//I doubt if Norway & Switzerland have to put up with this bull's excrement.//
No they don’t, ken. But that’s because both are participants in the EU’s Single Market – Norway courtesy of its membership of the European Economic Area and Switzerland by way of bilateral agreements with the EU. As such they must comply with all rules and regulations that the EU places upon goods that move from them into the EU. Interestingly Switzerland has recently abandoned talks with the EU aimed at replacing their bilateral agreements with an overarching treaty. These had been ongoing for many years but the Swiss finally realised that the EU’s demands in exchange for making such an agreement were too great:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57251681
The individual agreements will gradually expire (or be unilaterally ditched by the EU following them not getting their own way). Then Switzerland will have to decide how to proceed in the same way as the UK has following Brexit).
I don’t know how long it will be before enough people understand that the EU is not interested in realistic, pragmatic negotiation. You can either accede to all their demands or be cast out. The NI Protocol was one of the most outrageous agreements a UK government has ever put their name to. It jeopardises the integrity of the UK and arguably runs counter to the Good Friday Agreement. None of that matters to the EU. They immediately recognised the Irish border issue as being a major weapon with which to punish the UK. Our stupid government (mainly at the behest of that great statesman, one B. Johnson) confirmed the agreement and now we’re stuck with it. So a sizeable chunk of the UK population have their lives made extremely difficult in order to protect the EU’s precious “Single Market” (aka the European Protection Racket).
It needs to be sorted forthwith and if it means abandoning the Protocol then so be it. But since this government seems intent on leaving most problems untouched until they turn into major crises, I’ll not hold my breath. As with the "Pingdemic" (where major issues are about to erupt with supply chains) they will probably wait until NI citizens are all suffering malnutrition before forming a committee to address the matter. At least the EU will be able to ship goods to them via the Republic.