 Good afternoon everybody. My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the Director of Research here at the Institute. Very pleased to welcome you all to this IIA seminar. We're joined today by Tony Connolly, who's known to probably everybody in the room. You're a editor for RIT News and we're delighted Tony's taken the time to come to Dublin at this really important time for Irish UK and indeed UK-EU relations. Tony will speak to us in the usual format for about 20 minutes and this will be followed by questions and answers with you our audience. We're especially delighted to be joined by such a group here at IIA headquarters in central Dublin and those of you who are with us will be able to contribute to the discussion by raising your hands. Those of you who are at home will be able to join the discussion by using the Q&A function on Zoom, which will be familiar to everybody. Please feel free to send in your questions throughout the session as they occur to you and we'll get to as many of them as possible. Please keep questions as concise as possible and please introduce yourself and also mention any affiliations you have if you feel they're relevant. Finally, a reminder that today's presentation and Q&A are both on the record and please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIA. I'll now formally introduce our speaker before handing over to him. Tony Connolly is the current Europe editor at RTE. Born in County Antrim and raised in Derry, Tony began his journalism career at the Derry Journal and the Oxford Courier. He joined RT News in 1994 where he's held a variety of roles becoming Europe correspondent in 2001 or becoming Europe editor in 2011. In that time, Tony has reported extensively from around Europe. Most recently, many of you will have followed Tony's excellent reporting from Ukraine following the Russian invasion. Indeed, I remember speaking to Tony on the 14th of February last year when we were meant to speak together at a panel in Oxford and Cambridge, rather, and you were deployed to Ukraine less than 10 days before the invasion, which is a rather sobering thought. Tony won an ESB National Media Award in 1998 and a second one in 2001. In the campaigning and social issues category, Tony is also the author of two books. Don't mention the wars, a journey through European stereotypes in 2009 and Brexit in Ireland from 2017, which has entered the canon of books about the UK's withdrawal that everyone should read. Tony lives in Brussels with his wife and two young sons. Tony is always a pleasure. The floor is yours for the next 20 minutes or so. Thank you very much Barry and thanks to the organizers of today's event. It's always a pleasure to come over to Dublin. Any excuse I say, and it's really a great honor to be here and to meet some old friends as well. People I've known from various locations. So what I'd like to do is, I was here, I think in November, and I gave an update at that point on the progress or lack thereof in the negotiations and I was trying to get a sense of when or whether a deal might be done. So now I'm here on the other side of the famous Windsor framework and nobody I think could have predicted things would turn out like they did. And so I'd like to give a little bit of a run up to how the deal was actually done and then I'll try and go through the main bits of the deal and as a special treat. I will try and explain the storm and break, which is the issue, which seems to keep everybody awake at night. And so when I was here in November, yeah, there were we had this famous reset, we had this moment of optimism, the very short lived Liz Truss premiership, which feels like a bit of a fever dream at this stage. And she was replaced by Rishi Sunak. We had a key meeting of the British Irish Association, British Irish Association in Oxford, I think which amplified this idea of a new beginning, a reset in relations. But nobody really knew what was driving this optimism like what exactly had changed. I think I think it was clear, even when Liz Truss was Prime Minister that she had been the author of the Northern Ireland protocol bill, largely in order to get elected as leader of the Conservative Party. And once he was elected there was a feeling that she could then take a more pragmatic approach. Sunak obviously took over and he was, you know, a different personality. From an EU point of view, I think it was important that he didn't have any of the fingerprints on the Northern Ireland protocol bill he was known as cautious meticulous. And he struck up quite a good relationship with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. You had this new framing of the controversy over the protocol. And you had then a period of very detailed negotiations at technical level. But the amazing thing is that between September and a couple of weeks ago, the technical talks were done in such secrecy. I was told yesterday by someone who's fairly close to things that outside of the two negotiating teams there were maybe four or five people who knew exactly what was going on. And this this was a remarkable achievement to think by both sides. Now, on the on the Brussels side of things. They were worried that if anything leaked out about what the EU was agreeing to in terms of compromises that it would just draw magnetic heat from the ERG or the DUP and then the thing would lose momentum. So you had a quite an unusual situation where the European Commission was not really briefing member states beyond generalities. And that was a problem for people like me because just the way the thing is structured in Brussels. The Commission will brief member states that through co repair through ambassadors or the what's called the working party. It's a, it's a, it's basically the member states Brexit counselors. And that that's where you as a journalist that's where I would try and get information about what's happening but but they were only being briefed in generalities so like nobody really knew what was going on like we knew that. I mean I knew from my own contacts that the European Commission was going to be more generous beyond what we call the October 2021 papers, which in themselves had offered a range of flexibilities. You know, a reduced data set this new legislation on medicines. But we didn't know beyond that much, much detail and where this really broke through was on the 9th of January, when actually an announcement that took a lot of member states by surprise. Cleverly and Maro Shevchevich met and they announced they had reached an agreement on data. So in other words, this idea that the EU would have access to a blend of databases provided by HMRC the UK customs arm but not not exclusively HRC there were other commercial data streams as well. This was a kind of a synthesized bespoke data access system that the EU could plug their risk analysis tools into to see forensically what was coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain. So that this turns out to have been very key for two reasons one was it allowed the EU to shift its cursor on the whole question of risk. I mean, the mantra we've had from the EU from the beginning is they don't want any risk to the single market. And the UK's mantra was, you know, it's not helpful to have a single rigid paradigm of risk where you have a set of rigid rules and then everybody has to agree to them. You don't have a more flexible attitude to risk, which means you can you can tighten the degree of checks and controls as you need to as the risk arises. And the data access agreement, not only provided that cover for the EU to do that. In other words, you would have a whole range of safeguards, including the knowledge of what's coming in. You could see day to day are to are what's coming in. In terms of consignments, there would be like a drag and drop functionality to look at patterns that might emerge that would throw up suspicions. And then if something suspect did appear or look like it was appearing, you could then pull a lorry over for for checks. Right. I'm actually reading up my phone so. So. Yeah, so so that was that was an important breakthrough but also once both sides managed to get that breakthrough. I think it brought forward a real determination to do this. You know, this gave the process real momentum. I like for talking to British officials last week, I was asked them like, you know, where did you feel that the EU had taken a big step towards the UK. And I think that the view in London was that the there was a bit of a mental leap from the European Commission to to accept the idea that this wasn't the classic sort of orthodox version of the single market that was being in Northern Ireland, it was something different. And you couldn't necessarily graft an orthodox set of rules on to a contested space like Northern Ireland and expect everything to be okay. And I think that the Commission did did move into that mental space where they could say okay, first of all the lived experience that we've had of the protocol over the past couple of years shows that there is necessarily a huge risk to the single market. And secondly now we have these safeguards, and you know the safeguards are substantial. So, so there was, you know, but a lot of this was still fairly subterranean and what we now can accept I guess is that is that we were in the tunnel all that time people were saying when's the tunnel going to start but I think we were actually in the tunnel because the tunnel means there's very little information getting out. And I've heard tell of negotiators who didn't see friends for months because they did not want to be asked about what what was going on in the talks. So we have. So the deal was done then on Monday we could go. Sorry Monday fortnight ago, and there was a strange kind of choreography because the view in Brussels was that the deal had been done and was ready to go for some time. But a question of timing as to when we see soon act the UK Prime Minister could jump and how he would be able to manage his own party and manage the DUP. Now, on the 16th of February, special advisors and darned to bring in journalists to say it's going to happen on Monday or Tuesday, and suddenly Monday and Tuesday came along and it didn't happen. And that Sunday you had Boris Johnson on maneuvers, talking about how he wouldn't necessarily go to the Northern Ireland protocol bill. So I think Rishi Sunak had to do some party management. And that's why it got delayed for a week. But when it appeared, you know, like, clearly, this was a big deal. You know, there were lots of big ticket items here we knew about the red lane and green lane option, which would deal with goods coming from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. And then the green lane for goods that are clearly staying in Northern Ireland, the red lane for goods that are going on to the single market, how you differentiate those how you have a much broader trusted trader scheme, which means that again, all the time you're whittling down the need for checks and controls and paperwork. We had a big concession on state aid and VAT and on excise rates for alcohol. Then you had all the kind of smaller scale but but you know culturally and in terms of consumers important issues like parcels seed potatoes. So suddenly, from a position last year where there were still the standoff between the EU in the UK, both both teams had managed through all of those months like from September to February to actually work through all of these. And the the, I think what they have produced is very clever. It's clever because it. It provides the UK with the ability to say there's no longer an Irish sea border and you know according to UK officials that that had to be there. What is their main prize in these talks, could they look Unionists in the eye and say, there's no longer an Irish sea border, and could they say to consumers that the food that you get in Great Britain, and the rest of the UK you can also get that food in Northern Ireland, and then another highly emotive medicines. So they managed to forge a partnership on these issues where you had those big prizes for Rishi Sunak to say and they're you know that these these things are very clear they're very easily articulated to to ordinary people and to Unionists and you can see how Rishi Sunak did that on the day. I mean it did lead to accusations that both sides were putting their own gloss on what had been achieved. And but I mean talking to senior people in Brussels, before it happened they said look, we're not particularly bothered about how the UK want to present this. Everybody knew that the important thing was that this would look attractive to the DUP. So the, of course the big issue was the storm and break. And this this got a lot of attention immediately because a lot of people have been expecting the EU to do something on the role of the ECJ. And when they saw the storm and break element to it they thought that that was somehow going to replace the ECJ. And I remember listening into a technical briefing by Commission officials and there were a lot of questions about the storm and break and people kept saying sorry we don't understand how this relates to the ECJ. But to try and explain the storm and break. It's, it relates really to what's already in the protocol. And it's a very clever device because it borrows from the Good Friday Agreement, it borrows this petition of concern from the Good Friday Agreement, and I've talked to member states officials in Brussels who said they like this idea because it gives. It gives a bit of ownership back to to the UK and to Unionists that you know their their concerns have been met. And the concern in the Good Friday Agreement was really initially designed to deal with, you know, cultural identity concerns, probably more for Nationalists and Unionists back in 1998 things like, you know, perhaps flags emblems language rights and so on. And what they've done is they've taken that concept and converted it into a mechanism in this new improved protocol. So what is what what does the storm and break deal with well it deals with EU regulations for goods, right so in the original protocol, you have article 13, which basically articulates how the EU single market rules for goods will apply in Ireland after after Brexit. So, initially, under article 13 three about 1200 regulations a year EU regulations would get rolled over automatically either through amendments or through updates. Okay, this is a fairly routine process at single market level. I think the term is implementing legislation that the EU has it's like secondary legislation it means that regulations governing a whole range of things in the single market just get get updated or amended, and it's done automatically an article 13 three of the protocol meant that that those updates would happen automatically in Northern Ireland there wouldn't be any debate, it would just be de facto happening in Northern Ireland. And article 13 four was a bit of a safeguard for the UK, it dealt with new regulations that the EU had proposed and brought into play. And because these weren't regulations that were being updated, these are brand new regulations, then the UK could look at these and say well we don't like this, or we don't like that. And then you would get into the reasons and then you would get into this process through the joint committee. And it would, you know, wouldn't be by any means a slam dunk for the UK to have something blocked, there would have to be very good reasons for it. And it might go to arbitration if there was a dispute over those reasons. So what the storm and break does is it gives the assembly through this petition of concern. So if you've got 30 MLAs from at least two parties. They can ask the UK to to challenge not 13 for but 13 three so article regulations that are being updated or amended. And as as officials say it flips article 13 into article 13, sorry it flips article 13 three and article 13 four. That's starting to technical my apologies but essentially it just means that the UK has a mechanism to stop stuff being updated, as well as a mechanism to stop brand new regulations minutes as as simple as I could put it. So the question then is, you know what are these regulations and why would would the Northern Ireland MLAs suddenly decide they want to block a regulation being updated. So they reckon there are about 1200 regulations are updated or amended every year. So these are generally non controversial, but there might be about 300 which are might cause concern to businesses in Northern Ireland so the best way to explain this is to take examples. So, a very an example came to the fore very quickly in the week after the Windsor break and that was arsenic in baby food. I knew they put arsenic and baby food, but there you are that the EU brought in a regulation that would cut arsenic levels by 80%. And so the question is, what would that mean in real terms for the storm and break. This was an updated regulation. It shows the appeal to unionists of the storm and break, apart from the symbolic value of having something that overcomes this. This quote unquote democratic deficit. But it also mean for unionists as well the whole question of divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK is obviously very keen one. The storm and break is about divergence how you manage divergence. So, if the EU is making reducing the levels of arsenic and baby food by a substantial amount in the UK isn't. Then what does that mean for those goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. So very quickly the Northern Ireland food industry come out and said, we would prefer to stick with the higher safety levels. Immediately you see this impulse not to have a race to the bottom. In that particular example, the impulse is we will stick with the higher, the higher safety margin. That would mean that food baby food coming from Great Britain into Northern Ireland can still be consumed because under this Windsor framework you do have a kind of a dual regulatory system. There are areas where UK public health rules are deemed adequate. But if Northern Ireland food producers wanted to export ingredients or baby baby food, then they would not be able to use those ingredients in the UK, and they would have to meet these particular standards. So then, you know that this storm and break opens up a really fascinating discussion on on divergence and whether, whether this storm and break is at its heart, something that actually keeps the UK aligned with the EU. Rather than a divergence over time. The key about the storm and break is that, as you know, it can only be used in very exceptional circumstances at the last minute. MLAs would have to go through a whole architecture of consultations with various bodies you've got the specialized committee you've got, there's a new subcommittee has been set up. You have to engage with civil society with Northern Ireland business. And when you see all the prerequisites and caveats that are associated with the storm and break it's almost like it is designed deliberately not to ever be used because the bar is set very high for it to take effect and MLAs must register their objections within two months of the regulation becoming law in the EU's official journal. So then you get into a question is, well, how is the Northern Ireland system equipped to do this kind of analysis and to get a consensus on whether to pull the storm and break in the first place. And is there a capacity, is there is there the capacity in the Northern Ireland civil service in the in the assembly within the business community in the European Commission. So what the storm and break does and I think that's why this this thing is very clever. It locks both sides into a much more collaborative process to make sure that stuff doesn't blow up. And suddenly if there's a particular regulation that causes a whole sector of goods not to be transferred to Northern Ireland. Then you've got you've got trouble. And I think there is an inbuilt suspicion that that people in the DUP, for example, will want to trigger the storm and break often or perhaps for vexatious reasons. But the the architecture around it requires both sides to get involved and to try and fix the problem before it becomes a problem. So, and then, you know, if it does come come down to it. The UK could be faced with a choice. Do we block this regulation in Northern Ireland using the storm and break, or do we say, well, why don't we stay kind of closely aligned with the EU in order for this not to be a problem in Northern Ireland. So an example of where that might come up would be the carbon border adjustment mechanism. See, see bam as it's called. So basically, and a big new climate related piece of regulation in the EU is to make sure that stuff isn't being imported into the EU that has a big carbon footprint from from a third country and put that effect goods coming from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. It's possible. This gets this gets into very technical areas around emissions trading systems and whether the EU has one that's or the UK has one that's similar to the EU. But it's, again, it's an area where problems could could be solved or could come up. But but you're going to get down to this. Ultimately, this this big question, does the UK want to jeopardize the relationship now that the relationship is doing so well. Will they want to pull this lever often. Or will they want to avoid it. And it seems to me that the, the, the way it's structured it's almost rigged to to such a degree that it's not going to be triggered very often. And the problems can be solved before they become big problems. So I'll leave it there and then happy to take questions.