In addition to the number of signatories [Note 1], Stefan Wolff identifies the following similarities and differences between the issues dealt with in the two agreements:[28] About 71% voted in favour of the agreement in Northern Ireland and 94% voted in favour of the agreement in the Republic of Ireland. The Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is included in the UK`s withdrawal agreement from the EU, confirmed that the Good Friday Agreement must be protected in all its parts. The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or the Belfast Agreement (irish: Comhaonté Aoine an Chéasta or Comhaonté Bhéal Feirste; Ulster-Scots: Guid Friday Greeance or Bilfawst Greeance)[1] is a couple of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that put an end to most of the violence of the Troubles, a political conflict in Northern Ireland that had erupted since the late 1960s. This was an important development in the Northern Ireland peace process in the 1990s. Northern Ireland`s current system of de-decentralized government is based on the agreement. The agreement also created a number of institutions between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, as well as between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The overall result of these problems was to undermine trade unionists` confidence in the agreement exploited by the anti-DUP agreement, which eventually overtook the pro-agreement Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in the 2003 general elections. UUP had already resigned from the executive in 2002 following the Stormontgate scandal, in which three men were indicted for intelligence gathering. These charges were eventually dropped in 2005 because persecution was not “in the public interest.” Immediately afterwards, one of Sinn Féin`s members, Denis Donaldson, was unmasked as a British agent. During negotiations on the UK`s planned withdrawal from the European Union in 2019, the EU presented a position paper on its concerns about Britain`s support for the Good Friday agreement during Brexit. The position paper deals with issues such as the prevention of a hard border, north-south cooperation between the Republic of Northern Ireland, the birthright of all Northern Ireland residents (as stated in the agreement) and the common travel area. [31] [32] Anyone who was born in Northern Ireland and is therefore entitled to an Irish passport under the Good Friday Agreement may retain European citizenship after Brexit. [33] As part of the EU`s Brexit negotiating guidelines, the UK was asked to convince other EU members that these issues had been addressed in order to enter the second phase of the Brexit negotiations.
In order to protect North-South cooperation and avoid controls at the Irish border, the United Kingdom, under the leadership of Prime Minister Theresa May, said it was ready to protect the agreement in all its elements and “in the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom would maintain full alignment with the rules of the single market and customs union which, now or in the future, , support North-South cooperation, the island economy and the protection of the 1998 agreement, acknowledging that “the restriction is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” [29] [34] [35] [36] This provision was part of an agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU, which was rejected three times by the British Parliament. [37] May`s successor, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, initially cited the “Irish backstop” that was to be withdrawn from the proposed agreement,[38] but finally accepted it after the negotiation of a new agreement between the UK and the EU on 17 October 2019. [39] [40] In September 2020, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis has informed the House of Commons that the UK government intends to violate international law in a “specific and limited” manner by introducing a new bill that gives the UK government new national powers to circumvent certain international contractual obligations to the EU, as provided for in the Northern Irish Protocol of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. [41] The bill introduced the following day sparked widespread outrage in the United Kingdom and internationally, with the Prime Ministers of Scotland and Wales describing the government`s proposals