CORRESPONDENT IN LONDON
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Despite its only 84,421 square kilometers of extension and its almost seven million inhabitants, the island of Ireland has once again become, in recent weeks, the center of attention both on the east and on the other side of the Atlantic. The conflict caused by the Northern Ireland Protocolthat part of the Brexit agreement created especially to avoid a hard border between this small constituent nation of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the European Union, does not seem to have a solution in the short term, and more and more agents are entering the political game. As if the internal crisis between Sinn Féin, which was the political arm of the IRA and winner of the elections on May 5, with the unionists of the DUP, who refuse to form a government if the protocol is not eliminated, was not enough. , and the growing tension between London and Brussels due to the entrenchment on this issue, now the United States has changed its position and it seems that the government of the president Joe Biden is more inclined to support Europe than to Boris Johnsonwho has launched a plan to unilaterally modify the agreement.
This follows from the warnings issued on Thursday night by the president of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, in a statement in which he threatened to block the trade agreement with the United Kingdom, one of Johnson’s great hopes after Brexit, if the British government does not respect what was agreed. «The Good Friday Agreements are the basis of peace in Northern Ireland and a beacon of hope for the whole world,” said Pelosi, who considered that “ensuring that there is no physical border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is absolutely necessary to maintain this historic agreement,” which was signed in 1998, thus ending three bloody decades in the region that resulted in the death of more than 3,500 people. “It is deeply worrying that the UK is now seeking to unilaterally scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol, which preserves the important progress and stability forged by the Agreements,” said Pelosi, reiterating that “as I have said in my discussions with the Prime Minister , the Foreign Secretary and members of the House of Commons, if the UK decides to undermine the Good Friday Agreements, Congress will not support a bilateral free trade agreement with the UK.” In the text, the president of the House of Representatives urged all parties to hold “negotiations constructive, collaborative and in good faith to implement an agreement that defends peace”, since “the children of Northern Ireland, who never knew the bloody conflict”, now “do not want to go back” and “deserve a future free of violence ».
These harsh statements come precisely before this Saturday a delegation of nine members of the US Congress lands in London, from Brussels, which intends, among other objectives, to appease the spirits between the British and the community. To achieve this, they will meet in the capital with the Foreign Minister, Liz Trussthe Secretary of International Trade, Anne-Marie Trevalyanthe labor leader, Keir Starmer, and Nick Thomas-Symonds, head of International Trade for the opposition. On the six-day trip, which will also include visits to Dublin, Kerry and Belfastthe delegation will be led by Richard Nealchairman of the congressional ways and means committee, who confirmed that Biden is considering appointing a special envoy for Northern Ireland in the face of heightened tensions.
A serious corrective
The change of position of the Biden Executive, who despite not having prioritized a trade agreement with his British allies in this first year and a half of his mandate has highlighted the good relationship between the two countries, is a setback for Johnson, who hoped that once he left the European Union they would open up to him the doors of trade agreements with other nations, one with the United States being the most important on their agenda. It should be remembered that President Biden, who has Irish roots, was always opposed to the divorce between the United Kingdom and the EU, and had even declared that the peace process, of which his country is a neutral guarantor, could not be “a Brexit victim.
The reaction from within the British government has been forceful. Conor Burns, special envoy for Brexit to the United States, declared this Friday that the United Kingdom is not willing to give in to pressure from the Americans on the Protocol, even if this position costs it the long-awaited free trade agreement. “We are seeking an ambitious FTA with the United States, but there can be no connection between that and doing the right thing for Northern Ireland,” he said. He also commented on it Jeffrey Donaldsonleader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP): “If Nancy Pelosi wants the agreement to be protected, then she has to recognize that it is the Protocol that undermines it.”
From Brussels, the Vice President of the European Commission, Maros Sefkovic affirmed, after meeting with the US congressmen, that the “only way” to protect the peace agreement in the region is through “joint solutions” and not unilateral measures such as those intended to be approved by the British prime minister, whom many accuse of having signed the pact without ever having been willing to fulfill it.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism