Brexit: the sausages of discord between London and Brussels

Published on : 06/10/2021 – 6:25 PM

For a handful of sausages… Six months after Brexit, tensions are again at their height between the United Kingdom and the European Union. A meeting between negotiators from London and those from Brussels, Wednesday 9 June, did not resolve the differences on the application of trade provisions in Northern Ireland.

There was talk of the risk of a trade war between the EU and the United Kingdom, of “intransigence” in Brussels, of European negotiators “at the end of their patience”. All because of a little meat?

The sausages will not pass ?

This is what the British tabloids have dubbed the “sausage war”. It is not new and had already poisoned the negotiations between London and Brussels before the UK’s effective exit from the EU in January 2021.

But she has returned to the forefront of the diplomatic scene as a six-month moratorium on the application of certain European health control rules on British exports to Northern Ireland is supposed to end.

From 1^er July, the UK should no longer be able to ship certain meats to Northern Irish supermarkets. And the famous British sausages that are part of it have become, in the eyes of the British government, a symbol of all that is wrong with the Northern Irish protocol, put in place after Brexit to avoid a much feared return of land borders between the two Irish.

>> Read also: How Brexit created “endless tensions” and an impasse in Northern Ireland

Bottom line: British sausages pay the price for Northern Ireland’s convoluted status. Although politically attached to the United Kingdom, Belfast continues, despite Brexit, to be subject to the rules of the European single market. The reason is that the Republic of Ireland is an integral part of the European Union. As it was out of the question to install physical customs posts between the two Irlandes, likely to rekindle violence between unionists and separatists, all checks on compliance with EU rules for British products are carried out in the northern ports. Irish. And the trade border was thus established in the Irish Sea.

And this is where the shoe pinches for sausages. A European health standard prohibits the import of raw meat from non-EU countries unless it is frozen at -18 ° C. This rule was adopted so that European consumers do not put meat on their plates from countries where health controls may be poor, such as China, which has experienced its share of food scandals. But British sausages – just like some burgers and nuggets – also fall under this ban because they are not frozen enough.

For the British government, this is politically unacceptable since Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. In his view, the consumer in Belfast must be able to have access to the same sausages as the one in London.

Sausages as a “Trojan Horse”?

However, this “sausage war” is “only the tip of the iceberg”, judge Iain Begg, specialist in European economic policy at the London School of Economics, contacted by France 24. As such, “sausage exports to Northern Ireland are insignificant and there is, locally, quite the industrial capacity to produce it,” he said.

It would rather be a “question of philosophy of the application of the measures of the Northern Irish protocol”, judges this expert. “There is a legalistic vision of the text, embodied by the European Union, opposed to a more pragmatic approach, which the British government defends”, summarizes Iain Begg.

London would ask Brussels for a little flexibility, arguing that the United Kingdom is not China and that “health controls are, on many points, very close to those recommended by European regulations”, underlines the specialist in the London School of Economics.

But the EU is, too, “completely in its right to refuse to make an exception”, he qualifies. Especially since if it gives in for the sausages, nothing would prevent London from using this same argument of normative proximity to the single market to ignore other rules. “The European fear is that the sausages will serve as a Trojan horse,” said Iain Begg.

Boris Johnson has also robbed Brussels by declaring in recent weeks that he will unilaterally decide to extend the moratorium on the application of EU health standards until October 2021. Such an initiative would not only be illegal under European rules, it would be seen as a declaration of trade war, warned Maros Sefcovic, the vice-president of the European Commission who is in charge of the Brexit negotiations with London. Under these conditions, Brussels has no desire to please London.

Pressures from all sides on Boris Johnson

Especially since the EU knows that time is on its side. Boris Johnson is under increasing international pressure to give in. US President Joe Biden, who arrived in England on Wednesday 9 June for the G7, urged the British Prime Minister to resolve the situation in Northern Ireland as quickly as possible. He even hinted that the future of a UK-US trade deal may depend on it.

But Boris Johnson is caught “between the hammer of Joe Biden and the anvil of the North Irish unionists”, recalls Iain Begg. Part of the Northern Irish population already feels that the British government has abandoned it in favor of good relations with the European Union. Giving in on the sausage issue could increase tension in the region even further. The fact “that the new leadership of the Northern Irish Unionist party [mis en place depuis mi-mai, NDLR] be more radical than the previous one is not going to make it easy for him “, believes Iain Begg. In many ways, with this” war of the sausages “, Boris Johnson has the choice between two bad solutions: to upset his powerful American ally or to antagonize the North Unionists. Irishmen capable of harming him politically at the national level.