Britain and the EU yesterday reached a historic deal on Brexit divorce terms that allows them to open talks on a future relationship after the split.
British Prime Minister Theresa May rushed to Brussels for early morning talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to reach the breakthrough.
The European Commission announced that it “recommends sufficient progress” had been made by Britain on separation issues, including the Irish border, Britain’s divorce bill and EU citizens’ rights, but EU President Donald Tusk — who is to recommend to leaders at a summit next week to open trade and transition talks — said that the toughest task was to come.
Photo: EPA
“Let us remember that the most difficult challenge is still ahead. We all know that breaking up is hard, but breaking up and building a new relation is much harder,” Tusk said.
May said the key part of the agreement was to ensure there would be no return of checkpoints on the frontier between British-ruled Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Britain leaves on March 29, 2019.
“In Northern Ireland we will guarantee there will be no hard border,” May told a news conference.
Northern Irish unionists, who prop up May’s minority Conservative government, scuppered a possible deal on Monday with their fierce opposition to wording they felt would divide Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster told Sky News she was “pleased” to see changes to the deal following the party’s demands.
The deal commits both sides to respect the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of violence between nationalists, who want a united Ireland, and Northern Ireland unionists loyal to Britain.
Under the agreement, London would find a way to avoid a hard border in Ireland “through the overall EU-UK relationship,” but if this cannot be achieved, Britain would keep “full alignment” with the EU single market and customs union rules that are crucial to the Good Friday Agreement.
In Dublin, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar welcomed the deal as “the end of the beginning,” but said Ireland would remain “vigilant.”
On its divorce bill, previously the most contentious issue, Britain agreed to pay a settlement of between 45 billion and 55 billion euros (US$53 billion and US$65 billion).
Concerning the welfare and social rights of the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit, as part of the dea,l Britain agreed to protect them with a mechanism to give EU citizens recourse to the European Court of Justice if they feel they are being treated unfairly.
NETWORK-MAPPING PROJECT: The database contains 170 detailed files of Taiwanese politicians and about 23 million records of household registration data in Taiwan China has developed a network-mapping project targeting political figures and parties in Taiwan to monitor public opinion during elections and to craft tailored influence campaigns aimed at dividing Taiwanese society, according to documents leaked by Chinese technology firm GoLaxy (中科天璣). The documents, collected by Taipei-based Doublethink Lab, showed a database was specifically created to gather detailed information on Taiwanese political figures, including their political affiliations, job histories, birthplaces, residences, education, religion and a brief biography about them. Several notable Taiwanese politicians are in the database, including President William Lai (賴清德), former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍),
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
RSS