The EU is to put forward new proposals about trade rules for Northern Ireland following Brexit.
The European Commission vice president hopes they'll be ready next week - and says there will then be more talks with the UK.
The agreement with Brussels puts checks on some goods moving from Britain to the North.
"We will not renegotiate the Protocol, as the UK is requesting," said the EU Commissioner Maron Sefcovic in Dublin today.
"And we will not accept solutions that will effectively mean cutting Northern Ireland off from the single market and related opportunities."
The UK public voted to leave the EU in 2016 - however, the people of Northern Ireland rejected the proposal with 55.78% opting to stay within the EU.
Unionist parties in the North have called for a scrapping of the Northern Ireland protocol with the leader of the DUP Jeffrey Donaldson threatening to collapse Stormont before the end of the year.
