EU begins legal action against UK over Brexit deal

Brussels, Oct 1 : The European Union (EU) on Thursday started a legal action against the UK after it refused to ditch plans to override sections of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.
In a statement, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the UK had been put on formal notice over the Internal Market Bill, which would override a part of the agreement when it came to goods and allow the country to modify or re-interpret “state aid” rules on subsidies for firms in Northern Ireland, in the event of the two sides not agreeing on a future trade deal.
She said the UK would have until the end of November to respond to the EU’s concerns over the draft legislation, reports the BBC.
She the bill was a “full contradiction” of previous UK commitments over how a hard border on the island of Ireland should be avoided.
The EU had given UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson until the end of September to ditch the contentious clauses, but “the deadline had lapsed”, von der Leyen was quoted as saying in a Guardian report.
“We had invited our British friends to remove the problematic parts of their draft internal market bill, by the end of September.