A preliminary investigation on the genesis of EU cross-border cooperation on the island of Ireland

ABSTRACT

The Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 led to the creation of a new set of political institutions within Northern Ireland and between Great Britain and the island of Ireland. A central tenet of the agreement was to promote cross-border cooperation on an all Ireland and border region basis and, consequently, the new institutional setting for this cooperation forms the core of this research. The article will first sketch an analytical approach that enables the analysis to address new policy processes, the state authority, and the multitude of actors involved. Secondly, it will proceed to an in-depth description of the genesis of the implementation of EU-sponsored cross-border cooperation in the context of the Irish border region. The examination will encompass a description and analysis of the development of the European specific border region programme ‘INTERREG’ and the limited results achieved by cross-border cooperation in such framework. Finally, the article will interconnect the creation of new political institutions within Northern Ireland and between North and South with experiences of regionalism and peacebuilding in order to analyse how processes of EU integration and association are related to border conflict amelioration on the island of Ireland.

KEYWORDS:

• EU integration
• EU and conflict resolution
• cross-border cooperation
• peacebuilding

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Giada Laganà is a final year PhD candidate in the School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, Galway. Giada is recipient of the Galway Doctoral Research Scholarship and her thesis explores the genesis of the Europeanization of the Northern Ireland peace process. After completing her undergraduate studies in modern and contemporary history at the University of Pavia (Italy), Giada obtained an MA in International Relations and History at the University of La Rochelle (France).

Notes

1 Revisions to the operation of the Northern Ireland institutions were agreed between the main Northern Ireland political parties and the British and Irish governments at St Andrews in 2006 and at Stormont House in 2014.

2 Commonly known as the PEACE founding, the PEACE package or the PEACE programs.