Inside the Deal: How the EU Got Brexit Done by Stefaan De Rynck

Author:Stefaan De Rynck
Format: epub

Barnier’s mandate: be flexible and imaginative

The investment by Kenny and Irish diplomats in explaining the ins and outs of the Good Friday Agreement to national diplomats, the Commission and Tusk’s advisors paid off at the gathering of the European Council in April 2017. It was a defining moment for Brexit. By then Barnier had visited all national governments. Council officials had been working hand in hand with his team on the negotiation guidelines. EU leaders adopted them quickly and subsequently kept reaffirming them until the end of the process in 2020. In line with what Kenny and Barnier had agreed and what Tusk had discussed before the gathering with EU leaders, the guidelines stressed the need for “flexible and imaginative solutions” for “the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland”, with the “aim of avoiding a hard border”. They stressed the respect for the Good Friday Agreement “in all its parts” and for “the integrity of the Union legal order”, meaning that Ireland needed to uphold all its EU obligations as well as North–South cooperation. Taking UK diplomats by surprise, a separate document, which was legally binding for the EU, stressed in a single sentence that Northern Ireland, if it opted for a reunited Ireland, would automatically be part of the EU. Irish diplomacy had some institutional memory here as the 1990 European Council meeting in Dublin paved the way to integrate East Germany into the EU, six months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The ease with which this Irish diplomatic triumph came about was yet another sign that the EU-27 had formed a united front to protect one of their own. Merkel stressed this unity was “a natural thing” and was not about lining up against the UK.

Barnier travelled again to Ireland as soon as the Commission published its draft negotiation mandate in May 2017 and now received the honour of addressing the joint houses of the Oireachtas, the Irish Parliament, on 11 May, an honour usually bestowed at state visits. John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and François Mitterrand were among the few who preceded him. Unlike Mitterrand, Barnier spoke in English and said “I want to reassure the Irish people: in this negotiation Ireland’s interest will be the Union’s interest. We are in this negotiation together and a united EU will be here for you”. It was a bold claim as negotiations had not yet started, but Barnier knew how strongly leaders and business associations in the EU felt about the issue. Northern Ireland often triggered an emotional response in public debates in the EU, with people asking Barnier if “the troubles” could come back. His visits to Finnish and Dutch border agents, conversations with large business organizations in Belgium, Germany and elsewhere, a political debate with Dutch Christian-Democrats and many other occasions consistently confirmed that people were eager to show solidarity and defend solutions for Northern Ireland. In March 2018, before going to visit a remote Danish fishing community in Jutland

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