Commenting on European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic’s appearance before the Executive Office Committee Jim Allister said:
“Today’s events underscore the democratic deficit when it comes to the Protocol. Who elected Dr Sefcovic? How can the people of Northern Ireland hold him to account? Indeed, prior to this year who in Northern Ireland had heard of him?
“The answers to those questions demonstrate that the Protocol is a constitutional abomination. While EU fanatics were keen to doff their cap to Dr Sefcovic today his very presence before a committee which has no authority over him underscores why the Protocol has to go.
“All Unionists on the committee made clear that they did not consent to the Protocol and yet Dr Sefcovic sought to maintain the fiction that the current undemocratic arrangements are about protecting the Belfast Agreement, a document which supposedly has at its heart the idea of parallel consent.
“A token appearance before an Assembly committee does nothing to address the undemocratic nature of the Protocol, particularly when one considers that members were limited to a single question each with no supplementary.
“Unless the Protocol goes it is clear Northern Ireland will be treated as nothing more than an EU colony with our masters expecting us to accept such nonsensical claims that they did not trigger Article 16 to stop the supply of lifesaving vaccines to Northern Ireland and suggestions that they did were down to a “mistake”.
“Today was a graphic illustration of how Northern Ireland is subject to foreign laws, in a foreign single market for goods and under a foreign laws which we do not make.”