Ulster Unionist Party Leader Dr Steve Aiken OBE MLA has said that the EU’s dismissive attitude to concerns about how easily food supplies will be imported into Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom post Brexit, does not bode well for the future.
Steve Aiken OBE MLA said:
“On the 5th of November, in an extraordinary development, the First and deputy First Ministers wrote to the European Commission, highlighting the very real concerns that exist about the threat to the continuity of our food supplies post Brexit. They also stated that this was an unacceptable situation and they urged the European Commission to act urgently to allay these fears.
“Today the Commission has responded, in essence, ignoring these concerns, reiterating again, that ‘goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the world, will need to meet EU rules on food safety.’ In other words, sealed containers of goods being brought into Northern Ireland supermarkets, for the exclusive use of our people and from our own nation, are to be treated as being somehow at risk. That the FM/dFM view this matter so seriously, that they jointly wrote to raise this issue, and to have it treated so dismissively, by the EU should serve as a warning. It certainly does not bode well for Northern Ireland under the Protocol, or the respect that the EU shows for the Belfast Agreement, or even the people of Northern Ireland.
“Furthermore, there is a deafening silence from Simon Coveney, and parties such as Alliance and the SDLP, that seem to place adherence to the EU’s single market rules, above our own food supply. This is a clear breach of the Belfast Agreement, because no unionist would have voted for it in 1998 if it had been suggested that restricting food supplies into Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom was part of the deal. We all deserve better.”