The Law & Politics of Brexit by Fabbrini Federico

Author:Fabbrini, Federico
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2017-03-06T16:00:00+00:00

4. The common travel area and open borders

Currently no hard border exists on the island of Ireland pursuant to the Common Travel Area between Ireland and the UK. The UK and Ireland have operated a common travel area since Irish independence, preceding the States’ entry into the EEC in 1973, by fifty years. Article 2, Protocol No 20 to the EU Treaties, explicitly recognizes the Common Travel Area. In practice, this means that citizens of either state, moving from one state to another, have not only a right of entry without requiring a visa, but also have the right to work, access to health and welfare services, and even to vote. While its historic origins were a result of the limited UK recognition of Irish sovereignty in 1922, the common travel area became normalized and any restrictions on the free movement of people between the two countries would be both practically disruptive and politically sensitive. Even though there is no legal requirement to show a passport when travelling between Ireland and the UK, this provision only applies to people born in Ireland or the UK and who are citizens of one of the states, therefore in theory individuals can be asked to prove their citizenship when crossing between the two states. Airlines operating between the islands of Ireland and Britain require passengers to have a photo ID, most insist on a passport, and the UK also officially advises UK citizens to carry a passport when travelling to Ireland, even though it is not strictly required.40 In practice, therefore, a passport is carried by most people when moving from the island of Ireland (including Northern Ireland) to Britain. However, a passport is not required to travel between the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland, and since the creation of the single market in 1992 and the implementation of the peace process, there has been no visible border between the two parts of the island. When the UK leaves the EU, it will inevitably impact on this agreement, opening up the possibility of restrictions on the freedom of movement across the Irish land border. While Prime Minister Theresa May’s letter to the EU on the triggering of Article 50 TEU says the UK wants ‘to avoid a return to a hard border … and … to be able to maintain a Common Travel Area’ between the UK and Ireland. The UK government did not suggest any way in which this could be achieved and as this is only one of many objectives of the UK government it may lose out to other priorities, during negotiations.

Sealing the 499 km Irish land border will be difficult, as was demonstrated by the experience of the Northern Ireland conflict. During the conflict, as a security measure the British Army closed more than 200 of the smaller roads crossing the border, by a mixture of destroying bridges, creating physical barriers, and cratering roads. There were also major security installations on the official crossing points, which existed

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.