Complexity of NI Protocol 'not thought through' - and very few opportunities for input into laws governing NI, Lords told

Anton Spizak, Associate Fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told a Lords committee that requirements for the EU to notify the UK about new laws “falls short of other precedents that the EU negotiated in the past – and I don’t think it’s sufficient”.

Academics were giving evidence to a House of Lords Committee on the Windsor Framework on Wednesday.

Peers questioned the effectiveness of mechanisms to provide a democratic input for local politicians. Professor David Phinnemore from the Post-Brexit Governance Unit at Queen’s University Belfast said that his view on the Stormont Brake is that “the potential for its use was possibly overstated” when it was being sold.

He said that when his organisation had carried out an analysis of how much EU legislation the Stormont Brake could apply to – it found “very few”.

The Stormont Brake was seen as a way of delivering a limited form of democratic input from NI politicians into EU laws.

Prof. Phinnemore also said he didn’t think at the outset of the Protocol that people really thought through how to manage its complexity. “A complexity which has arguably become greater because of the differences between the UK TCA [Trade and Co-Operation Agreement] and the UK’s relationship with the EU in respect of Northern Ireland”, he said.

He argued that there is a “potential” for Northern Ireland’s voice to be heard – but that there are concerns about how effective that has been so far.

Anton Spizak, Associate Fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told the committee said there are “very few opportunities” for Northern Ireland stakeholders to be involved in the pre-legislative process – ie giving input into new EU laws. He the requirements for the EU to notify the UK about new laws “falls short of other precedents that the EU negotiated in the past – and I don’t think it’s sufficient”.

However, he said arrangements for how MLAs feed into the process after the laws have been created by the EU – such as the Stormont Brake and applicability motions – have been strengthened significantly. He said that there are now over 30 bodies involved in the structures governing the Windsor Framework.

Lord Empey asked how the Safeguarding the Union structures fit in with the existing arrangements under the protocol. Mr Spizak said that structures such as Intertrade UK have yet to be established.