Ambassadors met with the EU’s Brexit coordinator Michel Barnier today to discuss the current deal. Within the meeting, EU officials accused the UK of breaking the agreement on Northern Ireland. The current Brexit transition period ends on December 31, 2020 while the deadline to extend the period expires on June 30.

As reported by the BBC’s Katya Adler, there is a lack of belief the UK will uphold the requirements of the deal.

She reported: “UK argues it can’t be tied to EU apron strings as a sovereign nation + EU needs to trust them on fair competition.

“But EU privately says trust is already low as UK doesn’t appear to be upholding its part of the Northern Ireland agreement which replaced the Irish backstop.

“UK denies accusation.

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“Says the Irish protocol needs to be implemented by end of year and that it will honour its legal obligation as set out in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

“So EU asks for a clear timetable.”

The Northern Ireland protocol aims to avoid the introduction of a hard border between the north and south.

Replacing the backstop which was included by former Prime Minister, Theresa May, the new agreement has brought Northern Ireland under a customs territory with the rest of the UK.

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Previously, Northern Ireland would have been within the EU’s customs territory, now, however, the UK can manage its own tariffs.

In terms of the movement of goods, the new deal will introduce customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Four years after the transition period, the UK must also provide Northern Ireland with the ability to vote on whether to consent to the application of the protocol.

The controversial claims made by EU ambassadors comes as Ireland’s Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney has said talks are heading towards a crisis point.

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Both parties will hold further talks next week to further discuss the deal although Mr Coveney admitted progress had not been good.

He told RTE’s Sean O’Rourke show: “Unless there is significant progress in those negotiating rounds then I think we are going to reach yet another crisis point in the Brexit negotiations, which from the Irish point of view is very, very serious.

“Progress has not been good in the couple of rounds of negotiations we’ve had, of course there have been huge distractions for everybody in the context of COVID-19.

“There are only two rounds of negotiations left before an assessment in mid-summer and one of them is this week.

“Time is short and there’s an awful lot to do.”

If an agreement is not finalised, the UK has warned it will walk away from talks.

The EU, however, has stated it will not be threatened by the commencement of US-UK trade talks which began this week.

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