Macron says Brexit rules matter of ‘war and peace’ for Ireland amid UK spats

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron urged the U.K. to work with the EU to resolve post-Brexit issues, as he called the divorce deal’s Northern Ireland protocol a matter of “war and peace for Ireland.”

“It is for us an existential question, in two respects,” Macron said of the protocol during a meeting Wednesday of local and regional representatives in the EU’s Committee of the Regions.

The protocol aims to shield the EU’s single market post-Brexit while avoiding a politically sensitive hard border between Northern Ireland, part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member country. London and Brussels are currently in talks over the operation of the protocol amid political controversy in Northern Ireland and complaints from traders in the U.K. about its rules.

Macron said that for the EU, the existential question is about the “integrity of our single market,” while also stressing the importance of the 1998 Irish Good Friday Agreement, meant to bring peace to the island.

“I think we should not play with this topic,” he added.

Macron called for the U.K. to work with the EU, “be it on fishing, be it on the Northern Irish protocol, be it on migratory topics.”

His remarks come amid continued tensions between France and the U.K. over post-Brexit fishing rights as well as migration in the wake of the deadly migrant boat sinking in the English Channel.

France’s maritime minister, Annick Girardin, declared Wednesday there had been “good progress” and “excellent news” on fishing rights after the Channel island of Guernsey granted the country’s fishermen 43 licenses. But Girardin said “111 licenses are still to be obtained,” mostly from Jersey and from the U.K. government.

* This article was originally published here