MACRON, JOHNSON SPAR OVER BREXIT

Emmanuel Macron has called on Boris Johnson to keep his word over binding Brexit agreements, as the row between the UK and the EU over Northern Ireland continues to simmer at the G7 summit, according to a Euronews report.

The British prime minister responded by calling on the EU to show "pragmatism and compromise", after meeting EU leaders on the sidelines of the gathering in the Cornish seaside resort of Carbis Bay in southwest England.

According to the Elysée, the French President made it known at his breakfast meeting with Johnson that he is ready for a reset of French-British relations. But he "underlined that this renewed commitment would demand that the British respect the word given to Europeans and the framework defined by the Brexit agreements".

Boris Johnson stressed that protecting the Good Friday Agreement was essential, Downing Street said after the prime minister also went on to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and EU Commission and Council presidents Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel. The 1998 peace accord ended decades of sectarian violence.

Although it has not dominated proceedings as some feared, the disagreement between the EU and the UK over the Northern Ireland Protocol has cast a shadow over the G7.

The post-Brexit trade arrangements have brought disruption to supplies and renewed tension between communities since they came into force at the start of the year when Britain left the EU's economic structures.

Part of the divorce deal that Boris Johnson struck with the EU to seal the UK's exit, the protocol keeps Northern Ireland subject to EU trade rules in order to maintain an open land border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member. But its effect has been to create an internal UK sea border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

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