This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. Maros Sefcovic and his EU counterpart, Maros Sefcovic, have met several times in a bid to resolve teething issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol, which was agreed in the Brexit deal last year. The Northern Ireland Protocol is designed to avoid customs checks along the Irish border.
It means that goods - including medicines - can flow freely between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. A senior UK official said that answers to the issues with the Protocol need to be addressed ahead of the Stormont elections in May 2022. They told Italian magazine Repubblica: The answer is that these issues have to be addressed well before Stormont elections.
It's important that we don't go into the elections with all the political parties of the Unionist community campaigning against the protocol, that's where they will be. This issue is really important. We think it's important that this is addressed before. Following the UK leaving the EU, Northern Ireland remained part of the bloc's Single Market and has recovered economically from the COVID-19 Pandemic. In his statement on Friday, Lord Frost said there needed to be movement on all the difficult issues created by the protocol, including the Court of Justice.
Lord Frost said that 'limited progress' was made during negotiations following Friday's online meeting with Mr Sefcovic, Lord said that they made further limited progress on medicines but they have not reached an agreement. We won't find a durable solution that deals with all these problems.