The EU formally agreed on 30th June 2021 to extend the 3-month delay in banning the imports of chilled-meats from GB into the EU and Northern Ireland. Though the EU does not allow chilled meats - including sausages, meat pies, curries, lasagne, and other ready-made meals - into its single market from any non-EU country, the Brexit deal came into force in January 2021 with a six-month delay on the ban on between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to help businesses adjust to the change. The UK government has called this bank “bonkers” when applied to Great Britain and Northern Ireland and on 17th June 2021 the Brexit minister, David Frost, wrote to Brussels requesting a further delay, until 30 September 2021.

Such checks since January have been confined to goods destined for stores in the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, an EU member but not on arrivals into Northern Ireland, which under the Northern Ireland Protocol remain within the Customs Union of the EU. The European Commission has said the extension was granted the UK in an attempt to defuse a row that has poisoned post-Brexit relations giving the two sides more time to resolve a fierce dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol.

The request was granted after the UK agreed not to change domestic law on meat products for the next three months. To assuage EU concerns about British meat illegally entering the EU, products will be labelled “UK only” and sold exclusively in Northern Irish supermarkets. The U.K. unilaterally delayed the same enforcement of sanitary and phytosanitary standards on goods staying in Northern Ireland by six months to 30 September 2021.