The character of the 1998 Agreement results and prospects
by Brendan O'Leary
From: Aspects of the Belfast Agreement edited by Rick Wilford
Oxford University Press 2001
The All Ireland confederal relationship
The first confederal relationship was to be all-Ireland in nature: the North-South Ministerial Council (NSMC). It was to bring together those with executive responsibilities in Northern Ireland and in the Republic, and to be established after the Assembly had come into being and completed a programme of work - the specific deadline for which passed on 31 October 1998. That date passed without agreement, because no Executive had been formed in Northern Ireland to engage with its counterpart in the Republic. Instead the two sovereign governments encouraged the parties to complete this programme of work 'behind the scenes'. They did so.
What was intended by the Agreement was clear. Nationalists were concerned that if the Assembly could outlast the North-South Ministerial Council, it would provide incentives for unionists to undermine the latter. Unionists, by contrast, worried that if the NSMC could survive the destruction of the Assembly, nationalists would seek to bring this about. The Agreement was therefore a tightly written contract with penalty clauses. Internal consociation and external confederalism go together: the Assembly and the Council are 'mutually interdependent', one could not function without the other.28
The NSMC satisfactorily linked northern nationalists to their preferred nation-state, and was one means through which nationalists hoped to persuade unionists of the attractions of Irish unification. Consistent with the Agreement, the Irish Government agreed to change its constitution to ensure that the NSMC, and its delegated implementation bodies, were able to exercise island-wide jurisdiction in those functional activities where unionists were willing to co-operate. The NSMC was intended to function much like the Council of Ministers in the European Union, with ministers having considerable discretion to reach decisions, but remaining ultimately accountable to their respective legislatures. The Council was to meet in plenary format twice a year, and in smaller groups to discuss specific sectors - say agriculture, or education - on a 'regular and frequent basis'. Provision was made for the Council to meet to discuss mattes that cut across sectors, and to resolve disagreements. In addition, the Agreement provided for cross-border or all-island 'implementation' bodies. What scope and powers these North-South institutions would have developed remained uncertain 'yes unionists' minimizing their importance, nationalists and 'no unionists' doing the converse. The Agreement did, however, require a meaningful Council. It stated that the Council 'will' - - not 'may' - identify at least six matters where 'existing bodies' will be the appropriate mechanisms for co-operation within each separate jurisdiction, and at least six matters where co-operation will take place through cross-border or all-island implementation bodies. The latter were agreed: inland waterways, food safety, trade and business development, special EU programmes, the Irish and Ulster Scots languages, and aquaculture and marine matters. The parties further agreed on six functional areas of co-operation, including some aspects of transport, agriculture, education, health, the environment and tourism - where a joint North-South public company was established. These zones and modes of co-operation were to be decided during a transitional period between the Assembly elections and October 31 1998, but were not in fact resolved until December 18 1998. The Agreement provided an Annex listing twelve possible areas for implementation but left it open for others to be considered.
The NSMC differed from the Council of Ireland of 1974 and not just in name.
There was no provision for a North-South joint parliamentary forum, as there
was in the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, but the Northern Assembly and
the Irish Oirechtas were asked 'to consider' developing such a forum. Nationalists
wanted the NSMC to be established by legislation from Westminster and the
Oirechtas - to emphasize its autonomy from the Northern Assembly. Unionists
preferred that the NSMC by established by the Northern Ireland Assembly
and its counterpart in Dublin. The Agreement split the differences between
the two positions. The NSMC and the implementation bodies were brought into
existence by British-Irish legislation. During the transition it was for
the Northern executive and the Republic's government to decide, by agreement,
how co-operation should take place and in what areas the North-South institutions
should co-operate. The Northern Ireland Assembly could not alter this body
of work, except by cross-community consent. |
