Brussels has said it is unimpressed with Liz Truss’s latest threat to trigger Article 16 just days before talks on the Northern Ireland Protocol are due to resume. 

Joao Vale de Almeida, the EU’s ambassador to the UK, said the bloc was “not surprised” by the Foreign Secretary’s threat, but warned it was unhelpful to “keep agitating the issue” before the two sides meet for face-to-face talks.

“We’ve heard this before from the Government, so we’re not surprised. We are not too impressed,” he told Sky News.

Ahead of Ms Truss meeting her European Commission counterpart at her Chevening retreat on Thursday, Mr Vale de Almeida added that there was a need to inject “new momentum” in the talks after months of stalemate.

“We are eager to reconnect but we are even more eager to find compromises because we need to move on. It’s been too long,” he continued.

It comes after Ms Truss warned in an article in The Telegraph that the UK will overhaul the post-Brexit agreement over Northern Ireland unilaterally if she cannot reach a “negotiated solution” with the EU. 

‘My priority is to protect peace and stability in Northern Ireland’ 

In her first intervention as Boris Johnson’s new Brexit negotiator, the Foreign Secretary said that the Article 16 “safeguard clause” in the Northern Ireland Protocol was “explicitly designed… to ease acute problems because of the sensitivity of the issues at play” on the island of Ireland.

Until now, senior EU officials had believed that the Government had “shelved” a back-up plan to trigger Article 16, partly as a result of a series of political rows which were seen as having severely weakened the Prime Minister’s political standing. 

Both sides also ideally want a resolution before Northern Ireland’s election campaigns begin in March.