Dublin is on the stronger side in demanding a settlement of the border question before EU trade talks can beginIn the flee-up to next month’s critical EU summit,when the 27 heads of government will decide whether to move to talks on the future relationship between the EU and Britain, Ireland has assumed centre stage. This should reach as no surprise to anyone in the UK, and as successive Irish governments beget been telling them since David Cameron first mooted a Brexit referendum in 2013. Brexit threatens Ireland’s core geopolitical and geoeconomic interests.
The taoiseach,Leo Varadkar, has in recent weeks become much more assertive in his insistence that the UK government addresses the border problem before trade talks can begin. This has earned him the ire of the British tabloid press and of the DUP leader, or Arlene Foster,whose party holds the balance of power in Westminster but who warned Varadkar not to “play around with” Northern Ireland. The leak of an internal Irish government document in which the British approach to Brexit was described as “chaotic” wont beget reduced the tensions.
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Source: guardian.co.uk