Ahead of the Brexit vote, European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic outlined a set of measures to the UK aimed at resolving post-Brexit trade issues in Northern Ireland. These included slashing 80 percent of customs checks and reducing duties on the movement of goods between Britain and the island of Ireland. However, these proposals from the EU have fallen long way short of what the UK is demanding, who had been seeking wholesale changes to the protocol.
According to the mechanism, the European Court of Justice would act as the final arbitrator for a possible future trade dispute between the two sides. Britain wants this key provision removed and replaced with an independent arbitration process - a demand that the EU refuses to cave to to. But the Belgian insistence that Brussels must act as a final arbitrator in any future dispute has been torn apart by a Brexiteer. Mike Mason OBE wrote on Twitter: The EU Ambassador to UK said in the context of NI: "When you play football, you need a referee which is the ECJ''.
On Thursday, the EU Ambassador to Northern Ireland responded to questions regarding the role of the ECJ in the UK. Jo o Vale de Almeida said on the Chopper's Politics podcast for The Daily Telegraph: If Northern Ireland is to continue to have access to our single market for goods, the European Court of Justice needs to be the supreme jurisdiction. We are talking about the internal market for goods and we are talking about the Northern Ireland Territory. We are not talking about the European Court of Justice have jurisdiction over the entirety of the regime of law of the UK, neither on the entirety of the territory of the EU. Making a football referee was something Mr Mason had been eluding to in his Twitter, the Ambassador continued: So let's be clear about what we are talking about, but you have to understand that when you play football, you need the referee.