Where are the Joint Committee Working Groups to resolve NI Protocol difficulties? – Beggs
Roy Beggs MLA has urged the Westminster Government and the EU to urgently engage and remove the barriers that are disrupting trade and could cause even further problems for Northern Ireland`s food supplies from 1st April. He has questioned the absence of the Joint Committee Working Groups which are meant to resolve issues.
Ulster Unionist MLA, Roy Beggs, said:
“The UK Government and the EU, who agreed the Northern Ireland Protocol in December, have a duty of care to the Northern Ireland public to minimise trade disruption and to ensure that wide ranging food supplies to Northern Ireland businesses and consumers can continue.
“With Food Retailers and Wholesalers expressing concerns about the ability to work the current NI Protocol processes, the question must be asked, why have the Joint Committee Working Groups and Specialist Working groups not yet been established to urgently address this? Where are they? They were supposed to address any problems with the Protocol but they have not even been established, never mind met and come forward with solutions.
“It is time that all Northern Ireland`s parties worked together to get practical solutions to benefit all our citizens. Both the UK government and the EU have a responsibility to protect the Belfast Agreement which has already been badly undermined by their actions. The consequences and folly of breaching the Belfast Agreement by placing a regulatory border in the Irish Sea should now be apparent to all. We did warn them. Those involved in the food wholesale and retail sector have expressed major concerns about the maintenance of food supplies and it`s time that both HMG and the EU recognise the difficulties that they have caused and work to bring about practical solutions within sufficient time frames to protect trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
ENDS
