Overall picture tonight is of very cautious optimism after a week of intense diplomacy. Ireland was anxious in particular about @DominicRaab’s Sunday @telegraph & #Marr remarks about no new regulatory borders, believing this contravened Joint Report.
@simoncoveney had dinner with Raab in the Irish Embassy on Wed night; he also spoke four times by phone with @DLidington & met him once. Dublin now believes following news conference with Lidington & Karen Bradley UK now more accepting of the JR of last December “in full”.
Elements of a deal now coming into view, with bare bones UK-wide customs arrangement being stitched into the Withdrawal Agreement (as per @FT story) underpinned by a NI-specific backstop. Allows @theresa_may to say the latter will never be needed.
All eyes now on Tues cabinet meeting. View ex Dublin & Brussels is May has to jump politically. But everyone still holding their breath. The politics are still treacherous & the European Commission will have a lot of work to do to make the UK-wide customs thing legally watertight
Also seems that Olly Robbins is back fully in the driving seat, working closely with @WeyandSabine. It’s thought he stepped back somewhat when Raab took over from Davis.
Significant too that a new British Irish mechanism will be set up to bring Taoiseach & PM & ministers together from both sides once a year, building on GFA structures.
All eyes too on @MichelBarnier & whether he feels he can recommend to @eucopresident the calling of an emergency summit in Nov. Key meeting of EU ambassadors on Wed to assess state of play. He is said to want as much political bandwidth as poss to get a deal over the line.
