UK PM hails 'new chapter' with EU after N.Ireland deal

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday proclaimed a "new chapter" in post-Brexit relations with the European Union after securing a breakthrough deal to regulate trade in Northern Ireland.

"I believe the Windsor Framework marks a turning point for the people of Northern Ireland," Sunak said at a press conference with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in Windsor, near London.

"This is the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship. We may have had our differences in the past but we are allies, trading partners and friends," he added of the EU, citing the war in Ukraine.

Von der Leyen agreed it marked a "new chapter" after more than a year of fraught talks, which themselves followed a tense period since Britain quit the EU formally in 2020.

It would allow "a stronger EU-UK relationship standing as close partners, shoulder to shoulder now and in the future," she said.

But Sunak must now sell the deal to pro-British hardliners in Northern Ireland, and to staunch Brexiteers in his own Conservative party.

He vowed the deal would be submitted to a vote in the UK parliament "at the appropriate time, and that vote will be respected".

Sunak said the deal dismantled a de facto customs border that had sprung up in the Irish Sea, both to protect the EU's single market and a hard-won peace in Northern Ireland agreed 25 years ago.

Shoppers in the province will no longer be deprived of goods sold in the rest of the UK, and will be guaranteed the same medicines.

But to the likely anger of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party and hardline Tories, the European Court of Justice retains a role in administering the deal.

"The ECJ will have the final say on EU law and single market issues," von der Leyen said, while noting that Russia's invasion of Ukraine and climate change were issues requiring London-Brussels cooperation.

Following the breakthrough on Northern Ireland, the two sides will now open talks to allow Britain to rejoin the "Horizon" programme for scientific cooperation, she added.