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Former British Minister for Trade, Greg Hands seen here speaking at a conference in Dublin today <\/p>\nA European Union\/UK agreement on food exports designed to resolve problems in existing trade between Britain and Northern Ireland could come at too high a price, a former British minister for trade has warned.<\/p>\n
Former Conservative minister Greg Hands told The Irish Times said he was \u201copposed\u201d to an agreement where London would agree to align with EU regulations on sanitary and phytosanitary rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that is the right strategy for the UK. It\u2019s not really in the UK\u2019s interests. A lot of the Brussels food and drink regulations are quite stifling on innovation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Negotiations on an SPS agreement are underway, with supporters arguing that it would remove most of the difficulties affecting GB\/NI trade, which have irritated many Unionists.<\/p>\n
However, Mr Hands said: \u201cWhy would the UK voluntarily and dynamically align with rules over which we have no say? It would kill off a lot of nascent things in the UK, like some of work done on GM.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former British Minister for Trade, Greg Hands seen here speaking at a conference in Dublin today <\/p>\n
Hands, who twice served as Minister for Trade between 2016 and 2018 and later from 2020 to 2024, was in Dublin to speak at a conference on international trade held by law firm Byrne Wallace Shields.<\/p>\n
He had doubts that an SPS agreement would remove all of the GB\/NI hurdles that are being claimed for it: \u201cIt\u2019s an arguable thing. Would it increase the demand in NI for Tesco sausages? I\u2019m not sure it would.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn agreement would make it easier and reduce paperwork and checks, but I doubt if it would get a whole new volume of trade between GB and NI. It would ease bureaucracy on existing trade, that\u2019s my guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SPS negotiations could take up to two years, though European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic told the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce he thought they could finish in one.<\/p>\n
![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/E2IRHS2I3ZFUXBQPYVJOW55MEE.jpg\")
Former British minister for trade, Greg Hands seen here speaking a conference in Dublin today with Lorraine Higgins and former Irish ambassador, Dan Mulhall <\/p>\n
Saying he did not understand why such negotiations should take even that long, Mr Hands said the European Commission was \u201ctreating this as a massive concession on their part\u201d.<\/p>\n
In reality, London is ceding ground: \u201cThe UK, the second largest economy in Europe, is aligning to your food rules. That is a bonus for the Commission, but it is treating this as a concession,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Following Brexit, South African citrus exporters have been able to ship oranges and lemons to the UK, including Northern Ireland, without a plant health certificate, or the need for an inspection.<\/p>\n
Since 2022, however, EU rules demand that South African exporters cool fruits to limit the spread of pests and disease, such as false codling moth and citrus black spot, and supply a phytosanitary certificate.<\/p>\n
Now, the Commission is arguing that it may \u201cwithhold\u201d the SPS agreement unless it is satisfied, said Mr Hands, who said the Irish Government could play a useful role \u201cto urge pragmatism\u201d.<\/p>\n
He was not \u201cdownplaying\u201d the risk posed by citrus fungal disease, but doubted if imports to Britain and Northern Ireland \u201cwhere neither are citrus producers\u201d could \u201cimperil\u201d the Iberian citrus industry.<\/p>\n
The Irish Government has frequently \u201csmoothed things over\u201d when difficulties have emerged between London and Brussels, said Mr Hands, who now works with a Czech-based industrial group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A European Union\/UK agreement on food exports designed to resolve problems in existing trade between Britain and Northern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,9686,61,60,2443],"class_list":["post-123993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-common-ground","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-northern-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}