issue, the World Economic Forum-linked candidate — who was formerly a left-wing Liberal Democrat politician — was in the past a prominent pro-EU Remainer, with another black mark against Truss being that she backed a Johnson government that signed a Brexit agreement leaving the contested region largely under EU control in the first place.
Meanwhile, political leaders within the EU appear to have sensed blood in the water, with both diplomats from Germany and France now demanding that Brussels take the “hardest possible line” against Britain as it transitions to a new Prime Minister.
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