Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has reiterated the need for a “level playing field” during the negotiations over the UK and EU’s future economic relationship.
Speaking in Dublin during newly elected European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen's visit to Ireland, Varadkar said that he wanted to see common standards maintained to avoid the UK having the wriggle room to “undercut” the bloc.
Varadkar then thanked the European Commission, the EU's institutions and other EU member states for their solidarity during the long-drawn-out Brexit negotiations which eventually culminated in the new Withdrawal Agreement.
The Taoiseach said: “Only as a result of that [solidarity], we have a Withdrawal Agreement which assures us there is no hard border, that citizens' rights are protected and the travel area between Britain and Ireland remains in place and that the Good Friday Agreement is protected.
"We saw a real demonstration of that in the fact that the institutions in Northern Ireland are now back up and running.
"I always felt removing uncertainty around Brexit was one of the crucial ingredients that is required to get the parties together again.”
Standing alongside Varadkar, von der Leyen said that "almost no other country" in the EU is more directly impacted by Brexit, adding that the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were among the "top priorities" for the EU during the last three years of Brexit negotiations.
Addressing the future of Brexit, von der Leyen said that the EU's Brexit agenda was "wide-ranging" and that the bloc will "very closely" observe how the UK's exit materialises.
Von der Leyen added that the 11-month negotiating window for a trade deal starting from the Brexit date of January 31 will, in reality, be closer to eight months given the time that talks are expected to commence.
She said: "We will have around eight months [to negotiate a UK-EU trade deal] because the negotiation talks will start at the end of February or beginning of March.
"We have a plan but we have to work very hard to reach our goal."
