EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier yesterday sounded an optimistic note by insisting there is "always an answer" for resolving issues around borders.
Michel Barnier was speaking on the second and final day of a visit to Ireland ahead of the start of talks with the UK government.
He travelled to Co Monaghan where he met business owners, including a company producing ready-made meals for the British market.
Swift Fine Foods exports a quarter of its produce across the Irish Sea using the land route through the north but fears it could be badly impacted by post-Brexit trade tariffs.
On the border issue, Mr Barnier declared: "There is always a road when there is a will."
He said the forthcoming Brexit talks would be "extraordinary and very complex and difficult" but he wanted to "work with all these people on the ground to find solutions" to the border question.
"This negotiation will not only be financial, legal or technical, in my view it will first be human and social and economic," he said.
"That is the reason why I want to meet the people on the ground and I want to manage the negotiation with the feet on the ground.
Mr Barnier said the EU wanted to find solutions that avoided a hardening of the border.
"But we have to find solutions also compatible with the single market," he said.
The EU negotiator urged the British government to "keep calm and negotiate".
Irish foreign affairs minister Charlie Flanagan said he was "very pleased that Commissioner Barnier is on the border" ahead of the talks.
Speaking on the BBC, the minister said an open border was "a must in all circumstances".
"I say no to border posts – I say no to fences; I say no to hard border," said Mr Flanagan.
Sinn Féin northern leader Michelle O’Neill also welcomed Mr Barnier's visit to Co Monaghan.
She said he would see for himself how Brexit "will have a devastating impact on commerce and communities" across the border region.
“I very much welcome the fact he has taken the time to come here because, as the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, it's vital he witnesses how a new border will decimate local communities, business, farms and the wider agrifood industry," she said.
“Unlike Theresa May, Michel Barnier is prepared to listen to those concerns and to seek imaginative and flexible solutions to avoid the nightmare scenario which the Tories and their DUP allies are trying to force upon us."
