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"What they're only interested in is protecting their bloc,
they're not interested, as they claim to be, in protecting the
Belfast agreement," Arlene Foster told BBC radio on Friday.
"If they were, they would not be taking the action that they're
taking a present."
The European Union said on Wednesday it would take legal action
after the British government unilaterally extended a grace
period for checks on food imports to Northern Ireland, a move
Brussels said violated the terms of Britain's divorce deal.
Foster said the purpose of the protocol was to stop goods from
the UK entering the EU single market, but its effects, and the
action taken in both London and Brussels, were "totally
disproportionate" to the risks.
"We need (the protocol) to be replaced because certainly
extending grace periods are only sticking plasters to what are
really fundamental problems in terms of trade," she said.
"There is a fundamental misunderstanding with the European Union
as to the damage that they are doing."
Since the EU's promise of legal action, Northern Irish loyalist
paramilitary groups have said they are temporarily withdrawing
support for the 1998 peace agreement, known as the Belfast peace
agreement or the Good Friday agreement, due to concerns over the
Brexit deal.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle and Sarah Young; editing by Costas
Pitas/Guy Faulconbridge)
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