Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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112. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the position regarding maintaining full alignment; and the way in which he and his officials are of the view this will be applied in any future EU-UK deal. [52908/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The issue of regulatory alignment arises both in regard to the wider EU-UK relationship, and in the particular circumstances of Ireland.

It is clear that, once the UK exits the EU, the question will arise as to how far the UK, which will not be bound by EU law once it departs and which will not be part of the EU decision making process, will wish over time to exercise its own right to legislate and regulate in ways which could mean divergence between UK and EU regulations. The smoothest possible trading relationship will therefore require mechanisms to monitor and, if possible, resolve such regulatory divergence.

The second phase of the Article 50 negotiations will enable discussions to get underway between the EU and the UK on these important issues. It remains Ireland’s overriding position that a future EU-UK agreement should be comprehensive and ambitious and as wide as possible in its scope, while ensuring a level playing field and protecting the integrity of the Single Market. It is also our position that an agreement should promote regulatory conformity, ensure ways to manage potential regulatory divergence, and impose the disciplines needed in order to ensure a level playing field.

In regard to Ireland, it is of course our strong preference that a broader EU-UK agreement will resolve all Irish-specific issues, including that of regulatory alignment between North and South. However, in the joint progress report from the UK and the Commission published on 8 December there is a commitment from the British Government that, if the agreement does not achieve that goal, and in the absence of other agreed solutions in regard to protecting North/South co-operation and avoiding a hard border, it “will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 [Good Friday] Agreement.”

This backstop commitment is firm and wide-ranging in its scope. “Alignment” is a term used in EU law in the context of adherence to the acquis communautaire.To “maintain full alignment” therefore requires the UK to continue to adhere to all elements of EU Internal Market and Customs Union law which supports the fundamentally important goals set out above.