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Merkel Wants Irish Ready for Hard Choice If Brexit Goes Awry

Tensions are mounting over Ireland’s failure to lay out how it will protect Europe’s only land border with U.K. if Brexit happens.

Merkel Wants Irish Ready for Hard Choice If Brexit Goes Awry
Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader, speaks during a campaign event in Dortmund, Germany. (Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) --

“We’re all Irish now.”

That’s a message Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has become accustomed to hearing from European leaders anxious to display solidarity with the country on Brexit’s front line. Behind closed doors, it might be a little different when the 40-year old premier meets France’s Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday and Germany’s Angela Merkel in Dublin on Thursday.

Tensions are mounting over Ireland’s failure to lay out how it will protect Europe’s only land border with the U.K. if Brexit talks fail to avert a disorderly break up. Earlier this year, one diplomat described the government as elusive when the European Commission pressed for a blueprint, and at an EU summit 10 days ago, Merkel admonished Varadkar for Ireland’s lack of a plan, an official said.

Standing alongside Varadkar on Tuesday, Macron warned recent British parliament votes “put us on the path to a hard exit.”

For Ireland, the dilemma is this: policing the border could endanger the region’s peace process. Failing to do so could endanger Ireland’s access to the single market. If the U.K. tumbles out of the bloc without a deal, the question that has dogged Brexit talks -- how to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland -- becomes an acute crisis.

Merkel Wants Irish Ready for Hard Choice If Brexit Goes Awry

In Dublin, the bet still remains that no-deal will somehow be avoided. Either Westminster will pass Theresa May’s Brexit accord, which will keep the frontier invisible, or the EU will grant her a long extension, as long as the prime minister provides something that even approaches a plan to break the impasse.

Varadkar said the EU must be open to new proposals from May, though cautioned against the dangers of “rolling extensions,” adding his talks with Macron would include no-deal planning.

In a 40-minute call in January, Merkel pressed Varadkar to explain his position that the government wouldn’t ever introduce physical infrastructure on the 310-mile (500-kilometer) border -- the German leader was concerned that this risked undercutting the EU’s negotiating position on the so-called backstop.

As recently as 10 days ago, Ireland still didn’t recognize how urgent the situation was, according to one officials.

Insiders say that at one point, Varadkar had considered simply refusing to police the border. That strategy appears to have been dropped, given it raised the prospect of Irish goods being stopped and checked at ports in the EU.

Publicly, the government is saying little about its plans, beyond pointing to “difficult talks’’ with the EU and U.K. about the border and the single market. In those talks, Ireland will argue the EU has clearly recognized the importance of avoiding a return of a hard border, and should use that as a guiding principle, according to officials.

That could pave the way for a light-touch system of checking goods away from the border, while maintaining a common travel area with the U.K. to allow for the free movement of people.

The question might be how long that strategy would survive a clash with reality. Little on the border will change on the first day following a no-deal, in part of because EU and U.K. rules remain in sync.

But as soon as the first case of animal disease breaks out in Northern Ireland, panic could set in and the choice for Ireland will become clear: it’s either a border in Ireland or a border at ports in Europe.

--With assistance from Ian Wishart, Helene Fouquet and Gregory Viscusi.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dara Doyle in Dublin at ddoyle1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo, Ben Sills

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.