European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic said on Monday he had a productive call with British foreign minister James Cleverly and Northern Ireland minister Chris Heaton-Harris over the disputed Northern Ireland Protocol.

He said their “top priority is to succeed for the benefit of all communities”, and that they would reconvene later this week.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union’s single market for goods since the country’s exit from the European Union. But the arrangement, meant to avoid a hard border with EU member Ireland and preserve peace, has imposed checks on some goods arriving in Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom, angering pro-British unionists in the province.