The administrations on both sides of the border could act as a single entity at European Union level, the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has suggested.
Speaking in a personal capacity at a Progressive Democrats lunch this afternoon, he said EU membership "has been good for this island - North and South".
He noted hostility to the Union was most pronounced among the more hardline elements of both republicanism and unionism but maintained that economic and political interests on both sides of the border "are closely intertwined and are very similar".
In a speech hours before the Sinn Fein ardfheis begins in Dublin this evening, Mr McDowell described himself as a liberal republican and maintained that the goal of republicanism must be to seek reconciliation with unionism.
"It is far easier to plant a bomb, or pull a trigger, or throw a stone, or march a street as part of a 'struggle' than it is to reconcile with, to compromise with, to include, or to embrace those on the other side of a deep historical and cultural divide."
He said it unification could only proceed after reconciliation and claimed "courage and generosity that is still lacking in large measure in nationalist Ireland".
"Irishness, if it means anything, cannot simply mean the majority strands of Gaelic, Catholic or Nationalist identity. Those strands may be some of the characteristics of some types of Irishness.
But Protestantism, Anglicism, planterism, liberalism and the dissenter strands of Irishness must not merely be accommodated in our sense of Irishness — they must be respected valued and cherished as well."
He said Irish culture was not the exclusive preserve of those in the South and noted the potential of sport to unite both traditions. He also suggested making common cause at a political level in the EU could also be part of the process.
"Is it a bridge too far to envisage in the medium term that the people of Ireland could share their future in Europe by pooling Ireland's status in Europe as part of the North/South institutions between the two parts of this island - entirely without prejudice to the constitutional issues of Unionism or a united Ireland?
"This island of ours could, with courage, be transformed into a prosperous, tolerant, caring, self-confident and outgoing member of a European community, an island in which the traditions of Orange and Green could not merely be accommodated, not merely reconciled, but actually woven together to build a society worthy of all its people."