“Ireland’s concerns are the union’s concerns, and all member states and EU institutions are fully united in this regard,” Michel Barnier told Brussels journalists and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Coveney on Monday.
It is by now a familiar refrain,
but nonetheless reassuring to Mr Coveney who was in Brussels for the day
for consultations with the EU’s chief negotiator, Mr Barnier, the
European Parliament’s Brexit representative, Liberal MEP Mr Guy Verhofstadt,
Irish MEPs Matt Carthy (SF), Brian Hayes (FG), and Luke Flanagan (Ind), and Danuta Hubner the parliament’s European People’s Party chair of its constitutional affairs committee.
The reassurance, it is expected,
will be reflected in detail in the Commission negotiating paper on
Ireland expected to be published in the next week, and whose content was
certainly central to the Barnier-Coveney working lunch.
Read more: EU stands with Ireland in Brexit talks, Barnier assures Coveney