this is bbc news, the headlines: the us capitol riot hearings in washington have been told about the pressure that election workers faced from donald trump, to overturn the 2020 result. state officials testified that the former president's influence lead to them, and their families having to cope with abuse and intimidation. the hearing into last month's mass shooting at a school in texas, has been told that police officers put their own lives before the children's. images have emerged showing a classroom door at the uvalde school was not locked, while police waited outside for a key. a jury in los angeles has found the entertainer bill cosby

liable for the sexual assault of a 16—year—old girl at the playboy mansion in 1975. jurors in the civil trial ruled against him, and awarded his victim half a million dollars in damages. now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. after a painful divorce, you never know if the ex—partners will be able to build an amicable relationship. for britain and the eu, it seems the brexit break—up has left a legacy of mistrust and bitterness, which is overwhelming any desire for cooperation. northern ireland is currently what they're fighting over. the uk is refusing to stick to the divorce settlement and the eu is threatening legal action. my guest is the eu ambassador in london,

joao vale de almeida. is this a fight where everyone gets hurt? joao vale de almeida, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it's a pleasure to have you. i want to start with some words of yours from, actually, early in your posting here in london as eu ambassador. you said, "we have divorced. "it's always complicated to divorce and it is difficult "to find a new balance." well, many months have passed since then.

why are you still failing to find a new balance? well, i have no personal experience of divorce, thank god, but i'm told by friends that it's always complicated. and this one has proved to be complicated, to be very frank. it was a traumatic divorce, let's be clear. we sort of co—existed together for almost... ..almost half a century, and then through a democratic process, which we fully respect, a decision was taken which is a serious one with a number of consequences — so i think we're still addressing a whole range of consequences of this decision. it takes time to stabilise. yeah. i mean, there is an agreement. there was a treaty signed with a lot of fanfare and the hope was that that was the blueprint for a productive, co—operative... stephen, our approach — we want to move on. i believe in life after brexit. i think there's a number of things we can do together in spite of brexit, and our focus is exactly that. let's implement what we have agreed, let's maximise the potential of what we have agreed in two major agreements, the withdrawal agreement, which contains the protocol

on northern ireland and a number of other issues, and the trade and cooperation agreement, which looks at the future. let's implement that in a goodwill spirit. oh, my goodness, that does sound so nice and your tone is so emollient. but the truth is, this is not working out at all. i'm just describing our attitude. well. . .yes, but let's explore whether that really is your attitude or whether that's just the public face for diplomatic purposes. because in the end, it really, at the moment, comes down to northern ireland. now, the uk government is quite clear they signed an agreement which included a northern ireland protocol, and the idea of that was to ensure that trade could continue to work across the irish sea, that is from the landmass of great britain into northern ireland. at the same time, northern ireland would have the status of being in the eu single market and there would be special measures to ensure the integrity

of that single market. yeah. the uk government says, on reflection, looking at the reality of today, it's not working out in terms of ensuring peace and stability in northern ireland. i think the starting point must be brexit. brexit and the option of brexit that was chosen, meaning withdrawal from the single market, from the customs union, had enormous implications for northern ireland. we knew that before and we realised that during the negotiations. and for a long time, we discussed — the two teams of negotiators — what is the best solution for this? how can we mitigate the impact of brexit in northern ireland while respecting the good friday agreement, respecting the constitutional order of the united kingdom, and its territorial integrity, and also respecting the single market? and this was like squaring a circle. and we found very, very soon that there was only one way on which we could agree, and that is the protocol.

but it isn't working, so it isn't the one way because it's failing. the uk government says it's quite clearly failing because it is jeopardising peace and security in northern ireland. we respect the government's opinion, we respect the opinion of people who have different views from us, but let me recall some facts. first, the recently elected northern ireland assembly confirmed a majority of members in favour of the protocol. secondly, the protocol is, in fact, working in economic terms. if i look at the different, most recent statistics, with the exception of london, northern ireland is the fastest—growing part of the united kingdom. if you ask the citizens, and there were a number of opinion polls that revealed that, and you ask them to list their main concerns, the protocol comes roughly between fourth and sixth place. so, if you take this reality... but let me give you...

well, hang on, let me stop you there because you said some important things and, if i may say so, the most fundamental point of all is your contention that the northern ireland protocol does notjeopardise the good friday agreement. but the good friday agreement, fundamentally, is about cooperation between the two different views within northern ireland of its future — that is the unionist view and the nationalist, republican view. the good friday agreement only works if both sides are brought on board, and right now, your protocol is rejected by the unionists. it's not... there is no unionist politician in northern ireland who accepts the protocol. it's not our protocol. it's the protocol agreed between the uk and the european union, for which there is no, as far as i understand, no formal and comprehensive alternative. the question here is to implement what we have agreed in the most flexible way possible, and that's what we're trying to do. but there comes a point where it's just not working at all. and i'm going to quote to you the foreign secretary

in the united kingdom, liz truss, who says, "the problem is, the core issue is that the northern ireland "protocol has lost the consent of the unionist community "in northern ireland." and if that is true, that is a fundamental problem. what we have to focus on is solutions. we don't want to go back to debates that are outdated in a sense, because we negotiated for a long time and nobody found — not us not the british side — an alternative to the protocol. we should focus on practical solutions, and that's what we have been doing. but who have you been negotiating with? i don't know whether you as ambassador in london are involved directly in negotiations, but certainly, maros sefcovic, the deputy head of the commission... vice—president, yes. ..who is leading this negotiation, he's been talking to people in northern ireland, but the unionists...

i talk to people in northern ireland. good. i talk to unionists. well, then, explain to me why a leading unionist politician, sammy wilson, says this, "for two and a half years, "we unionists have urged dublin and brussels to change course, "and yet for two and a half years, we have been nothing "but mocked and demonised." well, i cannot subscribe to that. we have a constant dialogue with all political actors in northern ireland. our interlocutor, official interlocutor, is, of course, the government in westminster, with whom we deal on a regular basis, but let me be clear about one point. once you've signed and ratified the treaty, you are supposed to implement it. in international relations, when i've been involved, i knew for a number of years, there are two major commodities. one is mutual trust between partners, and the second

is international recognised credibility. and i don't need to make an allusion to the present geostrategic context to say how important it is that the law is respected, that commitments are respected. well... and that should be our starting point. hang on. that allusion of yours to what's happening in russia, ukraine would be relevant if you viewed boris johnson with the same sort of suspicion that the european union and, indeed, the british government view vladimir putin. if that's the nature of the suspicious, hostile relationship that you're dealing with... i didn't say that. ..fine. i didn't say that. well, in that case, that allusion, frankly, doesn't take us very far. no, it takes us very far, because in a moment like this, it is particularly important that all of us who respect the rule of law, who stand by values and principles of the international order, are coherent with our own ideas and act in that way. that's why. .. but to suggest that the british government is flagrantly violating treaties, international law, surely suggests that you have no confidence in their integrity. i don't think... and the british government, as you know, says, "actually, "we do have a right to walk away from the northern ireland "protocol, albeit it's enshrined in the treaty," because, they say, there

is an article and a clause which allows you to go back on an agreement or walk away from an agreement if you need to, quote, "safeguard an essential interest." in this case, peace and stability in northern ireland, seen from london, is very much an essential activity. stephen, you're talking about two different things. one is what we call the article 16, which is a legitimate tool inside the protocol, within the limits of the protocol, when you have a particular situation that you want to be addressed by the other side. we can use it, the british side can use it. the other thing is what the government unfortunately did, which is unilateral action, legislation put on the table of the parliament to fundamentally breach an international agreement. that's what i'm talking about. and that's what sort of surprised us, disappointed us, that the government chose this way to express their concern. but it comes back to the point that, in the end, you have

to decide, if you're in the british government, what's more important, a big row — i mean, i'm not belittling it — a very significant fallout with the european union over the treaty, or peace and stability in northern ireland. which is more important? and in london, frankly, they've decided that they have to safeguard peace and stability in northern ireland first. we believe the two are compatible and the proof is that we agreed on this protocol as the way exactly to protect the good friday agreement, so we need to continue to work in practical terms, implementing solutions, and what we have put on the table, stephen, what we have put on the table goes very far in addressing that. we are ready to reduce 80% of the sanitary checks, 50% of the paperwork. we will allow a single truck, instead of 300 pages, to produce three pages. hmm. three pages. no, i saw that. essentially, that was a package

of proposals you put together, i believe, last autumn, in october. for which we have had very little reaction from the... well, you've got a reaction now. the british government says, "you know what, we're "actually going to have to completely rethink this. "we're going to walk away from the protocol as it "currently is constituted, but we are going to put "forward, through legislation, our own measures, which will "meet the eu's demands. "it will clarify and simplify trade between great britain "and northern ireland, but it will also safeguard "the eu single market." and they'll do that by creating these red and green channels, so that trade that is specifically from great britain to northern ireland, and not going anywhere near the republic of ireland and your single market, that will go in a green channel and you will not monitor it, you will not demand the bureaucracy and the paperwork that currently is required. what's wrong with that? i know the other position of the government, which you described in a very favourable way. it's much less simple than that because it puts in question fundamental elements of the protocol. let me give you... only you don't trust london. you don't trust london

any more, do you? not a question of i trust or not trust. the facts are there. if you sign an agreement which is international law, british law, eu law, and in the regular way, you try to put that in question, this is not the first time that the government does this. they did it with the internal market bill, they did with unilateral action. what are we looking forward to have is jointly agreed, common solution. this is the only way forward. and we want to do it by recognising, as i was saying, that the difficulties in implementing this protocol, we are open to talks with the british government. but i mean, how do you want to... how would you feel that the other partner of yours wants to discuss by saying what we have agreed a couple of years ago is...? well, the funny thing is... it's very difficult to create a good climate for negotiations if the starting point is to say, "i need to redraft everything." if you see this as a fight where there has to be a winner and a loser, maybe.

but maybe you should say to yourself, you know, "i'm a very experienced diplomat," you've been in this game in the eu commission and elsewhere for decades — you know that, in the end, there is always a compromise out there somewhere. if one takes the british proposals now, with the red and the green channels, doing away with a lot of the oversight which you guys now demand on the trade between great britain and northern ireland, if you look at their proposals, look at yours, cos you've said to me, "you know what? "we're open to reducing the paperwork, we're "going to reduce the standards necessary on some of "the products — live animals can go through without the same "scrutiny that we demanded in the first place," you're actually not very far apart. you're a good diplomat. they're good diplomats in london. why can't you just get this done? you are not referring to some other proposals on the british side, which are... ..on which we have zero margin of manoeuvre. you know, putting in question the european court ofjustice as the utmostjurisdiction for the single market, it's a no—go area for us. a total deal breaker? it's a no—go. cos the britsjust want an independent...

..an independent body, not the european court ofjustice. do you know which is the single territory in the world that has access to the biggest single market in the world? half a billion people and the uk market. it's called northern ireland. this is a huge advantage for the people, for the business in northern ireland. all we want is to make good use of that through jointly agreed solutions. so we are ready to talk tomorrow, if the government does not start by saying, "we want to redraft everything." that is not acceptable. you don't like it, but that's where we are. so let's just quickly talk about what next. is there going to be a trade war? i hope not. i see no reasons why we should have a trade war. if we genuinely want to find solutions, again, we are ready to talk. but we cannot talk on the basis of unilateral action, breaching of agreed commitments and desire to redraft and renegotiate the whole treaty. in the irish media, there are already reports that

brussels, the institutions, i guess the commission, is developing a hit list of sensitive products from britain that, for example, scotch whisky, car parts, that they could impose retaliatory tariffs on if the brits don't back down on northern ireland, and do real, quick damage to the british economy. i don't wish to comment on speculation. our focus now is to try to find jointly agreed solution. we are ready to talk if the position of the government is the one that accepts that one needs to respect the overall framework in which we are working. but i know the way brussels works. plans are being made for all sorts of eventualities. are plans being made for punitive tariffs? no, we are not hiding that, if ever the behaviour of the british government in implementing the protocol does not live up to the standards in our agreement, there are links between that and the trade and cooperation agreement that will eventually need to be applied. but we don't want... eventually how long? i mean, there's talk about... ..to rush into that.

there's an ultimatum of essentially two months before formal actions begin at institutional level in brussels. so is that it? you're basically saying the uk government's got a few weeks. we... last year, we suspended our legal action because the past behaviour of the government had already created legal situations difficult to accept to us. we suspend in order to find and create space and time for talks. and we had a good start with liz truss, i must say, the foreign secretary. but then, in february, something changed and it's been radio silence since there in terms of the intensity and the quality of our talks. so we would like to resume that but, you know, again, put yourself in our situation, a government that wants to talk but basically says, "i'm going to take unilateral action to..." well... "..to basically breach the whole thing." they're adamant that this unilateral action, this legislation is coming. so you must be feeling very bleak, very pessimistic right now. we are serene but firm. let's talk about one

other challenge that, while you're wrestling, you personally in london, wrestling with this very difficult situation with britain and brexit, the eu's arguably got a much greater strategic problem right now, and that is how best to show unity, decisiveness in the confrontation with vladimir putin after his invasion of ukraine. as a very senior eu diplomat, are you satisfied with the levels of unity you're seeing? as you said, i've been around for some time and i've not been as proud as i am today for many years with the european union. i mean, if you take our reaction to brexit, if you take our reaction to covid, if you take our reaction to ukraine, three major crises, and the union has proven to be alive, dynamic, united. and if i take ukraine... yeah, well, i want you to take ukraine cos i'm just thinking of the words ofjosep borrell, the foreign policy chief, who says, "it is the truth right now we are still paying "vladimir putin pretty much

i billion euros every day "in terms of our energy consumption from russia... "..financing his war machine." you have to see the other side of the coin, and the other side of the coin is the impact we're having, our sanctions are having on the russian economy. nobody talks about that. a billion euros a day still going to his war machine. that is enormously important. we have done six package of sanctions. unprecedented. we've seen... unprecedented. but even after the sanctions, if pretty much a billion euros a day is going from europe to vladimir putin's war machine, what use are these sanctions? sanctions are by definition a two—way street, right? it impacts the one we want to impact upon — the adversary if you want — but it impacts ourselves as well, impacts you as it

impacts in the united states. isn't that the very problem? you need to find the right balance. i don't think anybody would want president putin to find that, because of the sanctions, we are losing the support of our public opinion. i think this is a very important point. so we need to fine tune our sanctions to the relative impact they have, to the cost benefit they have, to the capacity of our countries to adapt to the impact of the sanctions. but look at what we did on oil. by the end of the year, 90% of the imports have gone. and you've got holdouts like viktor orban in hungary, and we know where he stands when it comes to putin. and he is one symbol of the lack of coherence and unity inside the eu. and there's another. hang on, there's another, which is very germane and we don't have much time, so let's get straight to it. candidate status for ukraine. the three leaders of the biggest eu countries went to ukraine, said they're foursquare behind giving ukraine candidate status. you're portuguese. your prime minister is still deeply sceptical. has he now changed his mind? i don't speak for portugal

here, but let me be very clear about one point. what we are... the message we are passing to our ukrainian friends and, for that matter, for our moldovan friends as well, is a very clear one, and to the georgian ones as well — you belong to the european family. and this is the most important political message you can send. on top of that, the european commission, which is responsible under the treaties to provide an opinion, and if the european commission goes against that fact, nothing will happen. well, it happens the european commission is in favour of providing ukraine and moldova immediately with a candidate status. and this is absolutely historic. yeah. and your... i say "yours" as a citizen of portugal. antonio costa of portugal says, "the eu, if it goes "for candidate status for ukraine, is in danger of "creating false expectations." he clearly, like macron just a few weeks ago, thinks that there is no chance of ukraine actually becoming a member of the eu for decades. the leaders will pronounce themselves this week,

european council would hear the opinion and consider the opinion of the commission. i think all the indications point to a positive direction. but who am i to say what our leaders will decide? but i think what's already been done, if you take the position of the european commission, if you take the position of a number of leaders in europe and what you expect to happen in the european council, i think very much goes in the direction saying, "ukrainians, you are "part of our family. "ukrainians, we want you to be a candidate and we want you, "of course, to perform all the reforms necessary to be "able to one day be a member of the european union." and we'll see exactly what the leaders say in just a few days. but on the strategic point i'm trying to make, emmanuel macron of france basically said europe needs to develop a much greater, coherent security strategy and capacity of its own. strategic autonomy, he calls it. isn't the truth of what we've seen unfold in this crisis, that it is nato, where the americans work with the europeans, that

really matters in terms of safeguarding european security? because on all sorts of things, from sanctions to weapons supplies, within europe itself, there are actually deep divisions. you know something, steve? if president putin's goal was to divide the west... ..if it was to weaken nato, if it was to divide the european union, if it was to divide the eu from the uk, it totally failed. what you have today is nato being most likely enlarged and certainly strengthened. you know, you will have... if sweden and finland confirm, if nato confirms their membership, you will have in 27 member states of the european union, 23 will be members of nato. so there's an almost total overlapping between the two. that's my point — nato calls the shots here, not the european union. let me say about what president putin achieved. reinforcement of nato, strengthening of the transatlantic alliance,

our cooperation with the us, our cooperation with the uk in this field, which is...should be...should inspire us, by the way, to deal with other issues and the unity inside the union. so we have strengthened our mechanisms. on eu—nato, my point is very simple — one complements the other. there is no opposition there. joao vale de almeida, we have to end there, but i do thank you very much forjoining us on hardtalk. thank you. my pleasure. thank you.

hello there. the heat is continuing to build just for a few days before it turns cooler this weekend. today it was the turn of england and wales to see temperatures into the mid—20s in strong sunshine and blue skies. there has been much more cloud though across scotland and northern ireland so temperatures today not quite as high as they were yesterday. that cloud though is continuing to thin, so this evening and into the night, we'll have some patchy cloud for scotland and northern ireland. generally across england and wales, any cloud we have the moment will melt away and we will have clear skies. temperatures typically overnight 11 or 12 degrees. could be a little bit milder than that in northern ireland if it stays cloudy here. but i suspect we will break through the cloud and get some sunshine through the day on wednesday, and more sunshine to come across scotland, particularly in the east. the sunnier skies continue to be across england and wales, no wind at all, those temperatures rising rapidly once again. adding a couple degrees

onto today's values, so, for many, 26 or 27 degrees. a warmer day than today northern ireland and much warmer in eastern scotland in the sunshine. when you do have the sunshine, we've got high or even very high grass pollen levels once again tomorrow. the heat is building underneath the clearer skies and light winds under that area of high pressure, but it's getting eroded a little bit on thursday, particularly from that weather front in the south and that will bring with it some showers. it looks like those are moving a little further north more quickly through the english channel into southern parts of england, eventually into south wales, the south midlands, maybe even into east anglia before the end of the day. some sunshine ahead of that but still some cloud for western scotland and northern ireland, so temperatures not quite so high here. otherwise, another very warm day. but because those showers are moving northwards more quickly, the highest temperatures are going to be pushed further north through the midlands and northern england. and things continue to break down a bit by the end of the week, pressure falling, some heavy showers around, this band of rain approaching the southwest with cooler air coming in behind that

for the weekend. we do have some heavy and potentially thundery showers still from overnight, moving northwards across northern and western parts of the uk, ahead of that band of rain in the south—west later on. so we've got more cloud around to end the week, so temperatures are going to be a little bit lower, but with more sunshine and dry weather for eastern england, it's still going to be very warm.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm tadhg enright. the disgraced entertainer bill cosby is found to have sexually assaulted a 16—year—old girl in 1975 — a los angeles civil court awards her half a million dollars in damages. at the us capitol riot hearings, election workers speak of the pressure they faced from donald trump, leaving them to cope with abuse and intimidation. clashes in the ecuadorian capital leave two dead as the police fire tear gas at protesters demanding a better deal onjobs and the economy. a race against time — the un's stark warning that more than 75 million tonnes

of ukrainian grain needed to feed the developing