The Council of the Isles and the Scotland-Northern Ireland relationship
by Graham Walker
It remains to be seen if such expectations are borne out, but in the meantime, in the wake of the Agreement, there have been interventions to suggest that some parties would wish it to become a much more meaningful body. These views will be examined in the next section. It bears repeating at this juncture, however, that the Unionists, in view of their parliamentary efforts over the last decade or so, have clearly prioritised East-West relations and have talked them up to some effect especially in relation to the Northern Ireland-Scotland relationship. It seems unlikely that they would meekly permit the BIC to lapse into a condition of relative insignificance in the broad scheme of things agreed last Easter Friday.
The Constitution Unit report (Constitution Unit 1998) provides a valuable
guide to the workings of the Nordic model and to what might be learned from
it. It also points out (p3) the significant differences between the Nordic
Council and the BIC, the most fundamental being that of the composition
of the respective bodies: in the Nordic Council there are five sovereign
states and three dependent territories: in the BIC there will be two sovereign
states and six dependent territories. In the Nordic Council there is much
nearer equivalence in size between the major partners. |
