US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his economic priorities at a Laborers International Union of North America (LiUNA) training center in DeForest, Wisconsin, USA, February 8, 2023.
jonathan ernst | Reuters
US President Joe Biden continues his visit to Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a historic peace deal that effectively ended decades of sectarian conflict.
Biden left British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plane Tuesday night to begin a four-day visit to the island of Ireland. She will give a speech at Ulster University in Northern Ireland on Wednesday, before traveling south to the Republic of Ireland border, where she will stay until Friday.
Biden is not expected to discuss a transatlantic free trade deal with Sunak, National Security Council Senior Director for Europe Amanda Sloat told reporters on Tuesday.
The president’s visit occurs in a feverish political context. The Northern Ireland Assembly, the devolved legislature established as part of the Good Friday Agreement, has been suspended since February 2022 as unionist parties refuse to take their seats in protest of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
A key tenet of the post-Brexit Withdrawal Agreement signed between the United Kingdom and the European Union during the tenure of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Protocol effectively established a trade border in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, while the Republic of Ireland is a separate nation state that remains part of the EU. The Good Friday Agreement established a devolved power-sharing administration in Northern Ireland ending three decades of violence between largely Catholic Irish republicans, who seek a united Ireland, and predominantly pro-British Protestant unionists who want to remain part of the Kingdom United.
DERRY/LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland – April 10, 2023: Derry hosts annual parades by dissident republican groups marking the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, the armed insurrection against British rule in Ireland that catalyzed the creation of an independent state from Ireland .
Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Sunak and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, recently signed the Windsor Framework, a renegotiated agreement that is intended to address problems with the Protocol. But the prominent pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party rejected the proposals and has yet to return to Assembly in Stormont.
Theresa Villiers, the former UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2012 to 2016, told CNBC on Tuesday that further changes to the Windsor Framework would be necessary.
“While it’s positive in many ways, particularly in the movement of food and medicine between Britain and Northern Ireland, it really removes a lot of friction, it doesn’t address all of the Northern Ireland protocol issues, so I’m afraid it’s an issue. pending,” Villiers told CNBC’s Tania Bryer.
“Continuing negotiations with the EU to resolve those issues is the best way to bring the unionists back into government and get those Good Friday Agreement institutions working again.”
Agitation
Unionist discontent with the Northern Ireland Protocol has sparked riots in recent years, but political unrest continues to emerge on both sides of the traditional divide.
Annual parades held over the weekend by dissident Irish republican groups in the border city of Derry, a longtime focal point for sectarian violence, also resulted in police vans being bombed with petrol.
The parades were held to mark the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, the armed rebellion against British rule in Ireland that paved the way for the establishment of Irish independence.
DERRY/LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland, UK – April 10, 2023: Dissident Republican youth create a road block following an illegal dissident march in the Creggan area of Derry.
Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Parts of the dissident Republican movement reject the Good Friday Agreement and its commitments to this day, although many of the current rioters were born after the agreement was signed.
Villiers noted that the riots over the weekend appeared to be “planned in advance” and geared towards “optics” and “attention”, while the vast majority of the population of Northern Ireland is committed to a peaceful and democratic future.
Fringe dissident groups have increasingly drawn disaffected youth to militant causes in recent years, a development that has raised concerns among politicians and public bodies.
The outburst highlights simmering generational resentments that can still simmer in Northern Ireland, particularly during the April-July period when nationalist and unionist communities hold politically charged marches.
Political impasse focused on Brussels, not Washington
The Good Friday Agreement was signed on April 10, 1998 by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and then-Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern, after 71% of Northern and 94% of Northern voters the Republic approved the proposals and commitments resulting from years of arduous negotiations.
The Agreement ended three decades of sectarian violence known as the Troubles, which claimed more than 3,000 lives. He brought together nationalist and unionist parties in Stormont, near Belfast, to share power through decentralized government.
DERRY/LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland – April 10, 2023: A police vehicle is attacked with petrol bombs during an illegal dissident march in the Creggan area.
Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Former US President Bill Clinton is considered to have played a pivotal role during the Northern Ireland peace process, with the Good Friday Agreement being cited as one of his administration’s major foreign policy successes. Clinton became the first sitting US president to visit Northern Ireland and the first to appoint a US special regional envoy. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama have since visited, while Clinton was awarded the Freedom of the City of Belfast in 2018.
Speaking to reporters before leaving for Belfast on Tuesday, Biden said his top priority was “making sure the Ireland and Windsor deals stick” and “keeping the peace.”
The Biden administration has always wanted to highlight both the president’s Irish roots and the historical ties between the island and large sectors of the American population. However, the influence of Irish-American culture has often led to skepticism from unionists in Belfast who perceive Washington as susceptible to nationalist influence.
Although Biden is expected to use the trip to promote a return to functioning government in Stormont, his previous support for the Northern Ireland Protocol and his current support for the Windsor Framework have drawn criticism from DUP politicians.
Several prominent DUP figures on Wednesday criticized the president’s earlier comments as betraying a pro-Irish, “anti-British” nationalist partisanship, which the White House strongly denied, rejecting suggestions that his visit will put pressure on union lawmakers to return to The presidency. Assembly.
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND – APRIL 10, 2018: Former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US President Bill Clinton at an event to mark the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Images by Brian Lawless/PA via Getty Images
“Of course Bill Clinton was, I think, a really positive influence on the peace process that led to the Good Friday Agreement, but ultimately the presence of President Biden will not alter the fundamentals that we have been talking about. Those blockages in the decentralized institutions relate more to Brussels than to Washington, unfortunately,” Villiers said Tuesday.
Sunak hopes the president’s visit will help promote the Windsor Framework, an achievement the ruling Conservative Party will want to tout in next year’s UK general election. The Prime Minister will also hold an investment conference in Belfast in September.
“One of the benefits of President Biden’s visit is to highlight what a fantastic place Northern Ireland is to not only live, but to run a business and invest in it, and there has been a great success story with many great American companies. with large operations in the north. Ireland. I hope it goes from strength to strength in the future,” said Villiers.
