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LONDON Britain set itself on course for a new confrontation with the European Union on Tuesday by demanding the replacement of one of the most complex and vexing components of Brexit: the status of Northern Ireland.

In a speech to diplomats in Lisbon, David Frost, the Conservative governments Brexit minister, asked for an overhaul of an agreement on post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom but shares a politically sensitive land border with Ireland, a European Union country.

The move is a serious escalation in a simmering dispute over how Northern Ireland fits into the British withdrawal from the European Union. Mr. Frosts proposed new text for the trade rules, called the Northern Ireland protocol, discards some elements that Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to less than two years ago and contains ideas the European Union has already rejected.

We now face a very serious situation the protocol is not working, Mr. Frost said, arguing that instead of protecting a fragile peace process in Northern Ireland, the agreement was doing the opposite.

The protocol represents a moment of E.U. overreach, when the U.K.s negotiating hand was tied, and therefore cannot reasonably last in its current form, Mr. Frost said, adding that it had been drawn up in extreme haste and that for the Europeans to reject the idea of changing it would be a historic misjudgment.

His speech served as something of a pre-emptive strike, coming just one day before the European Commission, the blocs executive body, is scheduled to present its own plans to resolve the difficulties it acknowledges have arisen with trade mainly between Britain and Northern Ireland.

Though soft-spoken and personable, Mr. Frost is a hard-liner whose aggressive negotiating style has been welcomed by Brexit supporters who believed that Mr. Johnsons predecessor, Theresa May, was pushed around by Brussels. So, few were surprised that his speech raised the temperature on an inflammatory issue.

But significantly, Mr. Frost also called for a change to the role of Europes top court in adjudicating disputes an abstract but politically sensitive issue over which the European Union is highly unlikely to concede.

That has prompted speculation that the demand is a bargaining chip to be traded for other concessions. An alternative theory is that it is designed to provoke a full-scale crisis that could lead to Mr. Johnson suspending part of the protocol, blaming the European Union and stoking pro-Brexit sentiment at home.

That would likely prompt retaliation from the European Union and possibly a trade war with the 27-nation bloc that Britain officially left in January 2020.

Designed to avoid resurrecting a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, the protocol has led to checks on goods flowing from Britain to Northern Ireland.

That is to protect the integrity of the European Unions giant single market of which Ireland is a part. But it has infuriated unionists in Northern Ireland who see their place within the United Kingdom as central to their identity and who resent checks on goods flowing from mainland Britain, which is part of the same country.

Mr. Johnson has the ability to suspend parts of the protocol under Article 16 of the Brexit agreement, but he is considered unlikely to do so before the climate summit, COP26, Britain is hosting in Glasgow from Oct. 31 through Nov. 12.

Discarding some of the protocol could also exacerbate tensions between Mr. Johnson and President Biden. The American president is proud of his Irish heritage and has made clear his commitment to the peace process in Northern Ireland that culminated in the Good Friday Agreement, struck in 1998 after decades of bloody conflict known as The Troubles.

Though some analysts believe Mr. Johnson wants to walk away from the protocol to please Brexit hard-liners at home, others see Tuesdays speech by Mr. Frost more as a tactical intervention designed to minimize the influence of Brussels over any part of Britain, and maximize British sovereignty.

Frost who is a convinced Brexiteer sees this attempt to renegotiate or adjust the protocol as the final means to weaken the ties that remain between the U.K. and the E.U., said Katy Hayward, a professor of political sociology at Queens University, Belfast.

Britain, she added, seemed to be trying to wrangle the last bits of sovereignty from the E.U.

Tuesdays speech follows months of tension over impediments to trade between Britain and Northern Ireland, including the flow of some goods like chilled meats, a rift that became known as the sausage wars. In recent days that gave way to open sniping during which the Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, questioned whether Britain actually wanted an agreement, and Mr. Frost accused his European counterparts of refusing to listen.

Britain argues that the protocol is being implemented in an unnecessarily heavy handed way, while European officials accuse Mr. Johnson of breaking an agreement he made himself.

Answering questions after his address on Tuesday, Mr. Frost said that when Britain agreed to the protocol, it knew it was taking a risk. We hoped that we were wrong and that the protocol would work, he said. It turned out we were right.

For its part the European Union has repeatedly rejected Britains calls for a renegotiation of the agreement. It particularly opposes the removal of the Court of Justice of the European Union, based in Luxembourg and the blocs highest court, as the final arbiter of disputes.

Responding on Monday to excerpts from the speech that were released on Saturday for the British media, the spokesman for the E.U. Commission, Eric Mamer, described Londons demand to remove the court as unacceptable and ground that we have covered a million times.

Brussels often emphasizes that this British government signed the deal, which Mr. Frost himself negotiated, and which is now international law.

Another commission spokesman, Daniel Ferrie, said that oversight of European courts was essential to provide legal coherence and a functioning business environment throughout the single market.

Removing the court, Mr. Ferrie said, would effectively mean cutting Northern Ireland off from the E.U.s single market and related opportunities.

On Wednesday, the commission will make proposals to smooth implementation of the protocol. Those measures are expected to include easing of food and plant safety checks to soften restrictions on trade in chilled meat from Britain into Northern Ireland. It may also ease some customs checks and checks on the supply of medicines.

The commission will also propose some ideas on how to engage citizens, business owners and politicians from Northern Ireland in oversight of the deal.

But Mr. Frosts intervention suggests that such concessions will hardly be sufficient, setting the scene for several weeks of tense negotiation.

Ms. Hayward said that the risk for Northern Ireland was that Mr. Frosts approach would do little to reassure the unionist community about the security of their place in the United Kingdom, while raising unrealistic expectations about the prospects of a completely new agreement.

If you were to prioritize the peace process above all else when you are approaching the matter of the protocol and talks with the E.U., you wouldnt go about it the way the British government has gone about it, she added.

Stephen Castle reported from London and Steven Erlanger from Brussels.

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U.K. Escalates Dispute With E.U. Over Northern Ireland - The New York Times

Political hostilities have erupted once again between Britain and the European Union over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Agreed as part of the Brexit deal done in early 2020, the protocol governs the passage of goods between the UK and EU economic areas, where a hard border, or extensive border infrastructure, between Northern Ireland and EU member state the Republic of Ireland would jeopardise the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended the decades-long armed conflict in the north.

Under the agreement, Northern Ireland remains within the EUs single market for goods which the rest of the UK has withdrawn from. EU product inspections and customs checks on goods travelling from the UK are conducted at ports in Northern Ireland immediately after crossing the Irish Sea and can then move freely through the entire island of Ireland. This prompted opposition from large sections of the Conservative party and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland, who complained that a border was effectively set up in the Irish Sea.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson endorsed the 2019 agreement in that years general election as a means of getting Brexit done. But antagonisms have rumbled on ever since, with the agreement threatened by both sides in the early part of this year and the EU briefly invoking Article 16, which allows one party to unilaterally suspend elements of the deal.

Talks to defuse the situation ever since have only highlighted the national tensions driving apart Britain and the EU, at a time of rising tensions within the European Union itself.

The UK Brexit Minister, Lord Frost, has called for the protocol to be scrapped and the elimination of all customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, allowing goods to circulate freely if they conform to either UK or EU regulations. He also wants the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to be removed from the arbitration of future disputes over the agreement, demanding international arbitration instead of a system of EU law ultimately policed in the court of one of the parties, the European Court of Justice.

On Wednesday, the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Maro efovi offered a series of concessions to the UKs position, including measures to reduce checks on British retail goods by 80 percent, halve customs paperwork, waive the requirement for medical manufacturers to move out of Northern Ireland into Britain, and streamline the certification process for road freight. He declared that the EU had completely turned our rules upside down and inside out to find agreement. He insisted, Its very clear that we cannot have access to the single market without the supervision of the ECJ.

Talks on the EUs proposals will take place for a maximum of three weeks. Commentators have raised the adoption of a Swiss style treaty as a possible final compromise. Disputes between Switzerland and the EU are dealt with by an independent arbitration panel, although it must take into account the ECJs view on matters of EU law. But comments suggest that Britain will demand the moon, in the words of one EU diplomat speaking to the Financial Times (FT).

On Wednesday, the day efovi announced his proposals, Johnsons former senior adviser and current political enemy Dominic Cummings tweeted that the government had signed the Brexit deal planning to ditch bits we didnt like after whacking [then Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn [in the 2019 general election]. He continued, Our priorities meant e.g getting Brexit done is 10000x more important than lawyers yapping re international law in negotiations with people who break [international] law all the time.

Cummingss account was then confirmed by leading DUP MP Ian Paisley. He told BBC Newsnight, Boris Johnson did tell me personally that he would, after agreeing to the protocol, he would sign up to changing that protocol and indeed tearing it up, that this was just for the semantics.

Frost has admitted, cryptically, that the UK only agreed to the ECJs oversight of the protocol because of the very specific circumstances of that negotiation.

Preparations are already being made in Europe for a trade war should Britain reject the EUs proposals and trigger Article 16. According to the FT, representatives from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain met with efovi Monday to demand contingency plans including tariffs on British exports, restricting the UKs access to Europes energy supplies and ending the trade agreement between the two parties.

An EU diplomat told the FT, Frost knows hes playing with fire. But when you play with fire, you get burnt. The EU has a broad palette of options for hitting back at the UK.

Britains rationale for pushing a conflict with the EU is most openly expressed in the Daily Telegraph. Columnist Nick Timothy accuses the EU of playing with fire on the Northern Ireland Protocol. He writes, The issue is sovereignty. The Government cannot allow the continued jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over the NI Protocol.

The UK government feels sovereignty is a stick it can successfully beat the EU with, in light of the ruling last week by Polands Constitutional Court that parts of EU law are incompatible with the Polish constitution, overturning the fundamental primacy of EU law within the union. Poland has been backed by Hungary, which has also been engaged in a long-running legal dispute with the EU over legislation linking European subsidies to respect for the rule of law.

The Brexiteer press in the UK has also made much of recent statements by Michel Barnier, the EUs former chief Brexit negotiator. Barnier is now running in the French Presidential race on a fiercely anti-migrant platform, calling for France to regain its legal sovereignty by casting off the threat of a ruling or a condemnation at the level of the European Court of Justice or the European Convention on Human Rights.

Johnson gloated at last weeks Tory Party conference, That is what happens if you spend a year trying to argue with Lord Frost.

These events are proof of the analysis made by the Socialist Equality Party of Brexit as the most advanced expression of an escalating breakdown of the EU, under the pressure of mounting centrifugal forces that are intensifying conflicts not only with the US but between the European states.

The Johnson government identifies itself with this development. It hopes to use Brexit to place itself in pole position among European nations pursuing increasingly independent policies, either within or having broken loose from a paralysed EU. Leading Tory Brexiteer Sir Ian Duncan Smith MP cited Lord Palmerston in the Telegraph Thursday: We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.

Central to this policy is the UKs pitch to the United States as its most slavishly dependable ally. But this course is fraught with uncertainty. The Brexit policy in the British ruling class was spurred by the presidency of Donald Trump, who made his hostility to the major European powers, Germany and France, plain. Under President Joe Biden, the US has adopted a subtler approach.

Septembers AUKUS military alliance between the UK, US and Australia, involving the repudiation of a submarine deal between Canberra and Paris, boosted Johnsons standing in Washington. But Biden has consistently stated that his administration would respond severely over any move the UK makes jeopardising the Good Friday Agreement. He is also more determined than Trump to win the support of Europe in the escalating conflict with China.

The outcome of the dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol is therefore bound up with calculations made in the increasingly frenzied war drive in the Asia-Pacific. Combined, these geopolitical tensions threaten an explosion of trade and military conflicts. They can find no resolution within the framework of imperialist politics. They can only be combatted through the development of a unified socialist movement of the European and international working class against nationalism, war and the pursuit of profit over human need.

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UK-European Union conflict over Northern Ireland Protocol amid spiralling national tensions - WSWS

Europe Union is taking the U.S. off its "safe travel" list.

American travelers in Europe may soon face additional Covid-related restrictions such as quarantines and testing requirements. The European Union has already begun the procedure to remove the United States and five other countries from its safe travel list, reports Reuters.

Travelers from countries on the safe list can visit E.U. countries without quarantining by showing only a recent negative test result, while travelers from other countries are discouraged from visiting for non-essential reasons. However as the safe list is non-binding, American travelers would not automatically be barred from entry to E.U. countries. The last word will come from each individual E.U. country, which has the authority to impose their own restrictions. In other words, its going to be a messy patchwork of different rules and regulations across the continent.

The change to the so-called safe list could become official as soon as Monday. The other countries on the chopping block include Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.

The E.U.s safe list includes countries outside the 27-member block that are considered safe amid the Coronavirus pandemic due to the low rates of infections. The list is updated periodically based on the latest coronavirus developments in each country.

The threshold for being on the safe travel list is having fewer than 75 new Covid-19 cases daily per 100,000 inhabitants over the previous 14 days. Currently the United States has an infection rate roughly seven times above that threshold.

The picture looked rosier for the U.S. when it was added to the list of safe countries in mid-June. At that time, the vaccination rollout was well underway in the United States, and the number of new daily Covid cases was declining. But now, as the delta variant of the coronavirus continues to sweep across America, Covid levels are back to what they were in January.

In early August, when the infection rate in the U.S. was half as high as it is currently but still well over the safe travel threshold the bloc discussed curbing U.S. travelers, but decided to keep the status quo.

Last Thursday, the E.U. member countries again debated whether to reimpose limits on U.S. tourists. This time around, European nations reportedly concluded that the U.S. is not able to remain on the list.

Excerpt from:
European Union To Remove The U.S. From Its Safe Travel List - Forbes

During a meeting scheduled to be held today between the EU ambassadors, the Slovenian representatives are set to propose the reintroduction of the entry ban on American travellers, due to a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in this country in recent weeks.

The US has marked a number of 507 new positive cases with COVID-19 per 100,000 people during the last 14 days, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) data indicates, which means that now its infection rates are beyond the rates one country should stay under in order for its citizens to be eligible to enter the EU for non-essential purposes.

Following this turn of events, the country is automatically considered a high-risk area, like all other countries with infection rates of between 480 to 959 positive cases for 100,000 inhabitants during 14 days, as SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

According to ECDC data, the continent of America has reported 80,477,464 positive cases for the 14 days week notice, with the United States experiencing the highest number of infections 36,681,559, Brazil (20,364,099), Argentina (5,088,271), Colombia (4,870,922) and Mexico (3,108,438).

The US also accounts for the largest number of deaths in the American continent, reporting 621,636 deaths from the beginning of the pandemic up until August 15*, followed by Brazil (569,058), Mexico (248,652), Peru (197,487) and Colombia (123,580).

The EU ended its travel ban for non-essential reasons imposed on several third countries such as Albania, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Serbia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, including here the United States. Since June, fully vaccinated American travellers have been exempted from testing and quarantine requirements when entering the majority of European countries.

The decision of lifting entry restrictions for Americans followed Ursula von der Leyens statements, who is the head of the EU Commission, that Americans should be able to travel to Europe since they are being vaccinated with the same authorised manufacturer shots as Europeans are.

The Americans, as far as I can see, use European Medicines Agency-approved vaccines. This will enable free movement and travel to the European Union, Von der Leyen said back in April.

While EU officials and companies urge the US to ease travel rules, the same has kept a strict travel ban on Europeans for more than 500 days now, despite many European countries having a lower infection rate than the US currently does. For the most recent 14-day period, the representatives for the European countries have reported 61,095,909 positive cases with the virus, almost 20 million less than the US.

The World Health Organisation data updated in the last 24 hours reveals that 1,146 people have died in the US due to Coronavirus implications and 227,282 people tested positive for the virus. The country, which counts more than 328 million inhabitants, has suffered 625,046 deaths since the pandemic started, and 37,816,239 people were infected with the virus.

*NOTE: A previous version of this article said The US also accounts for the largest number of deaths in the American continent, reporting 621,636 deaths since August 15. In order to avoid any misunderstandings, we have updated it to clarify that in fact, this number of cases was reported from the beginning of the pandemic up until August 15.

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EU Discussing Today the Reintroduction of Travel Ban on Americans as US Infection Rates Surge - SchengenVisaInfo.com - SchengenVisaInfo.com

The European Union's proposed carbon pricing rules could hit a major snag in the form of China and the U.S., but one expert predicts it will still possible to convince the economic superpowers to get onboard using a series of cautious steps.

The EU said in July that it wants to impose a carbon border adjustment mechanism also referred to as CBAM. The measure, if approved, will force EU businesses to pay a carbon levy for goods they import from outside the bloc. In essence, it aims to incentivize other places with less stringent emissions rules to reduce their carbon footprints or else risk losing some business.

The problem is that some nations might not want to go down that route; or at least not as fast as the EU, which is aiming to cut its greenhouse gas emission by 55% from 1990 levels by the end of 2030. China, India, South Africa and Brazil said in April they had "grave concern" regarding the EU's intentions for a carbon tax, calling it "discriminatory."

Tim Gore, member of the Institute for European Environmental Policy, a think tank, told CNBC in July that the CBAM "has very big implications, of course, for countries which are exporting into the EU market."

As such, he said the EU will have "to invest in serious dialogue" with those countries to bring them on board. He said one of the ways to achieve this is "to make sure the revenues that will be generated are returned to those countries to support their low carbon transition." He said this would be particularly useful for poorer countries, that are looking to increase their cash positions.

But China is not necessarily in this category and nor is the United States, which has also raised eyebrows over the EU's plan. John Kerry, the U.S.' top climate envoy, said earlier this year he had concerns about the proposal and that it should be used only has a "last resort," suggesting that other steps could be taken to reduce global emissions.

Gore, from the Institute for European Environmental Policy, believes that competition to be the world's leading economy will be the solution to any conflict with the EU's climate plans.

"Both those economies [the U.S. and China] know as well that the EU here is making a serious down payment on advancing into this new low carbon economy. So irrespective of the international climate negotiations, those governments will be looking at their own economies and saying where is the competitive edge in the next 10 to 20 years," Gore said via Zoom, while adding that Beijing and Washington will want to make sure they will not be left behind in the race to carbon neutrality.

As long as industrial installations outside the EU are not subject to similarly ambitious measures, these efforts can lose their effect.

Paolo Gentiloni

European Commissioner

A Brussels-based think tank, Bruegel, also said in a blogpost last month that the EU should ensure that international talks over its carbon tax plan happen at the World Trade Organization. This approach would likely reduce future trade disputes in this space.

Either way, the EU seems intent in pursing this policy.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, decided to put forward the CBAM proposal despite the concerns raised by some international partners. The institution believes the policy is essential to prevent "carbon leakage" the idea that companies operating in Europe would shift their production to places with less restrictive emissions policies.

A detail of the pilot carbon dioxide (CO2) capture plant is pictured at Amager Bakke waste incinerator in Copenhagen on June 24, 2021. - The goal is to be able to capture 500,000 tonnes of CO2 from Amager Bakke's emissions by 2025.

IDA GULDBAEK ARENTSEN | AFP | Getty Images

"As long as industrial installations outside the EU are not subject to similarly ambitious measures, these efforts can lose their effect," the EU's economic commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said in July about the need to impose the CBAM.

As a result, the 27 EU member states and the European Parliament are assessing the proposal. But this legislative process could take up to two years to be fully implemented into law.

"We are already too late in moving on climate change. We can see this summer,extreme weather events all around the world," Bob Ward, from the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy in London told CNBC last week.

He added that "this is going to continue to get worse for at least the next three decades till we get to net zero as a world."

"We need an orderly but accelerated transition towards net zero emissions," he said.

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How Europe could get China and the U.S. on its side with new carbon tax - CNBC