UK, EU Agree To Intensify Post-Brexit Talks After 'Cordial' Truss-Sefcovic Meeting

The United Kingdom and the European Union announced on Friday that they have agreed to intensify talks on the Northern Ireland Protocol and their post-Brexit relations following a "cordial" first face-to-face meeting between UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th January, 2022) The United Kingdom and the European Union announced on Friday that they have agreed to intensify talks on the Northern Ireland Protocol and their post-Brexit relations following a "cordial" first face-to-face meeting between UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic.

"The meeting took place in a cordial atmosphere. They agreed that officials would meet next week in intensified talks and that the principals would meet again on 24 January," a laconic joint statement released at the end of the two-day meeting held at the UK foreign minister's official country residence in Kent said.

As part of the Brexit agreement that came into force on January 1, 2021, there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but under the protocol all goods and animal-based products coming from the rest of the British territories must be checked upon arrival to see if they comply with EU sanitary regulations.

The UK government has argued that the protocol is not working, as it causes delays and interruptions to goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and irritates loyalists to the British crown who believe their place within the union could be affected, thus threatening the so-called Good Friday Agreement that in 1998 put an end to 30 years of bloody armed conflicts.

In October, the EU offered to cut checks on food, plants and animal products by 80% and paperwork for transport companies by half, but London is pushing for renegotiating the whole protocol.

Prior to her meeting with Sefcovic, Truss, who became the UK's chief negotiator following David Frost's resignation last month, had said that she was seeking a "pragmatic" approach from the EU to solve the problems caused by the Northern Ireland protocol.