New Report: The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process in the shadow of Brexit
The Whitaker Institute is proud to launch a new report, written by Giada Lagana, Niall Ó Dochartaigh and Anita Naughton entitled ‘The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process in the shadow of Brexit’. The report highlights the substantial and deeply-rooted character of European support for the search for a political solution in Northern Ireland. It is based on a symposium at the National University of Ireland Galway in April 2018 that bought together several of the architects of the European Union peace programmes in Northern Ireland for the first time in twenty years, to reflect on the role the EU played in the peace process. The report looks back at the EU role and discusses the challenges posed by Brexit twenty years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, at a time when EU involvement in the peace process and cross-border relations in Ireland are at the centre of public debates. Former Commission officials were joined at the symposium by academic experts on the EU and key figures active in cross-border cooperation to explore the significance of the EU role in the peace process and discuss the future of the Good Friday Agreement and the Irish border. The report includes the full text of contributions by former Irish diplomat Noel Dorr and Carlo Trojan, former Secretary General of the European Commission.