Businesses in Northern Ireland should be able to use workarounds and exemptions to make checks on goods on the Irish Sea border less onerous, chief European Union negotiator Michel Barnier has said. “This is something we are discussing with the United Kingdom as we speak,” Mr Barnier said. Mr Barnier insisted he was keen to find a compromise. Sometimes there is a bit of spin amongst UK politicians saying I’m some kind of dogmatic person and representing a technocratic commission, but I’m a pragmatic man,” he said. “I’m sure if we don’t get bogged down in ideological debate with pragmatism we can pull this off.”

Source: The Irish Times June 05, 2020 17:48 UTC