Oireachtas to grill EU Commission over Article 16 issue

Vice-president of the EU Commission Maroš Šefčovič to appear before the Committee on European Union Affairs via videolink over the events that led to the debacle in January

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has apologised for the 'mistakes' which saw Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol on Brexit being triggered. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The vice-president of the EU Commission is set to be grilled over the Article 16 controversy in an Oireachtas Committee on Tuesday.

Maroš Šefčovič will appear before the Committee on European Union Affairs via videolink over the events that led to the debacle.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has apologised for the “mistakes” which saw Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol on Brexit being triggered, however, committee chair Fine Gael's Joe McHugh said how the incident happened has not been fully explained.

Article 16 overrides part of the Northern Ireland Protocol which prevents a hard border on the island of Ireland, and was intended as an emergency measure only.

"There's a degree of frustration and annoyance that there hasn't been full transparency over what happened, so we will be probing into the why and the who of the issue as it's something we feel strongly about as a committee," Mr McHugh said.

Members want to know how a decision of such magnitude was made on a Friday evening, without warning, and who made that decision.

"The committee members welcome this upcoming engagement with vice-president Šefčovič to examine the commission’s actions in full and ensure that it is not repeated. If the commission wants to ensure public confidence, it is crucial answers are provided. There needs to be accountability and transparency.”

Dublin, Belfast and London were blindsided by a recent attempt by the commission to invoke the clause in a row over the supply of vaccines to Europe, which has caused reverberations throughout Northern Ireland. 

A subsequent call by the DUP to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, just as the EU had, is to be debated at Westminster later this month, to "deal with the damage" done by the Northern Ireland protocol, said DUP leader Arlene Foster.