British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said all sides wanted the best outcome for Northern Ireland. Reuters
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said all sides wanted the best outcome for Northern Ireland. Reuters
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said all sides wanted the best outcome for Northern Ireland. Reuters
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said all sides wanted the best outcome for Northern Ireland. Reuters

UK and EU data agreement key to Northern Ireland Protocol talks


Sunniva Rose
  • English
  • Arabic

Britain and the EU came to an agreement on data-sharing on Monday, in a step towards resolving issues stemming from post-Brexit rules governing trade with Northern Ireland, the two sides said.

The agreement was critical to further talks on the trading regulations known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, UK Foreign Minister James Cleverly and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said after a meeting in London.

“They agreed that while a range of critical issues need to be resolved to find a way forward, an agreement was reached today on the way forward regarding the specific question of the EU's access to UK IT systems,” they said in a joint statement.

“They noted this work was a critical prerequisite to building trust and providing assurance, and provided a new basis for EU-UK discussions.”

The meeting was described as “cordial and constructive”.

“We share the same focus — finding the best outcome for Northern Ireland,” said Mr Cleverly on Twitter.

Mr Sefcovic tweeted that EU and UK teams “will work rapidly to scope potential for solutions in different areas”. They will measure progress next Monday.

Hopes are high that the EU and the UK can reach an agreement in negotiations on the Northern Ireland Protocol in the coming weeks following Rishi Sunak’s appointment as UK Prime Minister in late October, an EU official told The National last week.

Officials have two possible deadlines in mind. The first is next Thursday, which is the deadline for the UK’s Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris to call elections. The second is the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended a long-running conflict in Northern Ireland, on April 10.

Brussels is concerned that the UK is not making checks on products entering Northern Ireland from Britain as stipulated in the Northern Ireland Protocol, which came into force in January 2021, following Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.

The EU worries that a lack of checks would promote smuggling or tax dodging but Britain has tried to keep checks at a minimum to promote the free flow of goods.

Checks are to be conducted in the Irish Sea to avoid a hard land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, amid fears that a land border would revive tensions on the island.

The protocol stipulates that the UK should share live customs data with the EU about trade between Northern Ireland and Britain to ease the EU's concerns.

The UK delayed building the necessary system, meaning tests were not carried out before late 2022.

“I think we've made some progress in recent weeks, but we're not quite there yet,” Ireland's foreign affairs minister at the time, Simon Coveney, said in December.

The issue has overshadowed Northern Irish politics since it was agreed, as members of the unionist community are unhappy with the difficulties it creates for trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

The Democratic Unionist Party has refused to co-operate with forming a devolved executive in Belfast until issues with the agreement are resolved.

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Angela Bassett, Tina Fey

Directed by: Pete Doctor

Rating: 4 stars

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Director: Punit Malhotra

Stars: Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria, Ananya Pandey, Aditya Seal 

1.5 stars

Company profile

Name: Steppi

Founders: Joe Franklin and Milos Savic

Launched: February 2020

Size: 10,000 users by the end of July and a goal of 200,000 users by the end of the year

Employees: Five

Based: Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai

Financing stage: Two seed rounds – the first sourced from angel investors and the founders' personal savings

Second round raised Dh720,000 from silent investors in June this year

Company%20profile
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Director: Laxman Utekar

Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna

Rating: 1/5

Winners

Ballon d’Or (Men’s)
Ousmane Dembélé (Paris Saint-Germain / France)

Ballon d’Or Féminin (Women’s)
Aitana Bonmatí (Barcelona / Spain)

Kopa Trophy (Best player under 21 – Men’s)
Lamine Yamal (Barcelona / Spain)

Best Young Women’s Player
Vicky López (Barcelona / Spain)

Yashin Trophy (Best Goalkeeper – Men’s)
Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City / Italy)

Best Women’s Goalkeeper
Hannah Hampton (England / Aston Villa and Chelsea)

Men’s Coach of the Year
Luis Enrique (Paris Saint-Germain)

Women’s Coach of the Year
Sarina Wiegman (England)

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It Was Just an Accident

Director: Jafar Panahi

Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr

Rating: 4/5

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

Director: Scott Cooper

Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Odessa Young, Jeremy Strong

Rating: 4/5

Zakat definitions

Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.

Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.

Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.

Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.

Day 2, stumps

Pakistan 482

Australia 30/0 (13 ov)

Australia trail by 452 runs with 10 wickets remaining in the innings

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Healthcare spending to double to $2.2 trillion rupees

Launched a 641billion-rupee federal health scheme

Allotted 200 billion rupees for the recapitalisation of state-run banks

Around 1.75 trillion rupees allotted for privatisation and stake sales in state-owned assets

Paatal Lok season two

Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy 

Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong

Rating: 4.5/5

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Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cyl turbo

Power: 194hp at 5,600rpm

Torque: 275Nm from 2,000-4,000rpm

Transmission: 6-speed auto

Price: from Dh155,000

On sale: now

House-hunting

Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove

  1. Edinburgh, Scotland 
  2. Westminster, London 
  3. Camden, London 
  4. Glasgow, Scotland 
  5. Islington, London 
  6. Kensington and Chelsea, London 
  7. Highlands, Scotland 
  8. Argyll and Bute, Scotland 
  9. Fife, Scotland 
  10. Tower Hamlets, London 

 

French business

France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.

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Mumbai Indians 213/6 (20 ov)

Royal Challengers Bangalore 167/8 (20 ov)

Silent Hill f

Publisher: Konami

Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Rating: 4.5/5

Updated: January 09, 2023, 5:22 PM