Dr. Ian Cooper:

A recent improvement in EU-UK relations can be illustrated by reference to one specific institution created by the TCA and that is the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly. This is a joint body made up of 35 members of the European Parliament and 35 members of the UK Parliament. It exercises joint parliamentary scrutiny over the partnership council and the implementation of the TCA. It meets twice per year. Its first meeting was in May of this year, in Brussels. Its second meeting was this week, in London, over the last two days. There was a marked change in tone from the first meeting to the second. At the first meeting, the normally mild-mannered, Maroš Šefovi, was clearly exasperated by the lack of any serious engagement from the UK side. At the second meeting, Mr. Šefovi recognised that a new tone in EU-UK relations had been set since September by his counterpart, Mr. James Cleverly, who is his co-chairperson on the partnership council. Both Mr. Šefovi and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Leo Docherty, who stood in for Mr. Cleverly, hailed the fact that the machinery of the TCA is now fully up and running. This machinery includes not only the partnership council but also the many specialised committees, the domestic advisory groups and the civil society forum. All of these groups have now met at least once. The PPA itself is one more piece of this machinery created by the TCA that is now up and running. The PPA actually used one of its powers for the first time on Monday, when it issued a recommendation to the partnership council on energy security.

A great deal of discussion at the PPA was focused on Northern Ireland. This is despite the fact that the PPA was created to oversee the TCA, and not the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is part of the withdrawal agreement. There is no dedicated interparliamentary body to oversee the withdrawal agreement. To some extent, the PPA is filling that gap. The co-chairpersons of the joint committee in charge of the withdrawal agreement are the same two people that are on the partnership council, that is, Mr. Šefovi and Mr. Cleverly . However, it is awkward that only one member of the PPA is actually from Northern Ireland and that is Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP. In part to overcome this lack of representation, the PPA also allows the participation of observers from the UK’s devolved assemblies, including the Northern Ireland Assembly.

There was a much more positive tone in the discussion of Northern Ireland at the second meeting, despite the fact that little had changed in the formal position of the two sides. Mr. Šefovi pointed out that it was a sign of the goodwill of the EU that it continues to negotiate despite the fact that the Northern Ireland Protocol has not been withdrawn by the UK. For his part, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Leo Docherty, speaking for the UK, emphasised that the UK's position is to resolve the issue through talks.

The optimistic and pragmatic atmosphere showed an improved spirit of partnership both in the partnership council and in the PPA. Furthermore, the contrast between the first and second meetings showed that the PPA cannot fulfil its scrutiny function unless there is a good working relationship between the EU and UK counterparts. In short, if the partnership council is grid locked, then there are no joint decisions for the PPA to scrutinise. I will pass briefly back to Dr. Petit.