Former DUP leader accuses EU of ‘irrational political bias’

Stormont’s former first minister, Peter Robinson, accused the EU of «irrational political bias» and warned it had to «get back to the drawing board» over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The former DUP leader described reforms to the post-Brexit arrangements outlined by European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic on Wednesday as an «upgrade» but insisted that «more movement is needed» to bring unionists to the council.

He suggested triggering the controversial Article 16 of the protocol – which allows the EU or the UK to unilaterally suspend aspects of their operations if either side considers them to cause «economic, social or environmental difficulties» – might be necessary to «achieve this objective».

Mr Robinson also accuses the SPD, the Alliance and Sinn Fein of «bitter support» of the EU’s proposed reforms, which would eliminate most inspections of goods transported between Britain and the North.

The de facto border on the Irish Sea was established under the protocol, agreed by London and Brussels, to avoid a difficult border on the island of Ireland and protect the EU’s single market after the UK withdrew from the bloc.

“What strikes me most is the irrational political prejudice and arrogant condescension on the part of the European Union, which believes it is a greater priority to ensure that there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland than between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United States of which we are part,” Mr Robinson wrote in His weekly column in The Newsletter.

Nationalists prefer it

He claimed that Mr. Sefkovitch was only interested in protecting the gains from the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday) favored by the Nationalists. He wrote that the 1998 peace agreement was «harmful» and «it is heresy for any unionist, especially with the benefit of hindsight, to praise it».

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