EU Structural Funds Programmes on the Island of Ireland: Interreg and the Cross-Border Dimension

Abstract

This chapter charts an in-depth description of the genesis of EU cross-border cooperation on the island of Ireland. It focuses on the Interreg programme and deals with the economic and social issues and challenges that confronted outgrowing policy networks on the island. Secondly, it interconnects experiences of regionalism and peacebuilding. These steps are essential in analysing how processes of EU integration and association are related to peacebuilding on the island of Ireland. The chapter argues that the highly centralised nature of the Irish and UK administrations, together with the political symbolism of cross-border cooperation in the Irish border regions, hindered an authentic involvement of private actors and interest groups in cross-border initiatives. Private organisations and actors were nonetheless aware of the opportunities—and constraints—offered by the EU and started to act more strategically in order to gain a more active role in the processes of public policymaking. Such participation had been theorised by the EU/Northern Ireland network led by John Hume in previous years. In addition, the evidence presented shows how the PEACE programme’s administrative system was deliberately kept separate from the Interreg’s arrangement in order to resolve the issues of additionality, which had been already articulated since the 1981 Martin Report. Finally, the Interreg experience will be presented as a ‘lesson-learning’ model for subsequent EU peacebuilding in the region and also the first instance in which cross-border networks were successful in creating a niche for participating in the Northern Ireland peace process.