EU's Sefcovic to brief U.S. lawmakers on Northern Ireland's Brexit puzzle

[March 10, 2021]  DUBLIN (Reuters) - EU Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic and Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney will brief the U.S. Congress' influential Irish-American caucus on Wednesday on difficulties implementing Northern Irish Brexit arrangements.

The fate of Northern Ireland, closely watched by U.S. President Joe Biden, has been the most bitterly contested Brexit issue. London ultimately agreed to leave the British-run region aligned with the EU's single market for goods when it left the bloc's orbit last year, necessitating checks on some items arriving there from elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Britain's unilateral extension of grace periods on checks of some goods to Northern Ireland last week has led to a promise of legal action from the EU and accusations from Ireland that its neighbour is not acting like a "respectable country".

The Friends of Ireland caucus, a bipartisan group on Capitol Hill that weighed into the Brexit debate on Ireland's behalf before the Northern Irish protocol was agreed in 2019, requested the briefing from both Sefcovic and Coveney, the European Commission said.

Coveney has sought the support of U.S. lawmakers throughout the Brexit process and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin is due to speak to Biden next week, in lieu of the usual St Patrick's Day bilateral meeting in the White House.

Biden, while campaigning in the presidential election last year, bluntly warned Britain that it must honour Northern Ireland's 1998 peace agreement as it withdrew from the EU or there would be no separate U.S. trade deal.

The Irish-American caucus wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson with a similar warning in 2019. The group is chaired by Democrat Richard Neal, who is also the chairman of the powerful Congressional committee overseeing trade.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement largely ended three decades of violence between mostly Catholic nationalists fighting for a united Ireland and mostly Protestant unionists, or loyalists, who want Northern Ireland to stay part of the United Kingdom.

Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary groups have told Johnson they are temporarily withdrawing support for the 1998 agreement due to concerns over the Brexit deal.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin in Dublin and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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