 Foreign Minister Dominic Reab says Britain wants to ease tensions with the European Union over trade with Northern Ireland, repeating a warning that the bloc had realized the province was part of the United Kingdom. Reab also criticized the European Union for treating Northern Ireland as if it was a separate country rather than part of the United Kingdom, and that the approach was causing damage to the British province. On the East we want a flexible, pragmatic approach. What we cannot have is both the Northern Ireland protocol being applied in a very lopsided way, or the Good Friday agreement being undermined as a result of that. Well I don't do as a matter of diplomatic professions and come out and spill the beans. What I can tell you is no one should be surprised by these reports and it's not just one figure. We have seriously seen senior EU figures talk about Northern Ireland as if it was somehow a different country from the UK. That is not only offensive, it has real world effects on the communities of Northern Ireland. It creates great concern, great consternation. But also Trevor, could you imagine if we talked about Catalonia, the Flemish part of Belgium, one of the lander in Germany, Northern Italy, Corsica in France as different countries. We need a bit of respect here.