TALLINN: Finding a solution for the Irish border after Brexit is “not beyond the wit of man” and Britain and the European Union should work on that together, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Friday.
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator said on Thursday he was worried by Britain’s plans for the border arrangement with Ireland and asked London to come up with “creative proposals.”
“I think we can all work together to come up with a solution on that one. It is not beyond the wit of man,” Johnson told reporters in Estonia’s capital Tallinn, where he was attending a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
“We’ve had a common travel area between the north and the south of Ireland for getting on for a century and we’re going to continue to make that work.”
Negotiations to extricate Britain from the EU have seen a slow start and Brussels has repeatedly warned that time is running out to answer complex and thorny questions before Britain is due to leave in March, 2019.
But asked if he was confident that Britain’s Brexit minister, David Davis, would get a deal with the EU, Johnson said: “Absolutely, with rock solid confidence.”
He also reiterated London’s stance — firmly rejected by the EU — that the divorce talks should run together with discussion about the post-Brexit relationship between Britain and the EU.
The bloc, which will have 27 member states after Brexit, wants to solve key exit issues before opening talks about any future trade cooperation with Britain.
But, with slow progress on agreeing Britian’s divorce bill, ensuring expatriates’ rights and deciding on the Irish border, the EU now doubts it would give a green light in October for starting talks about the post-Brexit order, as had been planned.
Johnson disagreed, saying the legal clause for leaving the EU, or Article 50, did mention taking into account a future relationship with the departing country.
“Article 50 makes it very clear that the discussion about the exit of a country must be taken in context with discussion of the future arrangements. And that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
Britain’s Johnson says solving Irish border “not beyond wit of man”
Britain’s Johnson says solving Irish border “not beyond wit of man”
