LONDON (Reuters) -Britain and the European Union reached a data sharing agreement on Monday, in a step towards resolving issues stemming from post-Brexit rules governing trade with Northern Ireland, the two sides said in a joint statement.
The agreement was critical to further talks on the trading regulations known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, British foreign minister James Cleverly and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said after a meeting in London.
In order to preserve the peace deal and avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, Britain agreed as part of its departure from the EU to effectively leave Northern Ireland within the bloc’s single market for goods.
That has necessitated checks since January 2021 on some goods coming from the rest of the United Kingdom. Britain has subsequently sought to rewrite the deal to reduce those barriers and promote the free flow of goods.
The EU has long sought live or semi-live data on goods travelling from Britain to Northern Ireland in order to work out whether to carry out checks on arrival.
(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan, Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; writing by Sachin Ravikumar; editing by William James)
