'EU not interested in protecting Belfast peace agreement'
Northern Ireland's primary minister said the European Union's promise of legal action over the UK extending grace periods for trade showed its priority was protecting the trading bloc, not the Belfast peace arrangement."What they're only enthusiastic about is definitely protecting their bloc, they're not interested, because they claim to end up being, found in protecting the Belfast agreement," Arlene Foster told BBC radio on Friday. "If indeed they were, they would not be taking the actions that they're going for a present."
The European Union said on Wednesday it would take legal action after the British government unilaterally extended a grace period for checks on food imports to Northern Ireland, a approach Brussels said violated the conditions of Britain's divorce package. Foster said the objective of the protocol was first to avoid goods from the UK entering the EU sole market, but its effects, and the action taken in both London and Brussels, were "totally disproportionate" to the risks.
"We need (the protocol) to be substituted because certainly extending grace intervals are just sticking plasters to what are actually fundamental problems regarding trade," she said."You will find a fundamental misunderstanding with europe regarding the damage that they are doing."
Since the EU's guarantee of legal action, Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary groups have explained they are temporarily withdrawing support for the 1998 peace agreement, referred to as the Belfast peace agreement or the nice Friday agreement, because of concerns over the Brexit deal.
