Professor David Phinnemore:

There are a great many more questions.

In regard to Erasmus, and all students on the island of Ireland being eligible to participate, politically that could be very difficult to achieve. Let us think of the sort of processes we are in at the moment. Brexit consists of a whole variety of different processes, some of them running concurrently and some of them sequential on one another. At the moment, the issue is about securing Brexit. For Brexiteers, it is about getting the UK out of the EU. I would say a lot of the rhetoric or the position of the DUP is about fulfilling the mandate given to the British Government to take the United Kingdom out of the EU. That is what the referendum result said; Prime Minister Theresa May said that Brexit is Brexit and she is obviously committed to delivering on that. Fulfilling that mandate and getting out of the EU is the key objective at present.

We then move into a phase where the UK is going to secure what it hopes will be a possible deal for the United Kingdom. When we move into that phase and we change the rhetoric about getting the best possible deal from the EU in the future, and that deal could involve a few extras for Northern Ireland which is still part of the United Kingdom and outside the EU, then one may be able to get support from the DUP. If one can draw on the language, which exists around uniqueness, flexibility and imagination, it is incumbent on every politician to seize what could be advantageous to oneself and the electorates on the fundamental issue of exiting the EU. One could say that is a naive academic talking, but I think the context shifts once the UK is out of the EU and we may see a slightly different position being adopted then.

The question was raised about levels of frustration on the EU side. I think it is fair to say, when one looks at the body language of some of the politicians that there is an element of frustration there, which is driven by at least two things - the absence of clarity from the British who having laid down some very clear red lines arguably entered into commitments which simply cannot be squared with those red lines; and then being seen to challenge, if not reject, some of what has been agreed. There is an expectation and a promise from the UK that it will come up with ideas.

These have not been forthcoming. When one is waiting for them and that wait gets longer and longer that frustration begins to show.

There is another dimension, namely, that these are not normal negotiations in at least two respects. This is not a state-to-state negotiation; rather, it is a negotiation between a state and the European Union. Prime Minister May will not negotiate with the member states; she is negotiating with an institution representing the member states, that is, the Commission. The other dimension which is different is that this is time-bound and part of the legal process which required it to be completed within two years, a two-year framework which has been reinforced by Theresa May's insistence that the UK is leaving at the end of that two-year period and ruling out the idea of any extension. In that regard, any officials charged with negotiating the arrangements for an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU are going to be extremely frustrated as the clock ticks down and it becomes increasingly obvious that the multifaceted and highly complex challenges involved have simply not been sufficiently analysed by certain sections of the British political establishment such that it has clarity in terms of what it wants in a context where it actually appreciates what is possible.

The frustration is understandable, particularly when some solutions have been put forward. One of the issues regarding the backstop protocol is that, fundamentally, nobody wants it. People want an arrangement with the UK which negates the need for the protocol, but that does not seem to be part of the discourse at the moment. It is as though the EU is trying to impose a protocol on the UK. The EU has only put it there as a backstop and its plan is that it will not be used. In a context where there is no clarity coming from the British it increases the likelihood of it having to be used.

I wish to reinforce what Dr. Hayward said about the institutions in the Good Friday Agreement. There is an explicit assumption that the devolved institutions will be up and running in order to implement any particular arrangements for Northern Ireland. Implicit in the support for the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts is the view that the North-South and, potentially, the east-west bodies will play a role. They have a future, but they have to be up and running in order to meet the expectations which a good number of people have of them.