Unionists and republicans, have given his arm to twist at the last hour of this Friday and put an end to three years of political blockade in Northern Ireland. This Saturday you can re-convened the Assembly of Stormont (the Parliament autonomous), whose doors were closed after tensions between the two communities make it impossible to the mechanism of co-responsibility established in the Agreements of good Friday 20 years ago. London and Dublin have forced the agreement.
The most reluctant to give the green light to the new proposal was Sinn Féin, a supporter of the reunification of the territory with the Republic of Ireland. Its president, Mary Lou McDonald, has announced the endorsement: “we Already have the basis to restore a power-sharing, and we are in favor of it. There is No doubt that we have serious challenges ahead of us. Among them, the impact of Brexit and the consequences of austerity. Our greatest challenge, however, will be to ensure that it is a power shared and sincere that is built on equality, respect and integrity,” he said.
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The resistance of the northern irish of the DUP puts at risk the agreement reached for the Brexit Fail the negotiations to form a Government in Northern Ireland
The Agreements of good Friday of 1989, which put an end to decades of armed conflict in the region, forced to a scheme constant of co-responsibility between the unionists and protestants. Had to move to the front of the Government and the game of checks and balances established in the Assembly Autonomous not to allow any of the two parties to impose their criteria on the other. What began as a scandal of the Government unionist in around your plans, renewable energy for the region ended up uncovering years of tension and susceptibilities that blew up the Parliament and the Executive. London decided to restore the powers and to date has had Westminster the control of Northern Ireland.
In the last months of the mandate of Theresa May as prime minister, Downing Street forced the two parties to re-sit to negotiate. This Friday, with the momentum set by the Government of the Republic of Ireland, the minister of the United Kingdom for Northern Ireland, Julian Smith, made public the proposal, which bears the name of a New Decade, New Approach (New decade, new approach). As a last measure of pressure, Smith had threatened to call new elections in the territory if the agreement is not obtained the support of the two opposing parties. In the general elections of the United Kingdom for the past 12 of December, the republicans obtained for the first time a seat more than the unionists. The Party Democratic Unionist (DUP) gave, from the first hour of this Friday signals that he was willing to give their arm to twist and manage the situation. “No agreement is perfect, but we recognize in it elements that are the product of long negotiations and that represent commitments and assignments. It is always necessary to give in on something to change something”, he recognized its leader, Arlene Foster.
The agreement provides for the possibility that the irish share official status with English as the language of Northern Ireland. To change, there will be an express recognition that the unionists defending as their own culture and language “Ulster-Scots” (irish-scottish, own of an ethnic minority whose origins are scottish immigrants, presbyterians). Also imposes changes in the mechanism of a parliamentary so-called Petition of concern (interest affected), a kind of veto by the any of the communities could block, with the signature of thirty parliamentarians, any legislative initiative, with the argument that it affected the concrete interests of one of the parties and the matter had to be resolved by consensus. It was used in more than one hundred times in an abusive manner and was the determining factor for the community for a referral in a blocking situation.
But above all, the greatest stimulus to retrieve the path of consensus was in the “great financial aid package” promised by London on the condition that the Assembly of Stormont to come back to become, as well as aid from the irish Government, included a line of three years of funding of infrastructure in the region.
In the past few months, the paralysis in the decision making had provoked a mass strike of workers of public health, which among other improvements demanded the equalization of wages to their peers in the rest of the Uk. Legal issues pending, such as the assimilation of the laws of termination of pregnancy to those of England, Scotland or Wales, had to be driven by the labour opposition in the House of Commons, despite the reluctance of the conservative Government, which alleged that it was a question of competences of the autonomous.
