“Peace and economic opportunity go together,” Joe Biden proclaimed in his speech at the new Ulster University campus. “The GDP of Northern Ireland has doubled in 25 years and it can triple with new investments. This has only just begun,” said the president, who “hopes” that the institutions come out of “paralysis.”
“Preserving peace in Northern Ireland is the priority of all Americans and for all political parties,” said the US president. “Your story is our story. We will continue to be your partners in the future.”
Biden recalled his visit to Belfast in 1991 during the Northern Irish conflict, “when it was unthinkable that there would be a glass building in this area of ??the city (because of the bombs)”. The US president recalled the great step taken by the IRA ceasefire in 1994, which opened the doors to peace negotiations that culminated in the Good Friday Peace Agreement four years later.
“It was 700 days of failure and one day of success, as my friend Senator George Mitchell said,” Biden said. “That agreement changed the center of gravity of politics.”
“The main lesson of the Peace Agreement is that hope can break through in the most fragile moments,” he recalled in his speech of just over 15 minutes, far from the pomp of visits by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Biden improvised just enough at the beginning and tried not to interfere excessively in local affairs, beyond urging political parties to guarantee “an autonomous and effective government.”
Before his meeting with the ‘premier’ Rishi Sunak and his speech on the Ulster University campus, the US president fit the darts of prominent members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which has refused to form a government of “shared power” with Sinn Féin, winner in the last elections.
Biden has not even been able to intervene in the Stormont Assembly due to the institutional paralysis that has lasted almost a year, although he decided to get involved at the last minute in local politics and hold a brief meeting with the leaders of Sinn Féin, the DUP, the Party of the Alliance, the Ulster Unionists Party (UUP) and the Social Democratic and Labor Party (SLP).
“Biden hates the UK and I think there is no question about that,” said former DUP leader Arlene Foster. “The fact that he comes here is not going to put any pressure on unionists, rather the opposite, because many people perceive him as pro-republican and pro-nationalist.”
“Biden is welcome in Northern Ireland, but his intervention may cause embarrassment, given the poor fellow’s propensity for screwing up,” warned Ian Pausley Jr. son of the historic leader of the DUP and spokesman for the group in Westminster, in statements to the conservative channel TalkTV.
“The pressure of the American Administration, which is so transparently pro-nationalist, does not constitute any pressure for us,” said Nigel Dodds, number two of the DUP for a decade. “We will make our decisions in the interests of Northern Ireland and thinking with our hearts. That is not what the Americans stand for, especially Joe Biden.”
Unionist invectives against Biden led to a withering response from the White House. “The president is not anti-British,” Amanda Sloat, special adviser for Europe to the security council, said in Belfast. “The president has been actively involved in the Northern Ireland peace process since his time as senator and has been in contact with party leaders from both communities.”
“His message to the DUP and local leaders will be to continue supporting the peace process and to increase US investment in Northern Ireland because of its great economic potential,” Sloat added.
“I’m here to listen,” Biden declared after his meeting with Sunak at the Grand Hotel in Belfast, where the two posed for the cameras over coffee. The North American president responded to the question about what message he intends to convey to local leaders and specifically to unionists who have questioned his visit.
The US president put unionists on guard with his statements before embarking on the four-day trip to Belfast and Dublin, by linking the Good Friday peace agreement, which is 25 years old, with the Windsor Agreement, recently signed by Rishi Sunak with the European Union to end the friction created by Brexit.
The DUP was the only major political force not to sign the Good Friday Agreement and is now the only party to have boycotted the Windsor Agreement. Despite its political isolation, its decision not to form part of a unity government has caused an institutional paralysis that is now almost a daily occurrence in Northern Ireland.
Analysts acknowledge the progress made by the Good Friday Agreement, which put an end to the conflict that caused more than 3,500 deaths (despite the outbreaks of violence led by the New IRA and paramilitary groups that do not abide by the peace process). For nine of the last 25 years, however, neither the local government nor the Stormont Assembly have been able to function because of the difficulty of forming “power-sharing” executives between unionists and Republicans that the agreement stipulates.
Joe Biden, who has always boasted of his Irish roots, has been involved in the situation in recent months with the appointment of Joe Kennedy III as special envoy for economic affairs in Northern Ireland. The stellar presence of Robert Kennedy’s grandson in his delegation speaks volumes about his intentions and also about his desire to emulate Bill Clinton, when he appointed Senator George Mitchell, the true architect of the Agreement, as special envoy to Northern Ireland. of Good Friday.
“Biden’s idea of ??having an impact like Clinton did is pretty ridiculous,” analyst Leo McKinstry writes in The Daily Mail. “Biden has neither the charisma, nor the dynamism, nor the inspiration of Bill Clinton (…) And he also has the bias of his Irish roots, to such an extent that his secret services code name is “Celtic” ( “Celtic”). Someone like that can’t be the honest go-between Northern Ireland needs.”
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