Professor Edgar Morgenroth:

Yes. On the impact of Brexit, obviously it depends very much on the nature of Brexit. Brexit has happened but will we have a trade deal or not? That will make a very big difference. I note earlier that the Commission and the UK agreed on the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol, which is a good thing. If there is a trade deal, the unique status Northern Ireland would have in those circumstances would be a platform from which to build because having access to both the Great Britain market and the wider EU market in a relatively unencumbered way would give Northern Ireland an advantage that certainly no other part of the UK would have and, likewise, no other part of the EU has. That is a platform form which to build. If, on the other hand, we end up with a situation where there is no trade deal, the Northern Ireland protocol will come into play and how that will be implemented matters hugely both in terms of east-west as well as North-South trade. In that circumstance, there is a possibility Northern Ireland would be the most negatively affected of all parts of Europe from Brexit.

On one hand is this binary possibility of having a relatively benign and positive outlook to one that is pretty negative. I will not use the word "catastrophic" but "negative". That is one thing.

The EU support is an interesting question. There is no doubt EU support is important. Consider, for example, the situation in East Germany. EU support was there but the bulk of the heavy lifting was done, and is done to this day, by the West Germans. An extra percentage, a so-called solidarity contribution, was put on income tax and that still exists. It is an ongoing thorny issue in politics in Germany.