Agreement on food and animal health checks ‘close to being done’, but no progress on trickier issues
EU and UK negotiators have made a breakthrough in reducing checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as part of efforts to resolve the long-running dispute over the Northern Irish protocol.
A senior EU official confirmed to the Guardian that an agreement on food and animal health checks was “close to being done” as part of a deal that would create red and green lanes at Northern Irish ports to differentiate between goods staying in the region and those moving south to the EU’s single market.