The possibility of Irish unity must be considered in Britain’s negotiations to leave the EU, so that both parts of a unified Ireland could be part of the EU, the Taoiseach has told a high-level British-Irish conference.

Enda Kenny said that achieving Irish unity, by purely peaceful means and by consent, is a lynchpin of the Good Friday Agreement and of the peace process.

“The possibility of unity by consent must be maintained as a valid democratic option into the future,” he told the annual meeting of the British-Irish Association in Oxford. “That means that, if there were democratic consent to Irish unity at some time in the future, there must be a mechanism to ensure that democratic decision can be implemented within the European Union, as was the case in Germany.”

The Taoiseach, who raised the prospect of a border poll shortly after the Brexit vote, said he did not believe there should be a border poll now.

“There is no convincing evidence to suggest that a majority of the people of Northern Ireland would opt for a change in its constitutional status. There are more urgent issues facing our island than a border poll,” he said.

Mr Kenny said that the impact of Brexit on the island of Ireland was an all-island issue and that the Government will soon propose a mechanism to facilitate a “conversation” involving groups and individuals from North and South.

All-island dimension

The Taoiseach did not refer to an all-Ireland forum on Brexit, an idea rejected by Northern Ireland’s first minister Arlene Foster, but he said there must be some way for the all-island dimension to be discussed.

“My Government strongly believes that there is a need for the widest possible conversation on the implications of the referendum result in Ireland, both North and South. It is an all-island issue. There are many organisations and individuals across the island of Ireland who are outside the political establishment but who wish to be heard on this issue. We must give them a real opportunity to participate. This need threaten no one. In fact, it is in the interest of everyone,” he said.

Addressing an audience made up of politicians, senior officials and business, academic and cultural figures from Britain and both parts of Ireland, the Taoiseach spoke of the enduring strength of the British-Irish relationship.

But he said that Ireland remained committed to the European project and warned against underestimating the difficulty Britain will face in securing a beneficial post-Brexit deal from the EU.

“The process of negotiation that will soon be embarked upon will involve a recalibration of all of the mosaic of relationships that make us what we are today. When it is complete, we will have a new set of relationships within the UK, between Britain and Ireland, between North and South on the island of Ireland, and between Britain and a 27-member EU which includes Ireland,” he said.

“No one should underestimate the commitment of the 27 EU member states to maintaining the European Union. The EU is the answer to so many historic questions for Europe. Questions that led to bloodshed 100 years ago, and questions that go to the very heart of peace and prosperity in Europe today.

“That is why nobody in Britain should think that the negotiations ahead will be easy, or that they can be viewed through a purely economic lens. For the remaining EU members, there are matters of historic and fundamental importance at stake. It will be a hard bargain to strike.” </s> The Taoiseach has appealed directly to European leaders to include Ireland's "unique circumstances" in the "ground rules" of Brexit talks, writes Elaine Loughlin in Malta.

Enda Kenny has today asked European Union leaders for their support for the Northern Ireland peace process when Brexit talks begin.

Speaking at an EPP event in Malta attended by a number of EU heads including Angela Merkel, Mariano Rajoy and European Council President Donald Tusk, Mr Kenny pointed to the the "unique circumstances that apply in Ireland's case."

He said that up until now Europe's "support has been critical in maintaining the fragile peace process through difficult times.

"Ireland again will ask for your support in continuing that peace process."

The Taoiseach pointed out that Ireland would remain in the EU but Northern Ireland will not and "therefore we need your support and the language of the Good Friday Agreement included in the ground rules in negotiations as Britain exits the European Union."

Mr Kenny said we are now in a "time of unprecedented challenge and unprecedented opportunity".

He said that when the European Union was created it was "never contemplated" that any country would leave.

"That is precisely what the United Kingdom decided democratically to do.

"We must therefore deal with the consequences of that decision." </s> Taoiseach Enda Kenny will on Saturday ask European Union leaders to agree that, if the people of Northern Ireland vote to join a united Ireland, the “entire territory” would immediately be part of the EU.

They are expected to approve a declaration about the status of a united Ireland during a three-hour meeting in Brussels to agree a common approach to negotiations about Brexit.

The draft declaration says: “The European Council acknowledges that the Good Friday Agreement expressly provides for an agreed mechanism whereby a united Ireland may be brought about through peaceful and democratic means. In this regard, the European Council acknowledges that, in accordance with international law, the entire territory of such a united Ireland would thus be part of the European Union.”

EU officials told The Irish Times last night that a statement, known in Brussels as the “Kenny text”, has already been approved in principle by all member states and “is going to be accepted”.

The declaration, which echoes the experience of East Germany after German unification in 1990, will be recorded as a “statement for the minutes”, the equivalent of council conclusions at a formal summit.

Officials at the European institutions insist that the declaration does not imply that the EU favours a united Ireland over any other constitutional arrangement for Northern Ireland.

Downing Street declined to comment yesterday and prime minister Theresa May would not say anything about the EU’s negotiating guidelines until after they were officially approved at today’s summit.

Privately, however, British officials are relaxed about the statement, which echoes what Brexit secretary David Davis said in a letter to SDLP MP Mark Durkan last month.

The leaders are expected to take a tough approach in negotiations on Brexit, making clear that Britain cannot enjoy the economic benefits of EU membership after it leaves.

In a letter to the leaders ahead of the summit, European Council president Donald Tusk stressed that there could be no discussion about a future trade deal with Britain before sufficient progress is made on issues surrounding its withdrawal.

“This is not only a matter of tactics, but – given the limited time frame we have to conclude the talks – it is the only possible approach. In other words, before discussing our future, we must first sort out our past,” he said.

Mr Tusk identified the immediate priorities as the rights of EU citizens in Britain and British citizens in the EU, a settlement of Britain’s financial obligations, and measures to avoid a hard border between the two parts of Ireland.

“I would like us to unite around this key principle during the upcoming summit, so that it is clear that progress on people, money and Ireland must come first. And we have to be ready to defend this logic during the upcoming negotiations,” he said. </s> The European Union has given a firm commitment to the Irish government that if Northern Ireland reunites with the Irish Republic the united country would immediately be admitted to the European Union despite Brexit.

Currently Northern Ireland is part of the UK and will be outside the EU when Brexit takes effect.

However, a majority of voters in the North opposed Brexit in the 2016 referendum and the region faces a difficult scenario with possible physical land borders reinstituted when Brexit is in effect as well as the loss of critical EU subsidies for agriculture and infrastructure.

The commitment by the EU to accept a united Ireland is a huge victory for the Irish government and creates a new opportunity for Irish nationalists to push a new incentive for a united Ireland which would bring along with it the benefit of EU membership.

The European Union agreement was based on two factors, the Good Friday Agreement which allows for a vote on a united Ireland at a future date and West Germany’s ability to bring East Germany into the EU when the country was reunited.

EU leaders promised the issue of Northern Ireland and access to the EU “will remain of paramount importance” in the talks on the terms for Brexit.

Irish leader Enda Kenny welcomed the new commitment.”The new thing here is Brexit and it is important to provide reassurance that it does not undermine any provision of the Good Friday Agreement and that if the provision on unity by peaceful means and by consent and democratic means is invoked at some time in the future EU membership is assured and it is now unanimously accepted by the European Council to endorse that legal base.” he stated.

He did add, however, he felt the time was not right to hold a referendum on a united Ireland. “This is not about triggering any mechanism; I have been consistent in my view that the conditions for a referendum do not currently exist,” Mr Kenny said

He stated that the British government also accepted if a vote for reunification happened that membership of the EU for the new entity would be carpeted.

David Davis, the UK’s Brexit secretary, had acknowledged that Northern Ireland would rejoin the EU in the event of a vote for Irish unity.

“In that event, Northern Ireland would be in a position of becoming part of an existing EU member state, rather than seeking to join the EU as a new independent state,” Davis said in a letter to Mark Durkan of the nationalist SDLP. “It would of course be for the EU Commission to respond to any specific questions about the procedural requirements for that to happen,” Davis added.

Brexit strangely enough has reinvigorated discussion about a united Ireland. The recent assembly elections in the North for the first time did not result in a unionist majority vote and demographic trends mean that in the not too distant future there will be a nationalist majority though without agreement from a large percentage of unionism it would be very difficult to bring unity about peacefully. </s> BRUSSELS (REUTERS) - European Union leaders promised on Saturday (April 29) to embrace the British province of Northern Ireland into the EU if a referendum in the future were to unite it with the Republic of Ireland.

At a summit on the EU's plan for negotiating with Britain as it leaves the bloc, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny asked fellow members to acknowledge that Northern Ireland would, like East Germany in 1990, automatically enter the EU in the event of unification with existing member state.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement to end violence in Northern Ireland foresees the holding of referendums on both sides of the border on uniting the island if London and Dublin see public support for that.

European Union leaders gave their political endorsement to what Irish and EU legal experts say is the position in international law of such territorial changes.

"This is not about triggering any mechanism, ... the conditions for a referendum do not currently exist, but the acknowledgement of the principle, the potential, within the Good Friday agreement, is hugely important," Kenny told reporters after the summit.

Some EU officials said the declaration was a statement of "the obvious" and have stressed the summit was not taking a view on unification.

"The six counties (of Northern Ireland) remain part of the United Kingdom unless and until the people decide make a different choice by a democratic means in other words by a referendum," Kenny said.

Kenny said Britain, whose prime minister Theresa May was absent from the summit, has itself taken the same view on EU membership for Northern Ireland. Brexit minister David Davis acknowledged last month that, if it united with the Republic, it would be entitled to be absorbed into the EU.

Calls for a referendum on leaving the United Kingdom have picked up since Northern Ireland, like Scotland, voted to remain in the EU, while the United Kingdom's two other nations, England and Wales, chose to leave in last year's Brexit vote.

Elections in Northern Ireland in March denied pro-British unionists a majority in the province for the first time since Ireland was partitioned in 1921, further emboldening Irish nationalists and their main political representatives Sinn Fein.

But Kenny has consistently said that now is not the right time for a vote and demographics suggest it could take a generation before Catholics, who tend to back Irish nationalist parties, become a majority among Northern Ireland's population.

Northern Ireland's future is part of broader uncertainty for territories of what was once the world's biggest empire.

Britain's right-wing press fulminated last month against EU plans to spell out that Spain, which claims sovereignty over Gibraltar, should have a veto over applying any future EU-UK free trade deal to the tiny British enclave.

Last week, Argentina said it thought it might gain EU backing after Brexit for its claim to the Falkland Islands, 35 years after losing a brief war there to Britain.

Closer to home, Brexit has fuelled calls to break away not only in Northern Ireland but also in Scotland. </s> European Union leaders are poised to support allowing Northern Ireland, if it unites with Ireland, to automatically become part of the multi-nation bloc after Britain’s departure via Brexit.

Leaders of 27 EU nations attending a Saturday summit in Brussels plan to confirm their positions favoring a motion by Ireland, an EU member, to allow Northern Ireland, which is part of Britain, to remain in the group.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has said he wants the final deal on Britain’s exit from the EU to guarantee that if Ireland and Northern Ireland unite, Northern Ireland would bypass the lengthy process for a country to join the EU.

The deal should guarantee that “at some future time, whenever that might be, if it were to occur, that Northern Ireland would have ease of access to join as a member of the European Union again,” Kenny told reporters during a February visit to the European Commission, the EU's executive branch in Brussels.

Kenny pointed to the former East Germany, which he said followed a “seamless” process to immediately become a member of the EU when it reunited with West Germany in 1990.

Though negotiations between Britain and the EU are expected to last two years and cover many topics, including trade and immigration, Ireland’s position apparently generated strong backing going into the Brussels summit Saturday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel this week said the 27 EU nations negotiating with Britain were united behind Ireland.

"There are many special interests, if we just think of the Republic of Ireland and its shared space with Great Britain and the problems in Northern Ireland,” Merkel said during a speech in the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament. “That's why it was a good accomplishment to stick together like this.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May, meanwhile, has promised to make Ireland one of her main priorities as she negotiates Britain’s break from the EU. May has described avoiding a “hard border” with Ireland — which would mean checkpoints or passport controls.

The 310-mile border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is the only land boundary between Britain and Europe.

The sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland known as the “Troubles” that began in 1968 involved Protestants loyal to Britain and Catholics who wanted a united Ireland. More than 3,600 people died and 40,000 were wounded.

The hostilities ended with the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which among other things allowed travelers to go back and forth between the countries without checks.

Britain has “an important responsibility to make sure that nothing is done to jeopardize the peace process in Northern Ireland, and to continue to uphold the Belfast Agreement,” May wrote in a letter last month to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council.

Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator for Brexit, said in March that the group will be “particularly attentive” in the talks “to anything that may, in one way or another, weaken dialogue and peace” in Ireland.

If and when Ireland and Northern Ireland might unite remains unknown, considering that so-called Brexit negotiations between Britain and the EU are expected to run into 2019.

In Britain’s June 2016 referendum on whether to remain in or leave the EU, voters in Northern Ireland favored remaining 56% to 44%. But the overall result for Britain’s voters was 52% to 48% to leave.

The minutes of Saturday’s summit are to include a paragraph stating that a united Ireland would be an EU member.

The reference to a united Ireland reflects months of the Irish government's lobbying efforts. Kenny has traveled to Brussels and several European capitals to convince other leaders that the Brexit agreement must guarantee an invisible border in Ireland and close trade links to the United Kingdom.

Tusk, in a letter Friday to leaders of EU countries, named Ireland as one of three top priorities that “must come first” in the Brexit negotiations. Others include the rights of citizens and the money Britain will need to pay the EU before it leaves — more than $60 billion, according to some estimates. </s> European Council President Donald Tusk says Britain's Brexit proposals on the Irish border need to be "reworked and further negotiated".

He was speaking ahead of a gathering of EU leaders in Austria, which'll be attended by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Mr Tusk said Brexit negotiations are entering their "decisive phase".

While he said "various scenarios" are still possible, there need to be changes to Britain's approach - particularly on the future of the Irish border and economic cooperation.

"Among other things, the readiness to cooperate closely in the area of security and foreign policy.

"On other issues, such as the Irish question, or the framework for economic cooperation, the UK's proposals will need to be reworked and further negotiated."

"Today there is perhaps more hope, but there is surely less and less time.

"Therefore, every day that is left, we must use for talks."

He's proposing to call an additional summit around mid-November to finalise a Brexit deal. </s> BRUSSELS >> European Union Council President Donald Tusk says that EU leaders have endorsed the guidelines that will govern the way they conduct negotiations with Britain on its departure from the bloc.

Tusk said in a tweet Saturday: “guidelines adopted unanimously. EU 27 firm and fair political mandate for the Brexit talks is ready.”

It came as leaders of 27 EU nations met in Brussels without British Prime Minister Theresa May. The negotiations are likely to begin after Britain holds snap elections on June 8. The 27 EU also acknowledged Saturday that Northern Ireland could join the bloc in the future if its people vote to unite with Ireland, an EU member state.

The two share the island, and the difficulties of re-establishing a land border once Britain leaves are immense and politically fraught.

Ireland’s Europe Minister Dara Murphy told The Associated Press that a statement on the Northern Ireland issue was added to the minutes of the summit, which is being held without British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Future relations between Ireland and Britain, including how the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland would work with the U.K. outside the bloc, have emerged as a key problem to be addressed during the Brexit talks. </s> DUBLIN: The leader of Northern Ireland's highly influential Democratic Unionist Party on Tuesday warned British Prime Minister Theresa May against any Brexit compromise with Brussels that could increase checks on trade between the province and the rest of Britain.

The DUP are key allies for May, providing her Conservative government with a slim parliamentary majority after the Tories lost their overall majority in the 2017 general election.

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"We cannot have either a customs border down the Irish Sea or a regulatory border, because that would make us separate from the rest of the United Kingdom", DUP chief Arlene Foster said in an interview with Bloomberg.

"That doesn't work from a constitutional perspective and that doesn't work from an economic perspective either."

The European Union has proposed that Northern Ireland be allowed to remain in Europe's single market for goods in order to keep the border with the Republic of Ireland open.

London has countered that this would breach the integrity of the United Kingdom.

Earlier on Tuesday, May said on BBC radio that a new proposal would soon be put to the EU, which would preserve trade between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain whilst also satisfying the requirement for some form of checks.

"We believe that there is a way that this can be done which does preserve our integrity -- that's the proposal that we're working the details on," May said in an interview, adding that the plan would be revealed "in due course".

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After a bruising summit in Salzburg, during which her Brexit proposal was roundly rejected by EU leaders, there have been reports that May's latest plan offers a compromise by allowing for some form of regulatory checks in the Irish Sea in exchange for avoiding a customs border.

A hard border in Ireland is forbidden under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which brokered peace in the region after decades of border clashes between nationalists, unionists and British troops.

However in a separate interview published Tuesday, Foster claimed the terms of the accord -- also known as The Belfast Agreement -- could be altered to shape Northern Ireland's relationship with the EU.

"It has been deeply frustrating to hear people who voted 'Remain' (in the EU) and in Europe talk about Northern Ireland as though we can't touch the Belfast Agreement. Things evolve, even in the EU context," she said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

"There has been a lot of misinterpretation, holding it up as a sacrosanct piece of legislation."

Mary Lou McDonald, leader of the all-Ireland nationalist party Sinn Fein, said the comments "reveal a reckless disregard for the peace process, prosperity and progress".
Taoiseach Enda Kenny says that Irish unity must be considered in Brexit talks.