The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement: Cross-Border Cooperation and Peacebuilding in the Context of the New Institutions

Abstract

This chapter charts how the signing of the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (GFA) and the process of power-sharing and devolution in Northern Ireland altered the dynamics of the internal political and policy processes related to peacebuilding and cross-border cooperation of the region. The re-establishment of an executive in Northern Ireland, the functioning of the North-South Ministerial Council (NSMC), and the creation of the Special European Union Programmes Body (SEUPB) with its exclusive European remit, all impacted positively on the implementation of EU initiatives. This chapter argues that the Belfast/GFA’s external dimension, and its Three Strands, provided for a formal institutional channel for cross-border and peacebuilding policy networks at the grassroots level to be empowered and to finally play an active role in the peace process. The successes were, nonetheless, limited by the unstable institutional environment and by the relatively embryonic form of the SEUPB, the NSMC, and the networks. Lastly, this chapter will analyse the experience of the 2007 Northern Ireland Task Force (NITF) as the most significant development in the EU’s contribution to peacebuilding since the 1998 Agreement, and the acknowledgement that the EU has a long-term role, responsibility, and contribution to make to Northern Ireland’s future.