European Commission Draft Withdrawal Agreement: EU draft Brexit treaty has Northern Ireland remaining in the customs union

The European Commission has published its draft Brexit agreement, in which it lays out the possibility of Northern Ireland remaining in the customs union.

In the document, the EU said it aimed to “create a common regulatory area on the island of Ireland in order to safeguard North-South cooperation, the all-island economy, and protect the 1998 Agreement”.

“A common regulatory area comprising the Union and the United Kingdom in respect of Northern Ireland is hereby established,” the Commission states in the draft.

“The common regulatory area shall constitute an area without internal borders in which the free movement of goods is ensured and North-South cooperation protected.”

The EU said its proposals were based on a “scenario of maintaining full alignment with those rules of the Union’s internal market and the customs union” unless an alternative plan is decided upon.

The Commission said co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Republic “across the full range of political, economic, societal and agricultural contexts relies to a significant extent on common Union legal and policy frameworks”.

The issue of Northern Ireland is one of the most hotly debated topics relating to Brexit, with Boris Johnson yesterday raising the prospect of a hard border with the rest of Ireland. The foreign secretary also compared the border in Ireland with the boundary between Camden and Westminster in London.

MEP and leader of the Conservative delegation of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Ashley Fox told City A.M: “Clearly what has been suggested would be unacceptable. Northern Ireland will not remain part of the customs union while Great Britain doesn’t. It’s just nonsense, and rather provocative nonsense.”

The representative for South West England and Gibraltar added there would “clearly” be a border on the island of Ireland, “but there’s no reason why it can’t be an invisible border”.

“The UK has said we are going to leave the customs union and strike deals with other countries. That means there will be a border, and we need to construct it in as invisible and sensitive a way as possible,” he added.