The U.K. and the EU signed a new Northern Ireland trade agreement to remedy some of the issues created by the earlier Northern Ireland Protocol deal.
The new agreement, dubbed the Windsor Framework, has three main components: safeguarding trade flows within the U.K., protecting Northern Ireland’s place within the U.K., and giving the region’s assembly in Stormont a say over new EU rules.
- The Northern Ireland Protocol, one of the early Brexit deals, mandated checks on some goods that travel to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.
- The U.K. left the EU on Jan. 31, 2020, in a move popularly called Brexit.
- The agreement sparked sectarian violence in Northern Ireland between Protestant pro-British unionist groups and Catholic Irish republicans.
- The protocol was blamed for jeopardizing the Good Friday Agreement, a 1998 peace deal that ended 30 years of violent unrest in Northern Ireland.
- New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sought to amend the protocol signed under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
- At a press conference following the agreement, Sunak referred to the agreement as the beginning of a new chapter in the U.K. and EU relationship.
- Following news of the new agreement, the Pound rose as high as $1.204, and the Euro hit a session high of $1.061.
