European Commission Secretary-General Martin Selmayr denied reports that the EU is considering tweaks on the Irish Backstop in Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. He tweeted that “On the EU side, nobody is considering this. Asked whether any assurance would help to get the Withdrawal Agreement through the Commons, the answers of MPs were inconclusive.” And he added that “the meeting confirmed that the EU did well to start its no deal preparations in December 2017.”
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney also said he had heard of no “alternative arrangements” on Irish backstop that would work. He said “the problem has been that none of those ideas around alternative arrangements have actually stood up to scrutiny. We certainly haven’t seen any that have”. He added that “We spent well over a year looking at different ways of providing the guarantee of no physical border infrastructure on the island of Ireland to protect an all Ireland economy which reinforces a peace process. Many hours were involved with coming up with a legally credible and pragmatic solution,”
And Coveny said, “I have yet to hear any new thinking that goes beyond what’s already been tested. What Ireland is being asked to do by some in Westminster is to essentially do away with an agreed solution between the UK government and EU negotiators and to replace it with wishful thinking. That is a very unreasonable request to ask the Irish government to be flexible on.”
