The border between Northern Ireland and Ireland is set to become the United Kingdom’s only land border with the EU after Brexit, and Varadkar has urged British Prime Minister Theresa May to spell out her proposals to avoid a hard border returning to the island of Ireland.
Speaking in parliament earlier on Monday, May said that her government would look at many examples of different arrangements for customs around the rest of the world, including the border between the United States and Canada.
Varadkar rejected that idea, however.
“That is definitely not a solution that we can possibly entertain,” he told a news conference after meeting his Luxembourgish counterpart Xavier Bettel in Dublin.
“I visited the US border in August and I saw an armoured border with physical infrastructure, customs posts, and people in uniform with arms and dogs.”
Varadkar reiterated that his preference was to retain the current seamless border through a new, deep relationship between the EU and UK and was also committed to examining specific British proposals, but only if they are feasible.
If that is not possible, he said the “very clear draft legal provision” to implement a backstop allowing the EU to regulate Northern Ireland’s trade would be triggered.
That contingency plan, presented last week in the EU’s draft of an exit treaty for Britain, prompted angry reactions in London.
Bettel said that Ireland and Luxembourg needed to stand together to reduce to a minimum the negative impact from Brexit, describing it as a “game changer” for the EU that is nothing more than a damage limitation exercise.
He also joined Varadkar in calling on the British government for more detail on its Brexit plans.
“For the moment I can’t tell you what I think about Theresa May’s plans, I want to see them, I want to read them. For the moment I don’t know what the plans are from the UK,” he said.
“When they were in (the EU), they wanted to have a lot of opt-outs. Now that they are out, they want a lot of opt-ins… I believe we need solutions because the time is ticking.”