President Joe Biden travels to Northern Ireland on Tuesday to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the signing of a historic peace agreement that helped to end decades of conflict.
The president will celebrate 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement, also known as the GFA or the Belfast Agreement, which was a landmark deal aimed at ending more than 30 years of sectarian violence that saw more than 3,500 killed.
However, Biden's visit comes at a time when the agreement appears to be threatened because of new requirements following Brexit—the U.K.'s decision to leave the European Union.
Under the GFA, a new parliament—Northern Ireland Assembly—was established that saw power-sharing between unionists and nationalists but that assembly is not currently operating.
Unionists believe that Northern Ireland should remain part of the U.K., while nationalists believe Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland should become a single, independent nation.
Brexit and the Northern Ireland Assembly
While political parties representing both communities have worked together in government in the past, the largest unionist party—the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)—has said it will not return to power-sharing until its concerns are addressed.
The major stumbling block is the fact that Northern Ireland is now the only part of the U.K. that shares a land border with the EU and goods traveling from the EU into the U.K. are subject to checks.
In order to avoid border checks on the island of Ireland, the U.K. and the EU agreed to the Northern Ireland Protocol, which saw goods checked when they entered Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.
The DUP, as well as other unionist parties, rejected that solution and argued that the protocol undermined the GFA because it separated Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. In February, the U.K. and EU signed a new agreement—the Windsor Framework—which aims to reduce the number of checks on goods entering Northern Ireland.
Nonetheless, the DUP remains unwilling to return to power-sharing amid the party's continuing concerns. That's left Northern Ireland without its own parliament as Biden visits.
"The idea that it weathered Brexit is a miracle, because Brexit was aimed right at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement, even if not intentionally," former President Bill Clinton told Irish state broadcaster RTÉ last week.
Clinton played a key role in pushing for the peace agreement as part of his administration's foreign policy, and he and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have both remained strong supporters of the deal, along with Biden.
"There's a lot of work to be done in Northern Ireland to deal with the continuing challenges that face the people, and those who were elected should get about the business of doing that," Hillary Clinton told RTÉ. She currently serves as chancellor of Queen's University Belfast (QUB).
'Democratic and Peaceful Means'
Katy Hayward is a professor at the The Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at QUB. The institute is named for former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, who was a key figure in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Hayward told Newsweek that "a fundamental principle in the Good Friday agreement was about moving away from the use of violence to committing to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences."
"And I therefore think that the democratic institutions in Northern Ireland are absolutely fundamental to the agreement," she said.
Hayward said that "the concerns about peace should focus not just on the activity of paramilitaries, but also on the inactivity of our elected representatives."
"With Biden coming—which is very welcome, I think, by most people—I think we shouldn't avoid addressing the fact that we haven't had the assembly functioning for four out of the past six years and not to think of this as some inconvenience, but actually as a serious risk—indeed contradiction—to the 1998 agreement," she said.
Consequences of Not Making Decisions
Hayward suggested that without functioning governing institutions, the young people of Northern Ireland may become frustrated.
"People have to be able to say to the next generation—you may hold your views very strongly and you may be impatient or frustrated or feel voiceless in this, but this is the way to get your voice heard," Hayward said.
"You know, stand for election or campaign, go out and vote. And if you have a situation where people think, well, okay, I voted and nothing happened—and it's not as though these institutions are are optional or just for show.
"There are serious consequences in the delivery or non-delivery of public services, and decisions being made that have real effects on people's lives—or decisions not being able to be made—that have consequences."
Hayward added that those consequences "relate to the most vulnerable people in society. And we know that most vulnerable people in society include those who would be most subject to exploitation and manipulation by paramilitaries on both sides. So all of these things are connected."
Biden could play a role in urging the restoration of power-sharing in Northern Ireland as he celebrates the Good Friday Agreement, but the issues are complex and difficult.
"I'd be very, very surprised to see the institutions functioning before we've had a period of talks between the parties involving both governments," Hayward told Newsweek. "As is necessary, of course. And in those talks, we would have all the parties around the table with fairly weighty demands."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
