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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar @campaignforleo says the EU could provide a greater assurance to the UK that a future trade agreement could be negotiated quickly in order to avoid the backstop coming into effect.
Arriving at the EU summit in Brussels Mr Varadkar the Withdrawal Agreement was the only deal on the table and that any clarifications could not contradict what it contained.
The Taoiseach held what he described as a long meeting with the British Prime Minister Theresa May this morning ahead of the European Council. He said she had put forward some suggestions that “made sense” and others that were “difficult”.
Asked if Dublin would accept “legally binding” assurances, he said: “I don’t think we could agree to anything that would change the content of the WA so we’ll have to work out exactly what those assurances are, what those explanations are and what form they will take.”
“We’re very keen to offer explanations, assurances, clarifications, anything that may assist MPs to understand the agreement and hopefully support it, but the backstop is not on the table.”
He said both leaders talked about “how we might give the UK govt a greater assurance that the future FTA will actually be negotiated in an expeditious manner, and will be negotiated and agreed long before we’d have to consider things such as an extension to the transition period
or the implementation of the backstop.
“It was in that space. We all accept that the backstop is a backstop, it’s an insurance policy, nobody wants us to have to invoke it, and if it is invoked we want to make sure it’s for as short a period as possible,
Asked about the impact of No Deal on the Irish border Mr Varadkar said: “It is a fact that the UK can withdraw the threat of No Deal. The threat of No Deal is a threat to Britain and its own economy, a threat to Ireland and to Europe, and that threat can be withdrawn at any time
....by the UK should they chose to revoke A50, or if that’s a step too far, to extend it to allow us more time, and to allow Britain more time to decide what it wants.
