UK PM Sunak says 'intensive work' needed to resolve dispute with EU over Northern Ireland Protocol

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said more work was needed to reach a solution to the dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol. This follows the discussions Sunak said were “positive” with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.

A spokesperson for Sunak said on Saturday that both sides agreed that there was “very good progress to find solutions” on the post-Brexit trade agreement during the meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The talks between Sunak and von der Leyen follow weeks of speculation that a deal was reached between the United Kingdom and the European Union over the Northern Ireland trade agreement.

Sunak said in Munich that a deal to revise the protocol with the EU was “by no means done” but noted that Brussels and London have an understanding of how the issues could be resolved.

“There are still challenges to work through…there isn’t a deal that has been done. There is an understanding of what needs to be done,” said Sunak. “We’re working through them hard and we will work through them intensely with the EU, but we are by no means done.”

After meeting with Sunak Friday last week, the leader of Northern Ireland’s pro-British Democratic Unionist Party, Jeffrey Donaldson, also echoed Sunak’s comments, saying that there are still outstanding issues that need to be addressed. The support of the DUP is important to any such deal due to its year-long boycott of the region’s power-sharing parliament in protest of the protocol.

Meanwhile, Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, on Friday last week, called for a stronger policy on China to provide Taiwan with arms and for the G7 countries to agree to coordinated sanctions on China should there be escalated tensions with the island in her first remarks since resigning. At a conference in Japan, Truss said the West should take a stronger stance against China, stressing that any attempt by Beijing to engage in military aggression against the democratically-governed island “would be a strategic mistake.”

“When it comes to China, a failure to act now would cost us dearly in the long run,” said Truss.