Brexit

The fragility of Northern Ireland politics continues to prove problematic in dealing with Brexit. The on-going efforts of the UK government to redefine the Northern Ireland Protocol agreed with the EU last December is testament to that. Such efforts may be politically appealing in advance of UK local elections next…
Continue Reading New EU Proposals for Northern Ireland Brexit Difficulties

The European Commission Vice President and Co-Chair of the Europe-UK Joint Committee, Maroš Šefčovič,  spoke to a meeting of the Irish Institute of International and European Affairs yesterday about the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol.  He spoke of the political risk and the efforts being made to reach a compromise between the…
Continue Reading EU Brexit negotiator comments on the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol

The Irish authorities are currently preparing a number of interesting pieces of new legislation – some to simply deal with Covid or to comply with European requirements, others relating to more domestic issues and a number will implement international obligations.  However surprisingly few are Brexit related.

Traditionally there are an…
Continue Reading Ireland’s new laws

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement (also known as the Belfast Agreement), which brought to an end three decades of inter-communal violence, also heralded the advent of 23 years of increased cross-border trade and cooperation as well as an increase in Irish exports to the UK.  That ease of access and…
Continue Reading The Northern Ireland border, UK/EU/Ireland trade …. and Brexit disruption

The Good Friday Agreement

The Troubles, which began in 1968 and lasted until the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) in 1998, left more than 3,700 people dead. The GFA introduced a new power-sharing N Ireland Government structure; decommissioned paramilitary weapons; established a number of joint committees between the UK, N and S Ireland to oversee the implementation of the GFA and address any possible tensions between the N and S Ireland or between communities in the North; created the ‘all-Ireland economy’; and protected the Common Travel Area.  But perhaps the most totemic and visible sign of the GFA’s success was the removal of the physical border infrastructure between N and S Ireland.
Continue Reading The UK, EU and the Northern Ireland Protocol

The EU-UK Trade & Cooperation Agreement (‘TCA’), signed at the end of last year did not cover financial services. Commentators had been sanguine about the potential impact on the City of London as a global financial centre. Figures showing that only 7,500 jobs had been re-located to the EU (out…
Continue Reading Brexit and the Financial Services Sector