Thread by @tconnellyRTE

NEW: EU official says the EU has always made it clear that the "objectives set out by the UK" in the Command Paper on the NI Protocol are "unattainable", but says the EU is committed to the current EU UK technical talks

Official says: We think that we've proven beyond a reasonable doubt that EU’s proposals constitute a significant difference in comparison to the baseline scenario, which is the actual NI protocol as it stood on the day it was designed + even go beyond the status quo as it stands

Official adds: the UK command paper was an extremely significant step in the wrong direction, and presenting it as a step in the right direction. I think it's completely disingenuous

On David Frost's claim that the EU's offer of a 50pc cut in customs formalities was bogus, in that it referred only to a 50pc cut in the fields to be filled in, official says: "we stand by everything that we've said on custom, ie on a 50% reduction in the formalities."

The official says there is "a point of commonality" between both sides in that goods moving from GB to NI shd be treated differently depending on whether their final destination is Northern Ireland, or whether their final destination is the European Union (ie Ireland).

"The question is, how do you determine whether a good is destined for Northern Ireland or for the internal market? What we think does not work is just to leave it to traders to say where it goes."

Official adds: "We think that a sufficient amount of data needs to be collected In all cases, in order to then be able to do a credible risk assessment to work out whether the destination as declared actually makes sense or not."

On democratic consent for NI and the presence of NI figures, the official says: there is already a lot on democratic consent and their participation in the protocol which tends to be forgotten in this conversation.

"There are already meetings of the joint committee in which the First Minister and the Dep First Minister, are present and can take the floor and there's a Joint Consultative Working Group, which is specifically there, to involve the NI authorities which we've proposed to beef up

On the ECJ, the official says: the UK position on governance is that the role of the EU institutions [in the protocol] needs to go. The question of the ECJ is a broader one in the sense that the ECJ is on top of a much broader governance structure, which the UK does not accept.

"So long as that remains the UK's positioned I don't see what we can do."