A recurrent theme in yesterday's speeches at the inaugural meeting of the British-Irish Council in London was that the new institution will help to restore the credibility of politics and politicians as agents of progressive change. The tribute is richly deserved, coming at the end of a week which also saw the first meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council. Both occasions were dignified and good-humoured. Yesterday's thoughtful speeches and agreements on practical co-operation have given timely effect to the Belfast Agreement's mandate that it should "promote the harmonious and mutually-beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the people of these islands".
It was clear in the contributions from all the speakers that the British-Irish Council is an idea whose time has come; if it had not been a part of the Belfast Agreement it would have had to be invented to provide a forum in which the sovereign governments and devolved administrations in Britain and Ireland can meet. Yesterday it was agreed to concentrate on drug trafficking and abuse, social exclusion, transport, the environment and e-commerce as the first topics for discussion in the Council. Any decisions will be taken by consensus and it is clear that they will make it more than a talking shop - although it is important to recognise the importance of political dialogue at this early stage of the Council's work. As the Taoiseach said yesterday it would have been quite easy to nominate 120 subjects for co-operation, such is the intensity of interaction between these islands and the public demand for improved relations. He spoke of how they are "widening and multiplying" and emphasised the importance of the change of nomenclature from the bipolar framework of Anglo-Irish to the more complex British-Irish arrangements now emerging. Despite the public perception that the East-West institutions in the Belfast Agreement are subordinate in the Government's priorities to the North-South ones, in effect a gesture to the unionists, so far it has shown considerable imagination and foresight in developing relations with Scotland and Wales, thereby keeping abreast of the profound constitutional changes under way in the United Kingdom. Mr David Trimble has described the inauguration of the British-Irish Council as a "revolutionary political development"; it is a phrase that could be used as well to describe these wider changes. Their full dynamic and eventual direction are as yet uncharted and in several important respects deeply contested, but there can be no doubting their importance for all the people living in Ireland. British-Irish relations have to be developed and managed in full awareness of the pace of constitutional change in both islands.
The credibility of politics and political leaderships depends crucially on successfully-functioning institutions. This week has virtually completed the inauguration of those set up by the Belfast Agreement. A civic forum in Northern Ireland has yet to be formed and there is a strong case for the development of a British-Irish inter-parliamentary tier to match co-operation among the executives. Inevitably attention now turns to the decommissioning of arms and reform of the RUC to complete the process. The momentum and confidence set in train by this week's events will make it easier to overcome those major hurdles.