Strand 2 and the creation of an open border in Ireland

Apart from the presence of complex supply chains that straddle the border in the agri-food business, the pattern of trade between the two parts of Ireland is further evidence of the limited progress that has been made towards building an all-Ireland economy. It would be harsh to say that north-south economic and business cooperation during the past two decades has been tokenistic, but equally it cannot be seen as fostering either substantial or wide-ranging north/south economic connections. For the most part, only a minimum level of integration has occurred between the two Irish economies since the signing of the Belfast Agreement. Both economies continue to function as distinctively as they did in the mid-1990s (Bradley 2018). To some extent, this should not be a surprising conclusion as the all-island institutional framework set up by the Belfast Agreement was explicitly designed not to disrupt in any serious way the two different economic pathways being travelled each side of the Irish border. At the same time, it is surprising that the euphoria and enthusiasm released by the signing of the Agreement did not lead to the creation of more elaborate all-Ireland business networks or greater business-led north-south cooperation projects.

The lack of any notable advances towards an all-island economy is largely down to the institutional framework of Strand 2 of the Belfast Agreement. Institutions such as the NSMC or the cross border implementation bodies are heavily inter-governmentalist in character. As a result, from the beginning cross border cooperation initiatives were virtually destined to be low key. At the same time, it would be quite misleading to say that Strand 2 had no impact. The institutional exoskeleton established by the Belfast Agreement to advance cross border cooperation may not have had a significant economic impact, but it did play an important role in developing another kind of ‘Irish dimension’. In particular, significant strides have been made to create a new social-psychological community between the north and south of Ireland that has led to citizens both sides of the island becoming increasingly at ease with each other. Previously, the border was symbolic of the divide between unionism and nationalism. For unionism, the Irish Republic at best was not in their frame of reference and at worst was to be treated with suspicion and mistrust: the border was the bulwark that protected their Britishness. For nationalism, the border had quite ditferent connotations: it prevented the formation of a single economic area on the island that would trigger all sorts of positive synergies between the north and the south. It also symbolized the frustration of their political identity. After the Belfast Agreement these sharply competing views of the border moderated.

The emergence of an open border (as opposed to cross border institutional and policy cooperation) over the past two decades has allowed citizens of the north and south interface with each other differently. Symbolic of this new dispensation has been the increase in tourist flows north and south of the border. Cross border tourist flows have increased by more than 250 per cent since 2000, with the lion’s share of flows going from the north to the south. Although the numbers from the south to the north have increased substantially in the past 15 years, the numbers only amount to about a third of the flow going the other way (InterTradelreland 2015b). The increased flow of people across the border suggests that a new socio-psychological community may be unfolding on the island, leading to people on both sides of the border regarding each other with less suspicion. An open border on the island caused the frontier between the north and south to be seamless, with minimal practical significance to citizens in either jurisdiction. In terms of everyday life, it was as if people lived in two different political systems, but in one country, which was a pretty big deal for nationalists in Northern Ireland without being a threat to unionism. Thus, the creation of an open border and the new socio-psychological community to which it gave rise cannot be overstated as these supported wider efforts designed to enable unionism and nationalism to live with each other, cheek-by-jowl. In so doing, these developments helped reinforce a new, emerging political accommodation that has taking shape inside Northern Ireland. The nature of this political accommodation - and how it was destabilized by Brexit - is examined fully in Chapter 4. For now, it is important to recognize the positive role performed by Strand 2 in recasting longstanding political attitudes towards the Irish border. North-south cooperation was seen as a way of providing greater support for an essentially internal political settlement to the Northern Ireland problem rather than as a mechanism to build an all-Ireland economy. This project may have worked were it not for Brexit.