EU PEACE programme for Northern Ireland must continue say MEPs

The views expressed will contribute to an own-initiative report by Bairbre de Brún (GUE/NGL, Sinn Féin UK), on  "The evaluation of the Peace Programme and strategies for the future" currently scheduled for a vote in the Regional Development Committee in December.

 

 

 

“There were physical and invisible barriers, many barriers have now been broken down.  The PEACE programme helped tear-down those barriers” said Pat Colgan, CEO of the Special EU Programmes Body, to which the British and Irish governments have devolved power in respect of the PEACE programmes.

 

Ms Kelly Coles of the Ballymacarret Arts and Cultural Society presented a PEACE funded programme that brings young Catholics and Protestants together by, among other things, familiarising them with each other’s culture, building up trust and breaking down stereotypes: “We broke down all those myths and demons, we banished them from their heads – we built the foundations that will allow trust and confidence for each individual to grow [...] But there is still a lot of work to do with adults and other minority groups.”

 

Mr Duncan Morrow, CEO of the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council, noted that: “Peace is an easy word, everybody wants peace. But how do you make it credible? By actual stories of real successful projects,” like the PEACE programme. He emphasised that “a peaceful society is a society that has conflicts peacefully, not a society that has no conflicts at all. The EU has not walked away from Northern Ireland when others might have done,” a statement reiterated by Mrs de Brún later on in the debate.

 

Mr Brandon Hamber, from International Conflict Research (INCORE) of the University of Ulster, emphasised the importance of reconciliation as "a process of addressing fractured relationships through different activities.” Such reconciliation was at the heart of the EU's programme.

 

 

In the debate that ensued, Mrs de Brún pointed out that "grassroots participation is one of the key elements that the EU brought to the peace process at a crucial time." She noted that "a lesson for structural programmes of the EU in general is how you can have a bottom-up approach for EU programmes across the Union." Mrs de Brún went on to say that “there now needs to be a way of continuing the coming together of civil society on each side of the border and ways of ensuring that this happens in a structured way in the future.”

 

Jim Allister (NA, Independent, Northern Ireland  UK) conceded that the PEACE programme had had positive effects, but said there were several things to be criticized, for example that "money has been wasted." Mr Allister compared the €2.2 billion EU funding for Northern Ireland to the same amount received by the Republic of Ireland which had been invested in infrastructure and developing the Irish economy. He also argued that a majority Protestant population in Northern Ireland was less inclined to take up funding opportunities because of a perceived political spin of the programme.

 

Jim Nicholson (EPP-ED, Ulster Unionist Party, Northern Ireland, UK) also mentioned the need for continued support by the EU: "Northern Ireland has come a long way, but it still had a long distance to go - the difficulties should not be underestimated." Mr Nicholson, who was one of the initiators of the first PEACE programme in 1994, (along with Johh Hume, Ian Paisley and Jacques Delors) noted: "The one thing I have discovered through all of this - It is much easier to make war than to make peace."