The Windsor Framework: What is in the new post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland?
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have agreed a new post-Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, calling it the Windsor Framework.
lt is designed to tackle the issues impacting Northern Ireland since the UK left the EU – and the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol came into force.
But what does the new deal entail?
This is an early look at what has been announced by Mr Sunak – we will bring you more when the full framework is published.
Trade
The agreement will introduce two new routes for goods when they are travelling from Great Britain into Northern Ireland.
Products which are travelling through NI to get to the Republic of Ireland – which is in the EU – will go via a red lane, ensuring they pass all the customs checks they need to before crossing the Irish Sea.
But products which are set to stay in NI – and therefore in the UK – will go via a green lane, which Mr Sunak said would see the current “burdensome customs bureaucracy scrapped”, e.g. no more documents.
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The prime minister said the new agreement on Brexit was a ‘historic’ and a ‘decisive breakthrough’ that ‘safeguards sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland’
The PM also said it would benefit people sending parcels to friends and family within the UK or buying products online as there would not have to be any customs paperwork.
He promised food available on supermarket shelves in Great Britain would also be available in Northern Ireland.
Mr Sunak said: “This means we have removed any sense of a border in the Irish Sea.”
Taxes and medicines
Next up is something Mr Sunak says protects Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.
The legal text of the protocol has been amended to make sure the UK government’s decision on VAT and excise will also be implemented in Northern Ireland.
Under the previous Brexit agreement, those decisions were taken in Brussels as the region had to follow single market rules.
But now any changes in Westminster will come into force in Northern Ireland, with the PM using the example of alcohol duty, “meaning our reforms to cut the cost of a pint in the pub will now apply in Northern Ireland”.
He said British products like trees, plants, and seed potatoes will also be available again in Northern Ireland’s garden centres.
A “landmark” settlement has been agreed on medicines, meaning drugs approved for use by the UK’s medicines regulator will be automatically available in every pharmacy and hospital in Northern Ireland.
In good news for pet owners, they can now travel without documentation from a vet.
Stormont brake
Perhaps the most politically significant element of the framework is this proposal, which Mr Sunak says “safeguards sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland”.
Unionists, such as the DUP, are against any EU laws having to be followed in Northern Ireland as members of the Assembly do not have a say over them.
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‘We knew this would not be easy’, says Ursula von der Leyen
But to avoid a hard border returning to the island of Ireland, others say some of the bloc’s laws will have to be followed going forward.
Mr Sunak told reporters some rules would remain, adding: “The only EU law that applies in Northern Ireland under the framework is the minimum necessary to avoid a hard border with Ireland and allow Northern Irish businesses to continue accessing the EU market”.
However, what the PM has agreed with the EU is to give members of the Northern Ireland Assembly a say on any changes to EU law by offering them “the Stormont brake”.
Mr Sunak said if the brake is pulled by politicians in NI, “the UK government will have a veto” on any law changes by the bloc that impacts them.
“This gives the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland a powerful new safeguard, based on cross-community consent,” he added.
The detail of how this works could be make or break for the PM to get the support of the DUP and Brexiteer members of his own party.
World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
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Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community. and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
Read more:
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Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Mr Trump it is now being as turned on, as France, along with the rest of Europe, finds itself in what many would argue is a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
World
Donald Trump’s 104% tariffs on China – and other levies on ‘worst offenders’ – in effect this morning
Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on what he calls “the worst offenders” come into effect at 5am UK time, with China facing by far the biggest levy.
The US will hit Chinese imports with 104% tariffs, marking a significant trade escalation between the world’s two largest superpowers.
At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump “believes that China wants to make a deal with the US,” before saying: “It was a mistake for China to retaliate.
“When America is punched, he punches back harder.”
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White House announces 104% tariff on China
After Mr Trump announced sweeping levies last week – hitting some imported goods from China with 34% tariffs – Beijing officials responded with like-for-like measures.
The US president then piled on an extra 50% levy on China, taking the total to 104% unless it withdrew its retaliatory 34% tariff.
China’s commerce ministry said in turn that it would “fight to the end”, and its foreign ministry accused the US of “economic bullying” and “destabilising” the world’s economies.
‘Worst offender’ tariffs also in effect
Alongside China’s 104% tariff, roughly 60 countries – dubbed by the US president as the “worst offenders” – will also see levies come into effect today.
The EU will be hit with 20% tariffs, while countries like Vietnam and Cambodia see a 46% levy and 49% rate respectively.
The UK was not included on this list, and instead saw a “baseline”, worldwide 10% tariff on imported goods in effect from last Saturday.
At the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer promised the government was ready to “shelter British businesses from the storm”.
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What’s going on with the US and China?
Since the tariffs were announced last Wednesday, global stock markets have plummeted, with four days of steep losses for all three of the US’ major indexes.
As trading closed on Tuesday evening, the S&P 500 lost 1.49%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.15%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.84%.
According to LSEG data, S&P 500 companies have lost $5.8tn (£4.5tn) in stock market value since last Wednesday, the deepest four-day loss since the benchmark was created in the 1950s.
Global stock markets have been reeling since Trump’s tariff announcement last week. Pic: AP
Read more:
What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war ramps up
Chancellor to hold tariff crisis talks with top City executives
Trump signs coal orders
Meanwhile, the US president signed four executive orders to boost American coal mining and production.
The directives order:
• keeping some coal plants that were set for retirement open;
• directing the interior secretary to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands;
• requiring federal agencies to rescind policies transitioning the US away from coal production, and;
• directing the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to assess how coal energy can meet rising demand from artificial intelligence.
Read more:
The good, the bad and the ugly in Trump’s coal plans
At a White House ceremony, Mr Trump said the orders end his predecessor Joe Biden’s “war on beautiful clean coal,” and miners “will be put back to work”.
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