Borders, National Sovereignty and European Integration: The British—Irish Case

Borders, National Sovereignty and European Integration: The British - Irish Case

LIAM O’DOWD, JAMES CORRIGAN AND TIM MOORE

Introduction The globalization of economic life and the restructuring of the international economy since the 1970s have generated a new social scientific interest in spatial questions but rather less interest in territorial boundaries. Much research on economic and spatial restructuring has taken place in the so-called advanced industrial states where national borders appear non-problematical. Even where national borders have been violently contested, as in eastern Europe, one of the effects has been to underline the relative stability and harmony which characterize such boundaries in the ‘West’. Yet, few borders anywhere have resulted from plebiscites or democratic negotiation at international level - instead, secret manipulations and some degree or threat of force are usually present. Furthermore, as Hansen (1981: 20) observes, ‘all of the European countries created in the last 150 years have border region problems arising from the demands of minorities seeking to realise their “national” values within the framework of an organised state.’

The subject of this article,’ the UK-Irish territorial border, reflects not only the impact of over two decades of EU economic integration, but also the consequences of violent ethno-national conflict over the same period. As such it provides a useful arena for examining some of the apparently contradictory influences which serve to undermine and consolidate national borders and national sovereignty in contemporary Europe.

Borders in the European Union (EU) The European Economic Community (now the European Union) was initially a political response to endemic inter-state and territorial conflict in western Europe. Economic interdependence and free trade were to be mechanisms for removing the sources of conflict over boundaries and national sovereignty. As the EU developed, however, means were to be transformed into goals to the extent that the competencies of EU institutions have remained largely confined to economic integration - a process intensified by the creation of the Single European Market with its slogan, ‘a Europe without frontiers’, in

1 The paper is based on a research project funded by the ESRC (Grant number ROO0 23 3053) entitled, ‘Negotiating the British-Irish Border: Transfrontier Cooperation on the European Periphery’, under the direction of L. O’Dowd. For the purposes of the project, the border region is defined as including local authority areas contiguous to the land border which have a population of approximately 800,000, or 16% of the population of the island of Ireland.

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Borders, national sovereignty and European integration 273

January 1993. More recently, the Maastricht Treaty has moved beyond economic integration to questions of political integration, the policing of external EU borders and relationships with non-EU countries.

Long before recent EU initiatives, however, the Council of Europe had focused on the relationship between economic and political integration in border areas. A ‘minor avalanche’ of literature on frontier regions in Europe resulted, dating from the late 1960s (Strassoldo, 1973). Reviewing this literature, Strassoldo and Delli Zotti (1982: 7) pointed to the perceived tension between the ‘dynamics of economic (and in part, ecological) processes’, on the one hand, and the ‘statics of legal, administrative, and political “superstructure”’, on the other. One advantage of studying border regions is that here the interaction between economic integration and national sovereignty is often more transparent than elsewhere. In other words, studying border regions can help answer the question of what is happening to national sovereignty in the face of economic globalization and the emergence of new transnational regimes.

At one end of the spectrum are those who argue that economic and technological interdependence will involve a reduction in the salience of existing national boundaries and an undermining of national sovereignty. Proponents of a strong EU are in this camp. At the other end are the sceptics, i.e. advocates of a ‘Europe of nation-states’, who deny that a necessary link exists between such interdependence and a loss of national sovereignty.

For all the political arguments over the future of European integration and the theoretical analyses offered by functionalists, realists and post-modernists, the actual outcome of EU integration for national sovereignty remains obscure. It is here that empirical studies of national boundaries and border regions can help illuminate the rather complex and fluid order emerging within the EU.

General social scientific accounts of the emergent state order present a complex and somewhat confusing picture. Those accounts which emphasize the redefining and relocation of national sovereignty downplay the importance of territorial boundaries. Michael Keating (1992: 60), for example, suggests that in the future there will be no tidy hierarchical order of continental, national, regional and local authorities. Instead, there will be a ‘variable geometry state order’ which will contain some strong cohesive states and other weaker states with less claim on a monopoly of power. All this need not mean any change in existing national borders, however. While these borders may remain, they will be less significant in the sense that they will not enclose political authorities with exclusive or monopoly control over the range of state functions. Such an outcome would undermine the distinctive features which separates the ‘modern’ nation-state from its medieval predecessors (J. Anderson, 1986). The new dispensation would see a dissipation of the bundle of territorial state powers among a variety of authorities ranging from the continental to the local. This has been variously described as a ‘new medievalism’ (Bull, 1977) or as a post-modern state order (Ruggie, 1993).

The strongest evidence for the decline of the nation-state derives from its diminishing economic sovereignty, the declining coherence of national economies and the evolution of new links between local and regional units and international regimes. Euro-enthusiasts present this process as politically benign, enabling potentially dissident minorities and territories within state boundaries to find more scope to develop their autonomy and identities within a new ‘Europe of the regions’. Thus, as national sovereignty becomes blurred, national boundaries, key demarcators of sovereignty in modern nation-states, become less important than frontier zones.*

2 The distinction between national borders (or boundaries) and frontier zones is a familiar one in political geography. The former denote geographically drawn lines separating or joining two or more nation-states. The latter is a zone of contact which often contains populations of mixed nationality and ethnicity, and which historically constituted either zones of defence or potential platforms for territorial aggrandizement.

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274 Liam O’Dowd, James Corrigan and Tim Moore

Other observers are more persuaded by the resilience and flexibility of the modern territorially-defined state. Giddens (1985: 291), for example, argues that the nation-state did not become a universal form until after the second world war and, as such, it is ‘inherently connected with, and in substantial degree the outcome of, those very transnational connections that seem to many to signal its demise’. In this view, the EU has the capacity to even strengthen national sovereignty. By extension, it can be argued (as Giddens does) that boundary disputes retain the capacity to pose a serious threat to peace and stability.

Broadly agreeing with Giddens, Michael Mann (1993: 116) has concluded that ‘Western European weakenings of the nation-state are slight, ad hoc, uneven and unique. ’ He warns against seeing western Europe as the ‘world’s future’ - its nation-states are ‘neither dying nor retiring; they have merely shifted functions and may continue to do so in the future’. The Giddens-Mann scenario suggests that regionalist or ethno-nationalist attempts to create, or re-draw, territorial borders will be resisted strongly by existing national authorities which derive much of their strength from the type of EU framework they themselves have created.

Border regions can reveal some clues as to the future of the nation-state. In a ‘Europe of nation-states’ it may be expected that territorial borders, although more permeable than in the past, will remain important markers of national sovereignty. A more politically integrated ‘Europe of the regions’, on the other hand, should facilitate the emergence of cross-border networks and institutions linked directly to Brussels as well as to the states concerned. It might be expected also that there would be some modification of national states’ claim (in Max Weber’s sense) to legitimately monopolize the means of violence and administrative control within fixed territorial boundaries.

The British-Irish border region as a case study The choice of the British-Irish border region as a case study allows an examination of the consequences of EU integration for the most violently contested border region in western Europe. Here, we find apparently contradictory forces thrown into relief, i.e. processes of EU integration which serve to diminish the significance of the border and an ethno- national conflict which serves to inflate it.

A product of the balance of coercion between Britain and nationalist Ireland in 1920, the partition of Ireland installed an erratic and meandering international boundary of 450km, cross-cutting 1400 agricultural holdings and 180 roads, and bisecting villages and even some individual houses (Busteed, 1992: 16). Ethno-national minorities were left stranded on either side. Over the next 50 years, this improbable boundary was to endure, and was consolidated by the second world war and the different evolution of both national states. However, the outbreak of the civil rights protests in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and the ensuing conflict made clear that longevity was not synonymous with legitimacy.

Throughout the 1970s, Ireland appeared to be an anomaly in a European context - a throwback to an order intractable dispute of the type largely resolved in Europe post-1945 (M. Anderson, 1982: 1-2). By the 1990s, however, it was clear the conflicts over boundaries and national sovereignty were becoming critical again with the collapse of the USSR and state socialism in eastern Europe. Even in the apparently stable EU, movements advocating autonomy or separatism on regional, ethnic or national grounds were questioning existing boundaries. The Irish border conflict suddenly seemed less of a relic and more of a portent. While the Irish conflict seemed to underline the renewed salience of ethno-national and interstate boundaries, other EU initiatives such as the Single European Market (SEM) and the Maastricht Treaty seemed to point in the opposite direction - to the transcendence of such borders. At the very least, the EU seemed to be

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moving to a new interface between economic and political integration, between globalization and national sovereignty.

In one sense, the British-Irish border region might beem to be an excessively stringent test of the idea that EU integration can moderate ethnic-national and boundary conflict - given the latter’s durability in twentieth-century Ireland. Unlike other EU boundaries, the Irish border continued to be challenged violently in the 1950s, and more particularly since the UK and Ireland gained membership in 1973. The exceptionalism of the Irish case should not be overstated, however. All borders have a ‘security’ dimension as they mark the limits of the area in which a particular state can claim to legally monopolize the means of violence. When this claim is challenged, as in the Irish (and currently in the Basque) case, the ensuing conflict recalls the genesis of the border which is generally in some form of organized or state coercion. Given the history of border creation in Europe, it seems rather perversely ahistorical to suggest that contested borders are anomalous or that such conflicts will remain dormant in the future in the light of secessionist and autonomist demands.

Even if the Irish conflict gives the border a particular salience, it can be argued that some of its other characteristics minimize its significance when compared to other national boundaries in the EU. Historically, the Irish border has been relatively open. The same language is spoken on either side; at various points along its length it separates both Protestants and Catholics from their co-religionists in the other state. The border divides an area which shares many of the same problems - peripherality, poor land, dependency on small farms, high levels of unemployment and out-migration and poor infrastructure. These problems were described by the first EC report on the area published in 1983. The report pointed out that the geographical and socio-economic disadvantages of the area were compounded by the frontier which ‘restricts scope for development and trade’ (Economic and Social Committee, 1983: 1). A localized smuggling economy on either side is based on extensive informal contacts. Finally, there is a strong sense of economic and political marginalization vis-d-vis their respective states on both sides of the boundary.

Furthermore, the boundary has lost whatever interstate strategic military significance it had in the past (e.g. as in the second world war, where it separated a belligerent and non-belligerent state). Nor does it have any implications for access to strategic raw materials or mineral deposits. Thus, conditions would appear to be particularly favourable for cross-border economic cooperation despite the conflict and even as a means for overcoming it.

On the Irish border, therefore, two elements seem to be juxtaposed: firstly, the potentialities for cross-border economic cooperation in the face of the Single Market and the shared culture and economic problems of the region, and secondly, the ethno-national conflict. The apparently contrary implications of these two factors for the territorial border and national sovereignty are explored below.

State ‘expansion’, state centralization and conflict The meaning and scope of state sovereignty has developed significantly since the partition of Ireland between two separate states in 1921, The growth in the economic, social reproduction and social control capacities of state institutions in the UK and the Irish Republic has been particularly marked since the 1960s. In the case of Northern Ireland, for example, there has been an increased reliance on transfers from the British exchequer since the 1970s (NIEC, 1994).

Expansion in the economic and institutional capacity of both states within their respective territorial boundaries has coexisted with a progressive centralization of state powers. The Irish Republic and the UK are now among the most centralized states in the

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EU. The form taken by state centralization in Northern Ireland was a response to threatened disintegration of the region as a single political unit in the early 1970s. An early casualty of the conflict was the 50-year-old unionist-controlled regional administration in Belfast. Devolution was replaced by direct rule from Westminster via the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) in 1972. In 1973, local government, once the bastion of unionist territorial control, was radically reformed, giving nationalists control over many of the border councils. By now, however, real power had moved elsewhere: to new bureaucratic institutions in Belfast under the control of the NIO. Local authorities retained only residual powers but remained influential and symbolically significant. Since partition, local authorities in the Irish Republic also have lost much of their powers to non-elected county officials and to state institutions increasingly centralized in Dublin. EU membership has done little to undermine state centralization, in fact it has tended to underpin it by devolving to national states responsibility for implementing EU directives and administering EU funds. As Keating (1993: 339) observes, national states see EU issues as coming under the rubric of foreign affairs. Thus it is extremely difficult for regional interests to articulate their demands even in countries which cater for a degree of regional autonomy such as Spain and Italy. The problem is even more acute in countries with highly centralized political systems, such as the Irish Republic, the UK, Portugal and Greece.

From the 1970s onwards a consultative British-Irish governmental framework emerged to ensure that the Northern Ireland conflict did not translate into inter-state conflict. In this, the intergovernmental framework of the EU was both a model and a support. Intergovernmentalism in Ireland, however, involved cooperation between two highly centralized states with unequal power and resources. This was not conducive to flexibility in allowing regional and subregional agencies to develop cross-border links outside of direct central state control.

Changes in the border region Despite the signs of a new institutionalization of the border within centralized state institutions, changes within the Irish border region engendered contrary pressures threatening to lessen the significance of the territorial boundary. These changes were particularly marked within the NI border region. Partition had incorporated many areas with local nationalist majorities into Northern Ireland, most of which were excluded from power even at local authority level by the unionist administration. Local government reform after 1970 increased nationalist political influence in the border area and as a result created a demand for more cross-border links.

Political changes, however, were rooted in even more dramatic demographic shifts in favour of Catholics (who were overwhelmingly nationalist) in the NI border region. During the period 1971 -91, there was a 29% increase in the Catholic population in the NI border region compared to a 12% decline in ‘other denominations’ (i.e. Protestants). This broad pattern is repeated in the rest of Northern Ireland, albeit in less marked form. By 1991, the percentage Catholic in the border region (66.8%) almost exactly mirrored the percentage in ‘other denominations’ (66.1 %) in the more densely populated east of Northern Ireland.

Significantly, however, the territorial balance within both religious groups changed relatively little over the 20-year period. Only 15% of ‘other denominations’ lived in the border region in 1991 compared to 16% in 1971. Comparable figures for Catholics were 41 % and 40% respectively. The overall population figures clearly demonstrated the division between the east of the province and the border areas in terms of ethno-religious and political allegiance. This division was exacerbated by the three-cornered struggle between state security forces, loyalist and republican paramilitaries which was strongly

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territorial in form. The conflict and shifting population balance induced a new volatility in the frontier zone, now located within a framework altered by UK-Irish entry into the EEC, the SEM and the Maastricht Treaty. Of critical interest here is whether national sovereignty is a diminishing asset within the new framework, thus diluting the basic source of the conflict over national boundaries in Ireland.

European economic integration and national sovereignty in Ireland The rather different national projects of the British and Irish governments vis-d-vis European integration intersect in the Irish border region. Irish governments have consistently supported European economic integration and have not been unduly concerned about loss of national sovereignty to Brussels. This approach is in sharp contrast to the frequently sceptical and reluctant stance of the British government illustrated most clearly in the policies of Conservative governments since 1979.

In some senses, joint EU membership has widened the gulf between the national sovereignty of both countries, increasing the discretion of Irish government policy vis-d- vis its neighbour. Indeed, one economist has noted the irony that membership ‘emphasised the economic existence of an Irish border which was largely absent hitherto’ (Trimble, 1989: 43). After 1979, the monetary union, which had linked Britain and Ireland for 150 years, was broken. The Irish currency no longer traded at parity with sterling or circulated freely in Northern Ireland. Unlike the UK, the Irish Republic joined the EMS. Until recently, fluctuations in currency values, in taxes on some commodities such as petrol and alcohol, and new opportunities to manipulate EU subsidies, combined to give a new lease of life to the longstanding smuggling industry in the region. Asymmetric cross-border shopping patterns adversely affected retailers on the Southern side of the Border (Trimble, 1989: 41 -2; Fitzgerald, 1989).

Temporary UK membership of the EMS/ERM induced greater stability in the value of the two currencies. Upheavals within the system and more flexible arrangements within the EMS subsequently have restored a climate of uncertainty and fluctuation in the values of both currencies. Monetary developments have reflected another differential effect of EU membership - the progressive diversification of the Republic’s export trade away from dependence on the British market towards the rest of the EU. While trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic has increased in absolute terms it has actually declined in relative terms in the 1980s (Harrison, 1990: 418). Only 5 % of the Republic’s exports go the the North while the latter supplies only 4% of the South’s imports (Government of Ireland, 1992 : 26).

It seems clear, therefore, that EU economic integration does not automatically mean closer links between both Irish economies. Nor does such integration operate independently of national jurisdictions or sovereignty, especially when the states involved pursue different policies vis-d-vis the EU. Nationalist hopes and unionist fears that EU integration might prove a ‘backdoor to (Irish) unity’ (Kockel, 1991: 91) might seem unfounded, therefore.

Views from within the border region Our research in the border region revealed conflicting views on the relationship between EU economic integration and national sovereignty. Our survey of local councillors3 in the border region suggests a continued belief that economic integration will lead to a

3 The survey of border councillors was based on responses from 238 local councillors from a total of 3 17, a response rate of 75 % .



modification of sovereignty and increased permeability of the border. At the time of the survey (1992- 3) constitutional nationalists accounted for 67 % of all border councillors, unionists for 23 % , and Sinn Fein for 10% : a distribution close to that in our sample where the corresponding figures were 71 %, 20% and 8 % . Constitutional nationalists, especially in Northern Ireland, believed that, in the long run, EU integration will replace a Europe of centralized nation-states committed to intranational uniformity within a ‘Europe of the regions’. Thus, not only is effective regionalization the main challenge facing the EU in general (Hume, 1992: 78), it is also a means of reducing the significance of national sovereignty and hence a framework for resolving the British-Irish conflict. Such a scenario would involve the blurring of national boundaries and the emergence of cross- frontier regions. Our survey of councillors revealed that it was the main constitutional nationalist parties in both parts of Ireland which see the EU in the most positive light - as a means of transcending traditional conflicts over sovereignty.

The alternative position is that there can be no compromise on territorial sovereignty - a view shared, from opposing perspectives, by the Northern Ireland unionist parties and Sinn Fein to a lesser extent. Unionists’ view of EU integration corresponds closely with that of the British Conservative government in that they are inclined to see it more as an enhanced free trade area. presided over by intergovernmental arrangements, than as an embryonic supranational state. In its pure form, this view holds that political questions of national sovereignty are quite distinct from, and more important than, questions of economic development, interdependence or cooperation.

The ‘traditional sovereignty’ position has a rather more ambiguous view of cross- border economic cooperation. Most unionists argue, as our survey shows, that full recognition of Northern Ireland’s position as part of the UK is either a prerequisite to, or an essential component of, any formal cross-border cooperation in Ireland. Unionist councillors were much less involved than nationalists in cross-border cooperation promoted by the EU or the Anglo-Irish Agreement and were sceptical of formalized cooperation as a stalking horse for a united Ireland. Sinn Fein, on the other hand, was largely excluded from cross-border initiatives at local council level. While favouring cross-border economic links, its primary objective was the withdrawal of British sovereignty claims.

Cross-border cooperation and the centralized state As in border regions elsewhere (M. Anderson, 1982: l l) , a substratum of cross-border agencies has emerged rather belatedly in Ireland, despite competing sovereignty claims. Our research has uncovered over 300 local economic initiatives in the border region alone, of which approximately 50 have an explicit cross-border focus.

Border region initiatives have developed against a background of increased cooperation at an all-Ireland level, involving state agencies across a broad front, albeit in discrete areas such as tourism, roads, health and energy. This cooperation has developed under the aegis of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the EU Structural Fund programmes. Private sector business organizations in both parts of Ireland have been prominent in pursuing cross-border economic initiatives which they present as transcending politics. In the case of all-Ireland and border region initiatives, however, the stimulus has come mainly from transnational and national levels rather than from the regional or subregional level. The Anglo-Irish Agreement and the SEM have generated a ‘grant environment’ along the border which encourages local groups to apply for funding for local initiatives. Interviews with local economic development activists in the border region emphasize the extent to which cross-border initiatives have been both stimulated and limited by both centralized states. The vast majority of border region initiatives came into existence



because of EU and intergovernmental funding but were then hampered by the very political and administrative system which encouraged them in the first place.

Our interviews with local authority officials in the border region revealed criticisms of the extent of centralization on either side of the boundary. The limited range of local authority functions, especially in Northern Ireland, prevented cross-border cooperation in a number of areas. For example, local authorities in the Irish Republic have some responsibility for roads which, in the North, are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment. Genuine local cross-border cooperation in tourism is advocated widely as beneficial to the region, but it is hindered, in the words of one County Manager in the Republic, because ‘we are dependent on centralized agencies to do things in tourism’. In Northern Ireland, on the other hand, local councils are playing an increasing role in tourism promotion (interview, 22 Oct. 1993). Cross-border economic cooperation between local authorities is hindered not only by centralization but by different priorities and competencies on either side of the border.

One of the problems in Ireland, of course, is that the form taken by previous regional devolution in Northern Ireland between 1920 and 1972, far from encouraging cross- border links, actually prevented them. Divisions over national sovereignty were institutionalized thereby and largely precluded formalized cross-border economic cooperation. Even where many cross-border regional institutions exist, as in the Rhine basin where boundaries are relatively settled, disputes over national sovereignty can inhibit cross-frontier economic links (Scott, 1989: 155).

The combination of state centralization and territorial conflict in Ireland directly impinges on capacity to respond to the potentially devastating effects of the SEM on both economies. Teague (1993), for example, has shown how the current ‘governance structure’ or ruling institutions in Northern Ireland inhibit the development of a flexible regional economic strategy. More generally, Hansen (1983: 257) has pointed out that integration and cooperation in border regions are more consistent with a flexible and innovative approach to modern business organization than isolation and conflict. Yet the latter remain prominent in Ireland - as Anderson and Goodman (1992: 10) observe, the greatest obstacle to economic integration in Ireland is ‘probably the lack of an adequate political programme and administrative framework for achieving it’.

Two issues serve to illustrate the way in which the continuing conflict and the highly centralized (by EU standards) nature of both states set constraints on the scope of cooperation in the British-Irish border region: (1) the operation in Ireland of the INTERREG Initiative dedicated to economic development and ‘cohesion’ in EU border areas; and (2) the controversy over the programme of road closures and fortifications pursued by the British army and Northern Ireland police in border areas.

INTERREG Unlike the Council of Europe, the EU has been slow to address the problems of border regions d i r e ~ t l y . ~ The abolition of internal border controls as specified under the SEM has provided an impetus for a specific Initiative geared to Border regions within the EU entitled INTERREG (Commission of the European Communities, 1991 : 167- 75). This Initiative, and the International Fund for Ireland associated with the Anglo-Irish Agreement, are the only major sources of development funds specifically dedicated to the Irish border region.

4 The Council of Europe has sponsored cross-border cooperation and research since the 1960s. It has developed a European Outline convention on Transfrontier Cooperation between Territorial communities or Authorities. This convention provides a mechanism through model agreements for encouraging international cooperation between local and regional authorities in border areas. The Irish Republic ratified the Convention in 1982. The UK, however, has failed to sign it as yet.



The implementation of the first INTERREG Initiative covered a spectrum which illustrates the diversity of EU-national state-border region relationships. At one end are German-Dutch and Belgian-Dutch border regions which formulated the operational programmes themselves. In all other regions, national governments have drawn up their INTERREG programmes with or without involving border authorities (Broos, 1992: 5) .

The twin objectives of INTERREG in Ireland are to assist eligible border areas to overcome their development problems and to encourage cross-border cooperation. In Objective I border regions, including the whole of Ireland, the INTERREG programmes have been dominated by national administrations in their preparation, while, in terms of content, they cover measures largely internal to the regions concerned and mainly of an infrastructural nature (Martinos, 1992: 5) . This approach is not favoured by the EU Commission which holds that cooperation on internal borders is not served by a series of disjointed projects on either side of the border and that emphasis should continue to be given to measures which create and develop lasting frameworks for cooperative action in support of economic development (interviews, 16 Nov. 1993).

Even within the Objective I regions, Ireland constitutes an extreme example of centralized decision-making confined to the two national governments. Not only did the two governments make the initial Qoint) submission to the EU under the programme, they have retained tight control of decision-making, implementation and supervision. Assessing the Irish experience of INTERREG in September 1992, Van Run (1992: 3) noted that all the projects were national projects apart from the Shannon-Erne canal. The programme has mainly taken the form of parallel rather than related projects on either side of the border with little direct connection between them and heavily biased towards infrastructural development. More recently, a number of small-scale projects have been funded which have originated within the border region itself.

New proposals for the second INTERREG Initiative due to begin in late 1994 have served to dilute further the direct impact of INTERREG on the immediate border region. Dublin and Belfast chambers of commerce are seeking funding for their joint trade initiative and proposals to extend the definition of border areas to include the Irish maritime border with Wales have been accepted by the EU Commission. This geographical extension of ‘borders’ will make it even more unlikely that INTERREG will be used to underpin regional or subregional cross-border institutions. Instead, it is likely to confirm the primacy of bureaucratic central government.

Some limited progress has been made within the border region in developing formal cooperation between local authorities on either side. Among the most notable are the North-West Group of Councils comprising Donegal, Derry , Strabane and Limavady , and the Eastern Border Region Committee comprising Down, Newry and Mourne, Louth and Monaghan. Dungannon, Fermanagh and Armagh councils, in the mid-border region, have refused to become directly involved because of unionist reluctance. The North-West Group have gradually developed from a basis of informal links but has found it difficult to get government or EU support. A leading local authority official in the North-West commented: ‘the perception of authorities on both sides of the border is that there are many problems in actually achieving a cross-border project.’ He noted the frustration at having to develop separate strategies for dealing with Belfast and Dublin (interview, 9 Nov. 1992). Both the North-West Group and Eastern Border Region Committee have received temporary funding recently for secretariats to bring forward projects. It remains clear, however, that neither government is willing to devolve control over resources or responsibility to regional entities in the border area. The problem in Ireland is more extreme in that the border region itself is a state construct which has no coherent regional body to represent it.

As in other EU border regions (see Maillat, 1990: 47), local authorities have to conduct much of their dialogue through their respective states. In Ireland, a plethora of local development groups and embryonic sub-regional coalitions have emerged to take

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Borders, national sovereignty and European integration 28 1

advantage of the more favourable funding environment for cross-border economic cooperation. They have been largely forced to work through their respective state institutions, however, in a somewhat piecemeal and uncoordinated manner. Localism here is the obverse of centralism. ‘Cross-border’ cooperation is defined primarily in intergovernmental rather than in regional terms - as cooperation between civil servants or as links between private sector organizations in Dublin and Belfast aimed at combating the centralizing effects of the SEM. Links between Belfast and Dublin chambers of commerce, proposals for an economic corridor between Belfast and Dublin, and the emphasis of INTERREG on infrastructural projects suggest the danger of the border region becoming a ‘transit zone’ between more prosperous areas - a danger noted by some of the local councillors and development officials interviewed.

Road closures and fortifications While national borders are perhaps most permeable with respect to market forces, they are least permeable in the area of policing and security. The latter constitute the clearest and most durable expressions of national sovereignty. Economic integration suggests that borders are gateways or zones of interaction. They are barriers in the context of policing and security. The conflict between political and security expressions of national sovereignty, on the one hand, and economic rationality on the other, is most visibly expressed in the issue of cross-border road closures and fortifications (see Corrigan and O’Dowd, 1993; Tomlinson, 1993). National commitments to improve infrastructure, especially roads and cross-border tourism (Government of Ireland, 1992) are juxtaposed with a comprehensive policy of road closures and border fortifications pursued by the British security forces5

The contradictions of this policy, especially in the context of the Single European Market, are keenly felt in border communities. The policy of road closures is a burning issue for the majority nationalist communities on both sides of the border, which see the strengthening of the boundary as anathema - an anachronism in the context of the EU’s abolition of internal border controls. Descriptions of the border used by nationalist councillors responding to our survey illustrate the point. They used terms such as: ‘unnatural divide’, ‘artificial’, ‘a major hindrance’, ‘illogical’, ‘a political and geographical nonsense’, ‘a travesty’, and a ‘Berlin wall’.

The roads issue marks a clear continuity between the current conflict, the struggle to establish the border in the first place, and the periodic challenges to it in the interim. The coercion associated with the creation, maintenance and challenge to the boundary remains. The flashpoints of conflict - localities, roads and bridges - have remained remarkably similar over the 70-year history of the border. For example, Lackey Bridge, connecting Counties Monaghan and Fermanagh, was first closed in 1922, reopened in 1925, spiked again in the 1950s, reopened in the 1960s and closed again the early 1970s (Sunday Tribune, 10 Jan. 1993). The present conflict over border crossings has proved more persistent and more intense than its predecessors, however. The boundary is marked by 277 crossings (information extracted from Director of Military Survey map, 1973). According to the NIO, 103 border crossings are subject to closure orders under the Emergency Provisions Act of 1990, while the Dublin Department of Foreign Affairs puts the figure at 160 (Sunday Tribune, 10 Jan. 1993).

This policy of closure, which is largely determined by the British Army and Northern Ireland security forces, is adapted nevertheless to conditions along different segments of

5 Since this article was written, the Republican and Loyalist ceasefires, called in August- September 1994, have altered the situation. Border roads are being opened gradually, although army fortifications remain to date.



the frontier. In the North-West, the main cross-border routes are marked by fortified checkpoints which now serve as permanent bases for soldiers and police, while some minor roads are blocked. At the other (eastern) end, of the border, the large network of cross-border roads is mainly open. In an area where the IRA are particularly active, border security takes the form of high-tech surveillance and ‘micro-wave fences’ combined with chains of surveillance towers and heavily fortified army bases. The major local controversy here centres around the ‘high incidences of cancer’ found in the area, which locals allege is linked to the use of electronic surveillance equipment (Irish News, 9 Apr. 1992; Porter, 1993).

Perhaps the most enduring physical expression of contested sovereignty, however,is the closing of most of the cross-border roads in the mid-frontier region of Fermanagh, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Tyrone. This is the poorest, most rural part of the border, with many small settlements dependent on a small farming economy and on tourism. The closure of roads here impinges even more directly on the economic, social and cultural lives of the people. A popular movement has developed in this area which engages in periodic reopening of roads which are duly closed by the British army soon after. The movement has developed links elsewhere along the border and is now coordinated by the Irish National Congress, a Dublin-based organization which opposes partition.

While there is a basic unionist-nationdist division on the issue, the areas most adversely affected by the closures are overwhelmingly nationalist on either side of the border - a factor which increases the intensity of the opposition. Scattered unionist communities in the frontier zone feel under threat from the IRA and support the closures. Only 22% of councillors from the Irish Republic and 19% of non-unionist (excluding Sinn Fein) councillors from Northern Ireland agreed with the statement that ‘road closures were necessary for security reasons’. On the other hand, 92% of NI unionist councillors agreed with this proposition. At the other end of the spectrum were Sinn Fein councillors, who almost unanimously opposed the road closures.

When asked if ‘road closures hinder (cross-border) economic contact’, all Sinn Fein councillors, 86% of Irish Republic councillors and 83 % of Northern Ireland non-unionists agreed with the proposition. On the other hand, only 25 % of Northern Ireland unionists agreed. The majority of unionist councillors favoured closer cross-border economic cooperation with reservations. One respondent commented: ‘cross-border [economic] cooperation is perceived as a step towards Irish unity so long as the Republic has in its constitution the illegal claim to Northern Ireland’ and so long as the Republic is used ‘as a training ground and supply area for murderous attacks along the frontier’ (Survey of Councillors).

The leading unionist politicians in the border region have supported and encouraged the policy of road closures. Periodic calls are made to ‘seal the border’ in the wake of IRA attacks. In a rare definition of this demand, a Democratic Unionist spokesperson from Fermanagh argued that ‘the main trade routes should remain open with security checkpoints on the actual border at the point of entry. All other roads should be sealed and mined’ (Impartial Reporter, 16 Jan. 1992).

In general, the struggle over the roads and the fortification of the border is an important indicator that territorial boundaries still retain their significance for nation- states and ethnic-national groups. It is difficult to disagree with an editorial comment in a weekly border newspaper, the nationalist Ulster Herald:

Thirty years ago the Irish Border was a joke and comedians wrote skits about their efforts to find this dividing line. Today it is a real barrier, growing ever stronger as Europe develops towards fulfillment of its slogan of a ‘Europe without Frontiers’. (Ulster Herald, 9 May 1992)

In any case, as far as the realization of the European slogan is concerned, it seems clear that the Irish boundary is now more sharply defined and contested than at any time in its history. At the same time, however, there now exists a far more elaborate network of

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political, community and business groups working for economic cooperation within the border region.

Conclusions The prolonged impact of the conflict on Northern Ireland, and on the frontier regions in particular, has renewed the significance of the boundary. Divisions have not moderated at local level within the border region. If anything, they have been exacerbated. Protestant communities feel under continuous threat from IRA attacks, especially in Fermanagh. They continue to bitterly oppose the Anglo-Irish Agreement, to see the South as a haven for gunmen and to be suspicious of cross-border cooperation. To unionists on the frontier, the boundary represents the many ‘divisions’ between both parts of the island. Some unionist councillors have expressed their support for closer economic cooperation in the context of European integration, but in the words of one leading unionist MP: ‘economic boundaries are not necessarily the same as cultural, ethnic or political boundaries’ (Belfast Telegraph, 17 Mar. 1993). Catholic communities, on the other hand, often see themselves as engaged in a war with the security forces, British and local. They are strongly opposed to the fortification and militarization of the border and see this as contradictory to the stated interests of both governments in cross-border cooperation (Toibin, 1987). To nationalists on the frontier, the boundary (as far as it is acknowledged) is something to be circumvented, not defended. In the words of a Sinn Fein councillor: ‘I am a Republican, I ignore the border if and when possible’ (Survey of Councillors).

The Irish border indicates the historical significance of coercion in boundary creation and the consequences of violent challenges to the status quo. It also shows that ethnic and regional groups can provoke national states into shaTening and consolidating national boundaries. Evidence from Ireland suggests that pressures for greater regional autonomy, based on ethnic-national identity, may have the effect of strengthening, rather than weakening, the territorial assertion of sovereignty by national states.

Aspects of the Irish experience resemble that of peripheral border regions elsewhere in the EU which are administered by centralized states. They seem to bear out Christaller’s ‘socio-political separation principle’, ‘where the nation-state primarily follows political objectives and priorities, rather than economic rationality, in the administration and development of border regions’ (Suarez-Villa et al., 1992: 97; see also Hansen, 1983: 256). The single most coherent border policy is not to be found in the area of economic development but in the policy of road closures and security checkpoints operated by the British state. Our survey demonstrates clearly how this policy divides the local nationalist majorities from the unionist minorities in the region.

The Irish case also demonstrates the independent effects of state centralization, which makes it difficult for subregional cross-border institutions to emerge. The management of the INTERREG programme suggests that Ireland and the UK operate an extremely centralized strategy even in the context of the relatively centralized approaches practised generally within EU Objective 1 areas. One result is bureaucratic fragmentation of policies and the lack of institutional flexibility in promoting economic cooperation. When each state pursues different policies vis-d-vis EU integration, policy coherence is further reduced.

The most important forms of cross-border cooperation, however, are overwhelmingly intergovernmental in character. This does not mean necessarily a coincidence of intergovernmental interests. The different political orientations of both governments to the EU generally, and their differential integration into it, has strengthened rather than undermined the economic significance of the border in many respects. As Butt Philip (1991) and Lodge (1992) have argued, the removal of internal border controls (both economic and security checks) under the SEM is a complex and difficult process. There is

0 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publiaherc Ltd 1995


plenty of scope for the exercise of national sovereignty and discretion in interpreting and implementing EU agreements. And, as the Irish case shows, the whole process has little direct democratic accountability to national electorates, and especially not to those living in border areas. The lack of democratic involvement is nothing new, of course, in the historical process of creating, modifying and moving borders.

One of the major stimuli to local cross-border economic cooperation is the threat of increased economic peripheralization of the border region as the SEM develops. The embryonic links which have developed between councils, chambers of commerce and local development groups on either side of the border seek to address problems of high unemployment and job creation. But peripherality also increases the importance of the centralized state. A Council of Europe (1992: 21) study has noted that, although it is not possible to prove a cause and effect connection, less developed EU frontier regions tend to be situated in the most centralized states. Both the UK and Irish states serve as key mediators of resource transfers from national and EU sources to the border region. Here, different economic and political agendas seek to emphasize national sovereignty at the expense of coordinated action. Where such action is most developed, as in plans to develop physical infrastructure (as in INTERREG, for example), it may turn the border region into a mere transit area (see Maillat, 1990: 44; Nijkamp, 1993: 439) for the movement of goods, services and persons within broader economic units. All-Ireland economic integration, therefore, may work to the detriment of the border region as such.

On balance, the evidence from Ireland’s border region suggests that EU integration is not incompatible with economic peripheralization, consolidation of national boundaries and conflict over national sovereignty. The existing order of nation-states seems much more potent at the moment than moves towards an EU of multiple regional identities, overlapping jurisdictions and shared sovereignty.

Liam O’Dowd, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, James Corrigan, Institute of European Studies, and Tim Moore, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, The Queen’s University of Belfast, Belfast BT7 INN, Northern Ireland

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Documents

Borders, National Sovereignty and European Integration: The British—Irish Case