Contribution of European Union in Conflict Transformation in Ireland

Contribution of European Union in Conflict Transformation in Ireland

Contribution of European Union in Conflict Transformation in Ireland

Introduction

The membership of Ireland in the European Union had a substantially positive impact in the transformation of the European Union conflict. The relationships between Ireland and Britain improved after they become a part of the European Council and the process of conflict transformation won't have been possible without it. The European Union also played a role in other aspects in relation to the Northern Ireland problem.

This paper will evaluate the contribution of European Union in the conflict transformation in Ireland.

Discussion

The conflict of Northern Ireland was among the most intractable conflicts on the 20th century. It was intensively managed and the development of EU played a major role in it. The structure of the conflict changed with the pan-Nationalist coalition developing sufficient confidence and alliance to be able to balance the asymmetric relationships between the parties. According to Miall (2007), the Good Friday agreement reconciled the legitimacy of the two cultural traditions and established intuitions that reinforced both the British and Irish dimensions of governance. This was made possible because of substantial changes of mindset at the elite and individual levels.

According to Tannam (2007), the European Union played an important role in the conflict transformation of Ireland, which was extremely severe and for a long period of time, it was regarded as among the most intractable conflicts of the world. It was referred to as the troubles and consisted of around 30 years of continuous acts of intense violence and the chances for a political solution to the violence between Catholic and Protestant communities seemed bleak. More than 3500 people were killed in these clashes and the majority of these people involved civilians.

The nationalist party of Northern Ireland consisted principally of Roman Catholic whereas the Unionist community consisted majorly of Protestant. According to Coakley (2003), the major reason for the clashes was the disputed status of Northern Island in the United Kingdom and the blatant discrimination by the dominant unionist majority against the nationalist minority.

Fortunately, the conflict came to end with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which is regarded as the end of the conflict as political enemies came together in hopes of achieving a peaceful and sustainable resolution to the problems of Northern Ireland.

The context of discrimination immediately prior to the eruption of violence in both cases, however, was also part of a longer term continuum of decades and perhaps hundreds of years of discriminatory practices, where hegemonic groups penalized subordinate groups because their ethnicity and/or national identity was perceived to be a threat to the existence of hegemony and the state itself. The structural features and epiphenomena of the conflicts, such as discrimination, inequality, injustice, sectarianism, racism and segregation, are derived from the 'root causes' of ethnic and national enmity. If one accepts nationalism as the key driver one must also recognize that national unification projects play a major role, though these may for ...