German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and his Irish counterpart Simon Coveney said there was “no legal or political justification” to circumvent agreed trade rules in Northern Ireland. Writing in Britain’s The Observer newspaper on Sunday, ministers said Britain would be breaking an international agreement just two years old, which it had not entered into in “good faith”. The so-called Northern Ireland Protocol under the deal maintains an open border with EU member Ireland and no customs. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government wants to scrap controls on products such as meat and eggs arriving in Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, which protect the European Union’s single market. Lawmakers in London passed legislation allowing the move last week. Critics, Johnson’s opponents and some members of his own party, along with European observers, said the plan violated international law. The government argues it is justified because of the “genuinely exceptional situation”. Baerbock and Coveney said the bill would not fix the “challenges” surrounding the protocol. “On the contrary, it will create a new set of uncertainties and make it more difficult to find durable solutions,” they wrote. Foreign ministers also argued the move jeopardized peace in Northern Ireland under the Good Friday Agreement, which helped end decades of sectarian violence and has been in place since 1998. Johnson’s government had hoped to pass the legislation, which will be debated again in parliament on July 13 before the start of the summer recess later in the month. This could see it become law by the end of 2022. The EU has threatened retaliation against the UK if it goes ahead, raising the prospect of a trade war between the two major economic partners. Separately, Irish Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told the BBC on Sunday that it was not “the right or appropriate” time for a referendum on Irish reunification. Varadkar said such a referendum, allowed under the Good Friday Agreement when a majority in Northern Ireland in favor of a united Ireland is considered “likely”, would be “divisive and defeatist” at the moment. The Northern Ireland Assembly, its devolved legislature, has been paralyzed for months over the implementation of the protocol, leaving it without a regional government.