Brexit: Irish border one of the top EU priorities

Speaking to the Economic and Social Committee in Brussels this morning, the EU’s chief negotiator on Brexit, Michel Barnier, made the following points of special interest here in Ireland.

He reiterated the primacy of the Irish border issue as one of the top EU priorities:

“The best way of reaching an agreement is to create a climate of trust by tackling in the first instance three topics which we regard as priorities and which are inseparable because these are the condition of the orderly withdrawal that the UK has chosen: citizens’ rights, the financial settlement and the border issue, especially the Irish border.

I hope that rapid and sufficient progress will be made on these three topics together – and I mean on these three topics together.”