We use your sign-up to provide content in ways that you've consented to and improve our understanding of you. This may include advertising from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson delivered a blunt message to the Foreign Secretary after EU chief negotiator Maros Sefcovic claimed that the UK has breached a great deal of trust over the mechanism for preventing a hard border on the island of Ireland. The Protocol has in effect imposed a border down the Irish Sea because it keeps Northern Ireland in the bloc's single market for goods, according to unionist critics.
"We need a clear date," Donaldson said. We need a timeline in which real progress is taken or the Government takes the action that is necessary.
It is important that Liz Truss moves this process quickly and that we get real and meaningful progress on a number of issues, including removing the checks on the movement of goods within the UK internal market. He avoided any reference to a specific date but added that January is going to be an absolutely crucial month.
If we don't get rapid and decisive progress, and one side or the other is kicking the can down the road, this will have major implications for the stability of the political institutions in Northern Ireland. Speaking to German website Der Spiegel, European Commission Vice-President Sefcovic claimed that the UK broke international law by trying to circumvent the rules, warning that a decision to suspend them by triggering Article 16 would threaten the foundation of the entire deal - according to the European Commission vice-president, Sefcovic.