Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has said that the European Union (EU) is "open but not convinced" by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's new Brexit plan.
Tusk was among several EU leaders who expressed doubt over Johnson's new proposals for a Brexit deal. The new plan will essentially keep Northern Ireland in the EU single market for goods but will remove it from the customs union.
The main concern with the plan is what happens to the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. According to Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, the new Brexit plans were welcome but "fall short in a number of aspects".
Johnson claims that he had made a "genuine attempt to bridge the chasm" with EU officials prior to the October 31 deadline for UK to exit the EU. A major challenge for Johnson's Brexit plans would be a law passed by UK Members of Parliament which will likely force him to delay Brexit unless he manages to complete a deal by then.
Under the latest Brexit plan, Northern Ireland will remain aligned with EU's single market rules for trade in animal, food and manufactured goods but its legislative assembly have the right to decide every four years if it wants to continue to apply EU legislation to traded goods. Northern Ireland will leave EU's customs union alongside rest of UK in 2021 and customs checks on goods traded between the UK and EU will be "decentralized", with electronic paperwork and "small number" of physical checks away from the border itself.
Varadkar questioned how Northern Ireland and Ireland could operate under different customs systems without the need for physical checkpoints and criticized the plan to allow Northern Ireland's Assembly to veto over entering into a "regulatory zone" with the EU, without involving either Ireland or the EU.
In a tweet, Tusk expressed that the EU stands "fully behind Ireland" but remains "open but still unconvinced" with Johnson's Brexit proposals.
