The message of the French president, Francois Hollande, yesterday was crystal clear: six times he returned to it during his press conference with Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
Britain, he said, should leave the EU quickly. London should trigger the Article 50 exit mechanism quickly, conclude the negotiations quickly and then leave quickly. There wasn’t any room for diplomatic ambiguity.
But, from the Irish point of view, the importance of what Mr Hollande said lay elsewhere, when he cautiously, but definitively, acknowledged that Ireland was in a special position as the EU and the UK seek to work out their future relationship.
Special situation
The land Border in Ireland, and the need to protect the peace process, means that special arrangements will at least be up for discussion when the EU and Britain begin negotiations on the Brexit mechanisms and the post-Brexit world, Hollande acknowledged.
“I do recognise that there is a special situation for Ireland,” he said. “It’s a special situation that has to be found a place in the negotiations.”
This is exactly what the Government wants to hear. But it also didn’t happen by accident. Irish officials, politicians and diplomats have been pushing the importance of the peace process and the dangers presented to it by the reimposition of a “hard” land Border in Ireland between the EU and non-EU parts of the island.
Nobody is sure what the final arrangements will be, because nobody knows yet what the eventual shape of post-Brexit EU-UK relations will be. But the Government is having some success in convincing both sides that, whatever the outcome, it will have to take account of the unique position of the North. That is significant progress.
Brexit is the ultimate foreign policy challenge for Ireland – a sundering of the relationship between its two most important partners, the EU and the UK. And while Ireland can influence the EU position in advance of the formal negotiations, it remains one among 27, all of whom will have their own interests at heart. Amidst that clamour, the need to preserve the peace process is a powerful card to play.
The Irish position is unambiguously that the closer Britain is to the EU, the better. Continued membership of the single market for Britain would mean no changes would be necessary to the Border.
However, that would require full access to the UK for EU immigration. And that is what many British voters have just decided they don’t want.
The new British chancellor of the exchequer – and former foreign secretary – Philip Hammond described it simply, during the referendum campaign, when he said it would be a trade-off between access to the single market and restricting the right of EU nationals to move freely to Britain.
The UK would have to decide, he said, how much market access it wanted to give up in return for increasing control over its own borders. Full access to the market would equal no control, at least in relation to EU workers. So, it needs to decide what access to EU workers it wishes to permit, in order to gain a – negotiated – access to the single market.
What the Government is seeking to do is to insert into that process a standing concern that, whatever arrangements are concluded, they shouldn’t threaten the peace process in the North.
Diplomacy
It’s a delicate operation, requiring an element of staying in with both sides. Earlier this week, in a speech at the MacGill Summer School, the Taoiseach warned about attempts to bully the British.
Yesterday, he was signing up to a joint statement which suggested the British should begin the exit process as soon as possible. Neither contradicts the other, but diplomacy is often about what you choose to emphasise. It will be a long process, for sure. The Taoiseach took it to Berlin last week, and to London next week. But yesterday’s remarks by the French president signalled that may be bearing some fruit.
