Arlene Foster: EU Brexit text not ‘faithful’ to December deal

The Democratic Unionist Party leader said that the UK government should write an alternative text to the EU’s draft withdrawal agreement.

The EU’s draft Withdrawal Treaty published last week was not a “faithful” or “fair legal interpretation” of the agreement reached between the U.K. and EU in December, according to the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.

Arlene Foster said that during a “constructive” meeting in Brussels she had told EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier Tuesday morning that the text on future customs arrangements between the EU and U.K. was “unacceptable.” She was accompanied by the party’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds, Brexit Spokesman Sammy Wilson and MEP Diane Dodds.

“The draft EU legal text was not a faithful or indeed fair legal interpretation of the joint report from December,” Foster told journalists following the Barnier meeting adding that she was ready to explore “imaginative and flexible solutions,” in the coming months. Her party has an arrangement with Theresa May’s Conservative government to keep it in power.

In the absence of an alternative solution being worked out, the draft legal text proposes that Northern Ireland “shall be considered to be part of the customs territory of the [European] Union.”

The proposal caused an uproar in the U.K. and in Northern Ireland, with Brexiteers arguing that it would break the regulatory unity of the U.K. May said that no British prime minister could agree to it.

“We need to revisit the text,” said Foster. “We will be urging our government to come forward with a different text because we think that all of the joint report needs to be reflected in what is going on here in the heart of Europe.”