Biden’s “shamrock diplomacy” poses a problem for the UK, but also for Ireland
On the eve of the Potus' visit to the UK for the G7 meeting in Cornwall, Nine Elms was the epicenter of a diplomatic earthquake. The British press, both conservative ( Telegraph ), Labor ( Guardian ), independent ( Independent ), and specialized ( Financial Times ), reported identical details on an embassy meeting between US charge d'affaires Yael Lampert, currently the senior diplomat in London, and British Brexit negotiator Lord Frost. According to the reconstructions, the US has "ordered" the UK to find an agreement with the EU to avoid the hypothesis of a physical border between Eire and Ulster.
The US intervention came at a time when direct talks between the EU and the UK on the Northern Ireland Protocol, which established a post-Brexit trade border between Ulster and Britain – which is however proving unrealistic in practice – seemed on the verge of collapse. In a blatant gesture that was not well received in London, the Vice President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, said that "patience is now very, very thin" and described the relationship with the UK as "at a crossroads".
The escalation of events suggests that the Biden administration has taken an active role in the talks to maintain the US tutelary role on the Good Friday Agreement. According to the Times , the US may even have issued a demarche against London, a formal diplomatic protest, a rudeness rarely exchanged between allies.
Joe Biden, the second Irish resident of the White House after John F. Kennedy, has never concealed his opposition to Brexit , but has so far signaled that he respects the decisions of British democracy. The new stance instead places Washington on the side of the Irish nationalists and underlines that the US, alongside Eire, expects the British government to intensify EU customs controls on British goods arriving in the ports of Ulster.
It is also possible that the US offered to expedite the conclusion of the free trade agreement as an incentive if London compromised on the legitimacy of border controls in Ulster to protect the integrity of the European single market.
However, Biden's move creates a political problem in London and an economic problem in Dublin, forcing the former to choose whether to favor Irish unionists or commercial interests and the latter to choose whether to favor the integrity of the EU common market or trade with its first economic partner.
The Democratic president's change of tone could be a response to the increased ambitions of the UK post-Brexit. Global Britain is a very ambitious and highly autonomous international projection strategy, which envisages both close collaboration with the USA (on climate change, pandemics, financial services, the fight against terrorism, defense and security, trade), as well as areas of direct competition. with Washington. In particular, China's policy of autonomous containment with the British presence in the Indo-Pacific lies outside the US-led Quad. And so the British industrial autonomy in the aerospace / defense sector: the development of the new British 6th generation Tempest multi- role fighter reduces the British need for American-made F35Bs . From the initial 148, estimates by the Royal United Service Institute , a think tank specializing in military affairs, now stand at 72. And the strategic mission has changed; the F35Bs , also adopted by Australia and Italy, are now functional to remain in a joint operational framework with Canberra in the Indo-Pacific and with Rome in the Mediterranean.
But the Biden effect, which immediately reverberated in Ireland, could also have unforeseen consequences. Speaking to the BBC , former senior Irish diplomat Ray Bassett said that with Brexit , Ireland's position has become unsustainable, with the block at 27 now becoming "a much less hospitable home".
Then, writing for the Daily Telegraph , the former ambassador explained: “Any support he gained for his pro-EU position during the Brexit process was quickly forgotten. Dublin was faced with a fait accompli when the EU, without consultation or any regard for Irish interests, invoked Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to establish a border on the island of Ireland for Ireland. entry of anti-Covid vaccines ".
Finally, Policy Exchange , a think tank, released a report encouraging Ireland to leave the EU with an Eirexit and follow the UK. For the Policy Exchange "the kind of deal that Ireland's interests require including free trade with the UK is directly in contradiction with the mandate of the EU negotiators that anything relating to Ireland and its border that emerges from the Brexit negotiations, it must 'maintain the integrity of the legal order of the Union', that is, no exceptions to the customs union ”.
"Outside the trading bloc – reads the report – Ireland and the United Kingdom could instead use their existing relationship to find a favorable agreement for access to the EU single market". Whatever the solution to the Irish trilemma may be, shamrock diplomacy will come at an unexpected cost, and perhaps outcomes.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/la-shamrock-diplomacy-di-biden-pone-un-problema-alluk-e-allirlanda/ on Mon, 14 Jun 2021 04:02:00 +0000.