Debate: Formal sitting - Ceremony on the th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement
Date: WEDNESDAY, 29 MARCH 2023
Speaker: Roberta Metsola
Country: Poland
Language: EN

Good afternoon, nice to see you all. Can I please ask you to take your seats? We have an important anniversary to mark, dear colleagues. We have with us the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission for this momentous occasion. We will begin today’s plenary session by marking the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Today, we highlight the continued significance of an agreement that is grounded in peace and reconciliation – an agreement that is helping to instil harmony between people. I invite you first to view a short video to mark this important moment. Dear friends, there are few examples in European history of a people’s peace agreement such as the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement – brokered by the people of all of Northern Ireland, aided by the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland, and supported by the European Union and the United States of America. Endorsed by people on both parts of the island of Ireland, agreeing to lift borders that divided communities. Defended by the people during post-Brexit uncertainty, when the importance of the agreement became even more relevant. Time and again, over the years, the European Union and this Parliament reiterated its unwavering support for the hard-earned peace process on the island of Ireland. Going forward, the 2023 Windsor Framework lays down arrangements for the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland. It will charter a new way forward towards ending post-Brexit uncertainties. Dear Europeans, the European peace project was borne from the ashes of World Wars. It held the ambition of bringing peoples together in the hope of lasting peace and prosperity. Nobel Peace Prize laureate John Hume said in this House, and as we just heard in the video: ‘What we all have to learn is what the peoples of Europe learned. Difference is not something we should be engaged in conflict about. It is something we should respect.’ Europe is a place of reconciliation where everyone’s voice counts. This European Parliament is a place where peoples of Europe have come together, setting aside past resentment to talk and to listen. The transcripts of the dialogue held in this Parliament between former Members of the European Parliament from Northern Ireland is evidence of that willingness to set aside animosity and that willingness to talk and to listen. And this House evidently provided a platform for this dialogue for peace. Twenty-five years ago, Members of the European Parliament welcomed the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement with warm and heartfelt admiration and with gratitude, because Northern Ireland’s people reminded all Europeans of the fundamental values on which Europe’s peace and prosperity lay. Over 25 years of peace, people’s daily lives in Northern Ireland have been transformed. They no longer live with the threat of violence. All-island cooperation is everywhere to be seen. And yet, this Belfast/Good Friday Agreement still needs nurturing. Issues relating to social justice and civic cooperation were central to the Agreement. Civil activists and promotors of peace in Northern Ireland know that commitment to civil and political rights is key. The Agreement restored self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of power-sharing and all of us here believe in parliamentary democracy. We will do what we can to promote that concept and I look forward to being able to exchange ideas with parliamentarians in Northern Ireland. As that young woman in the video said, ‘if the Good Friday Agreement were to go, aye, it probably might be quite scary’. And that is why we are marking the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement in this House of European democracy today. Because preserving peace is so important and listening to all sides respectfully is key.