{"id":412271,"date":"2025-09-10T04:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T04:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/412271\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T04:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T04:51:10","slug":"britain-should-allow-eu-to-reopen-belfast-office-says-ni-trade-body-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/412271\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain should allow EU to reopen Belfast office, says NI trade body \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Union<\/a> (EU) should reopen its office in Belfast<\/a> in a bid to speed up efforts to overcome problems left by the Windsor Framework<\/a>, a major Northern Irish business body has said.<\/p>\n

Trade NI, which represents manufacturing, hospitality and retail businesses across Northern Ireland, visits Dublin on Wednesday to meet T\u00e1naiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Harris<\/a>, the Oireachtas Good Friday committee and others.<\/p>\n

The EU\u2019s office in Belfast \u2013 which was opened in 1979, just a year after one opened in Cardiff and two years before one opened in Edinburgh \u2013 was closed in 2020 after the United Kingdom left the EU on January 30th of that year.<\/p>\n

The British Conservative government then in power rejected a call by Brussels to keep the office opened, believing that even the making of such a request was \u201ctantamount to an infringement of sovereignty\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite better relations with the Irish Government since Labour took power in London, it is understood there is still significant opposition in Britain to letting the EU have a presence on the ground in Belfast.<\/p>\n

There were calls on Lord Paul Murphy, who recently carried out a major review of the Windsor Framework, to include such a recommendation. He pointedly did not include the idea in his final list, following contacts with Whitehall.<\/p>\n

Trade NI strongly supports the reopening of an EU Belfast office: \u201cThe EU has full diplomatic status with the United Kingdom. I don\u2019t see why they couldn\u2019t open up a type of consulate in Belfast, in Cardiff, in Edinburgh,\u201d said Glyn Roberts.<\/p>\n

Such an office would help greatly to deal with Windsor Framework problems, and other issues: \u201cIf we had someone on the ground that we could get into contact with immediately, it would help greatly,\u201d he told The Irish Times.<\/p>\n

Urging the Irish Government to support the idea, Mr Roberts, who chairs one of Trade NI\u2019s three constituent organisations, Retail NI, said a Belfast office would help \u201cfrom a practical problem-solver point of view\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0EU blocks Britain\u2019s attempts to join pan-European trading blocOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The final successful negotiation of the Windsor Framework in February 2023 prevented the creation of a hard Border with the Republic and kept Northern Ireland inside the EU market for goods. However, it has complicated trade between Northern Ireland and Britain. <\/p>\n

Problems remain, said Mr Roberts, though the successful negotiation of a so-called SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) deal, that will ease the checks and paperwork on the movement of animals, animal products, food and plants, will get rid of \u201c85 per cent and 90 per cent\u201d of issues.<\/p>\n

However, that agreement will not be ready for two years, he warned. Many Northern Ireland businesses have \u201clost upwards of 500 to 1,000 product lines\u201d because British suppliers do not want the hassle of dealing with separate NI paperwork.<\/p>\n

During their Dublin visit, the Trade NI delegation will meet officials from the Government\u2019s Shared Island initiative, which is funding practical cross-Border co-operations, such as the Narrow Water bridge between Louth and Down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about engagement, it\u2019s about taking the politics out of it. We\u2019re not there for any political reasons. We\u2019re there to talk about how we can advance projects,\u201d Mr Roberts told The Irish Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a big job of work for us to outreach in a non-political way and say, \u2018Despite our difficulties, Northern Ireland has a good story to tell\u2019. We\u2019re saying we have ambitions, we want our region to be the best anywhere in these islands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union (EU) should reopen its office in Belfast in a bid to speed up efforts to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[13515,2000,299,5187,1699,1144,7160,141735,15,23146],"class_list":{"0":"post-412271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-common-ground","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-simon-harris","15":"tag-trade-ni","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-windsor-framework"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115178208122505572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}