U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his economic priorities at a Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) training center in DeForest, Wisconsin, U.S. February 8, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
U.S. President Joe Biden arrives in Northern Ireland on Tuesday to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement — a landmark peace deal that effectively ended a long time of sectarian conflict.
Biden will probably be greeted off the plane on Tuesday evening by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to start a four-day visit to the island of Ireland. He’ll give a speech in Northern Ireland on Wednesday, before traveling south of the border to the Republic of Ireland, where he’ll remain until Friday.
The president’s visit comes against a febrile political backdrop. The Northern Ireland Assembly, the devolved legislature established as a part of the Good Friday Agreement, has been suspended since February 2022, as unionist parties refuse to take their seats in protest over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
A key tenet of the post-Brexit Withdrawal Agreement signed between the U.K. and the European Union during former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s tenure, the Protocol effectively established a trade border within the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland is an element of the U.K. while the Republic of Ireland is a separate nation state that continues to be a part of the EU. The Good Friday Agreement established a power-sharing devolved administration in Northern Ireland that ended three a long time of violence between largely Catholic Irish republicans, who seek a united Ireland, and predominantly Protestant pro-British unionists who wish to stay a part of the U.K.
DERRY/LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland – April 10,2023: Derry is host to annual parades by dissident republican groups that mark the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, the armed rebellion against British rule in Ireland that catalysed the creation of an independent state of Ireland.
Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently signed the Windsor Framework, a renegotiated deal that sets out to handle the issues with the Protocol. However the outstanding pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party rejected the proposals and has yet to return to the Assembly in Stormont.
Theresa Villiers, former U.K. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland between 2012 and 2016, told CNBC on Tuesday that further changes could be vital to the Windsor Framework.
“Whilst it’s positive in some ways — particularly on movement of food and medicines between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it really removes quite a lot of the frictions — it doesn’t cope with all the issues of the Northern Ireland protocol, so I’m afraid it’s unfinished business,” Villiers told CNBC’s Tania Bryer.
“Continuing negotiations with the EU to resolve those issues is one of the best option to bring the unionists back into government and to get those Good Friday Agreement institutions up and running again.”
Unrest
Unionist dissatisfaction with the Northern Ireland Protocol has led to riots lately, but political unrest continues to emerge on each side of the standard divide.
Annual parades held over the weekend by dissident Irish republican groups within the border city of Derry — a long-standing point of interest for sectarian violence — also resulted in police vans being petrol bombed.
The parades were held to mark the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising — the armed rebel against British rule in Ireland that paved the best way for the establishment of Irish independence.
DERRY/LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland, U.K. – April 10, 2023: Dissident republican youths create a road block following an illegal Dissident march within the Creggan area of Derry.
Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Portions of the dissident republican movement reject the Good Friday Agreement and its compromises to this present day, though most of the current rioters were born after the deal was signed.
Villiers noted that the weekend riots seemed to be “pre-planned” and geared towards “optics” and “attention,” while the overwhelming majority of the Northern Irish population is committed to a peaceful and democratic future.
Fringe dissident groups have increasingly drawn disaffected young people towards militant causes lately — a development that has raised concerns amongst politicians and public bodies.
The flare up highlights the simmering generational resentments that may still be inflamed in Northern Ireland, particularly throughout the April to July period, when politically charged marches are held by each nationalist and unionist communities.
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 voters within the North and 94% of those within the Republic approved the proposals and compromises borne out from years of painstaking negotiations.
The Agreement ended three a long time of sectarian violence often known as the Troubles, which claimed greater than 3,000 lives. It brought nationalist and unionist parties together in Stormont, near Belfast, to share power through the devolved government.
DERRY/LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland – April 10, 2023: A Police vehicle is attacked with petrol bombs during an illegal Dissident march within the Creggan area.
Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is perceived to have played an instrumental role throughout the Northern Irish peace process, with the Good Friday Agreement cited as certainly one of his administration’s major foreign policy successes. Clinton became the primary sitting U.S. President to go to Northern Ireland and the primary to appoint a U.S. special regional envoy. Since then, each George W. Bush and Barack Obama have visited, while Clinton was awarded the Freedom of the City of Belfast in 2018.
The Biden administration has long been keen to focus on each the president’s Irish roots and the historic ties between the island and enormous swathes of the American population. Nevertheless, the influence of Irish-American culture has often led to skepticism from unionists in Belfast who perceive Washington as at risk of nationalist influence.
Though Biden is anticipated to make use of the trip to advertise a return to functioning government in Stormont, his previous support for the Northern Ireland Protocol has drawn criticism from DUP politicians.
BELFAST, Northern Ireland – April 10, 2018: Former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US President Bill Clinton at an event to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images
“After all Bill Clinton was, I believe, a very positive influence on the peace process that led to the Good Friday Agreement, but ultimately, President Biden’s presence won’t alter those fundamentals that we have been talking about. Those blockages on the devolved institutions relate more to Brussels than they do to Washington, unfortunately,” Villiers said on Tuesday.
Sunak will probably be hoping that the president’s visit will help promote the Windsor Framework, an achievement the ruling Conservative Party will wish to tout at next 12 months’s U.K. general election. The prime minister can even hold an investment conference in Belfast in September.
“Certainly one of some great benefits of President Biden’s visit is to focus on what a unbelievable place Northern Ireland just isn’t simply to live but to run a business and to speculate in, and there is been an incredible success story with many big U.S. corporations with large operations in Northern Ireland. I hope that is going to go from strength to strength in the longer term,” Villiers said.