July 22, 2021
LONDON (AP) – Tense post-Brexit relations between Britain and the European Union (EU) faced further strain yesterday, when the United Kingdom (UK) called for major changes to trade rules agreed on by both sides.
Brexit Minister David Frost will set out proposals for smoothing out trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK that has a land border with the 27-nation bloc. The divorce deal agreed before Britain’s departure means customs and border checks must be conducted on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
The regulations are intended to keep an open border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland, a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process. But they have angered Northern Ireland’s British unionists, who said they amount to a border in the Irish Sea and weaken ties with the rest of the UK.
He said a civilian passenger plane flying to Vilnius was forcibly landed in Minsk.
The Belarusian regime is behind the abhorrent action, he tweeted and demanded Mr Pratasevic be freed urgently.
Other world leaders to condemn the apparent forced landing included European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Irish European Affairs Minister Thomas Byrne and French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian.
Mr Pratasevich is the founder of the Telegram channel Nexta, which was broadly used to organise anti-government protests, and another similar channel critical of the government, both of which are classified as extremist in Belarus.
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Ireland considers it “unlikely” that the EU-Mercosur trade agreement will be concluded during the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Union and insists on guarantees that deforestation of the Amazon will be halted.
“I think it is unlikely to be concluded during the Portuguese presidency, but we would certainly like to see progress, positive progress,” Irish European Affairs Minister Thomas Byrne told Lusa on the sidelines of a visit to Lisbon.
Pointed out as a priority by the Portuguese presidency, the conclusion of the trade agreement, reached in June 2019 between the EU and the Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) after two decades of negotiations, is currently in the translation and legal review phase, at the end of which, with a political agreement of the 27, the countries of both blocs will have to ratify it.