EU Begins Four New Legal Procedures Against UK Over Northern Ireland

The European Union’s executive arm has launched four new legal procedures against the United Kingdom.

This comes after the British parliament’s lower house cleared a bill to scrap some of the rules governing post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland.

The European Commission, which oversees EU-UK relations on Friday launched over what it sees as Britain’s failure to respect Northern Ireland trade aspects of the Brexit divorce deal agreed by both sides.

Specifically, the Commission charged Britain with failing to comply with customs requirements for goods moving from Northern Ireland to Britain.

And also, not transposing EU rules on excise duties and duties on alcohol and not implementing EU rules on sales tax for e-commerce. The Commission has given Britain two months to respond.

Northern Ireland is in the EU single market for goods, meaning imports from the rest of the United Kingdom are subject to customs declarations and sometimes require checks on their arrival.