Why fear special status? The EU already treats NI as a special case

On the contrary, because Northern Ireland has always received ‘special’ EU treatment, unionists, nationalists and others have everything to gain and nothing to lose by finding ways to continue receiving all the benefits of EU membership, while part of the UK and the British/Irish Council.

In other words, a part of the UK on the island of Ireland which stays in the EU.

It’s not about ‘having our cake and eating it’; it’s our ‘bread and butter’ and we deserve it!

In the 45 years since the UK and Ireland joined the EU, Northern Ireland has been regarded as special in EU eyes and rightly so.

With the Troubles raging, political stability crumbling and the economy crashing, support for peace and prosperity was desperately needed. It took longer than it might but eventually, thanks to the MEPs, British and Irish officials and others, Northern Ireland was granted ‘Objective One’ status and started receiving more EU funding for infrastructure and social projects than any other part of the UK, proportionally speaking.

The ‘Physical and Social Environment Programme’ was a euphemism for the first real, albeit tentative, EU peace initiative in Northern Ireland helping to build community

infrastructure throughout the Province.

That led to the Special EU Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, set up in 1996, better known as PEACE I and, without doubt, one of the most effective, most successful EU peace initiatives in operation today. Now into its fourth programme, PEACE has received more than €2billion in EU funding for cross-community and cross-border projects.

This is on top of EU support for farmers, the unemployed, the voluntary sector, research, roads, ports and railways and for young people through ERASMUS so they can experience life in other parts of Europe. All this could be lost unless Northern Ireland can find a way to stay in the EU as part of the UK.

Brussels has always had a sympathetic ear to the needs of Northern Ireland.

A recent example is the EC task force, set up in 2007 and renewed by EC President Junker in 2014 to maximise EU support for economic growth, job creation and research.

But the EU would never act without being asked.

This was the case at the time of the first EU PEACE programme was being drawn up in 1994 when EC president Delors waited until his meeting with the MEPs and requests from the British and Irish governments to launch this important new initiative which, until now, has stood the test of time.

There is no doubt that Brexit has fractured relations between the UK and Ireland and contributed to the destabilisation of the peace process.

How deeply destabilising that will become depends inexorably on how closely Belfast, London, Dublin, and Brussels are prepared to work together to avoid it.

The highest decision-making body of Europe, the EU Council, has asked for flexible and imaginative solutions to solve the Irish border problem. Granting Northern Ireland honorary EU association as a European place of global peace-building to protect our peace process and promote peace-building worldwide could be the answer.

All we need to do is ask.

A petition, launched at the end of last year does exactly that. With more than 2,000 signatures thus far, Brussels is still listening and waiting to be asked!

• Jane Morrice is a former head of the European Commission office in Northern Ireland. She is also a member of the European Economic and Social Committee, an advisory body that gives opinions on proposals EU legislation. She is also an ex-BBC reporter, helped establish the Women’s Coalition, and is a former deputy speaker of the Assembly.

The petition she refers to can be found here.