Johnson met with European leaders on the sidelines of the G7 summit

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met today on the sidelines of the G7 summit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron amid growing tensions between Great Britain and the European Union after Brexit.

Today, Johnson also met with the President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.

The summit of the leaders of the Group of Seven most developed countries was organized in Cornwall, in the southwest of England.

The two sides are in a diplomatic row over trade arrangements in Northern Ireland, the only part of Great Britain with a land border with the Union.

London and Brussels are trying to agree on the "Northern Ireland Protocol" negotiated as part of the UK's withdrawal from the EU.

According to that protocol, which entered into force on January 1 when Great Britain left the EU, the British province of Northern Ireland is still in the single European market and customs union for goods arriving in Northern Ireland from the rest of Great Britain.

The goal of that protocol is to avoid a physical border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, a member of the EU.

However, local authorities in Northern Ireland are increasingly expressing dissatisfaction with the protocol as they condemn the de facto introduction of a border on the Irish Sea in the middle of Great Britain.