The President, Mrs McAleese, has said that changes to Articles 2 and 3 and the "constitutional reassurance" in the Belfast Agreement allow for mutually beneficial co-operation between jurisdictions as is common throughout Europe. She added that there were no "hidden agendas" in cross-Border co-operation.
She was giving the opening address yesterday at the Cross-Border Co-operation Conference in Queen's University Belfast. Mrs McAleese said there would be no attempt to erase history because for many people in Ireland, the Border was "a part of who they are". However, honouring a divided history need not preclude the possibility of a shared future.
Change could be a profoundly frightening and isolating experience and she acknowledged the temptation to cling to a particular sense of identity when nothing else seemed certain. However, she warned: "At such times we can be tempted to wrap our borders around ourselves, like a blanket, comforting but ultimately stifling.
"We are at a pivotal point in our history, when it is truly possible to move forward, without suspicion, without threat, to wards a new partnership on this island, a partnership which respects borders but which is also confident enough to widen the focus, to alter the perspective, to see the bigger picture."
Mrs McAleese said regions which had languished on the periphery of the two jurisdictions would suddenly shift to centre stage, leading to economic benefits. She hoped the North-South Ministerial Council and complementary bodies would ensure the broadest possible interaction between the North and the Republic, but she warned against complacency.
"We will have solved only half the riddle if we increase cross-Border trade but retain communities where people will not cross the street to speak to each other."
Mrs McAleese paid tribute to Mr Andy Pollak's "mould-breaking" Centre for Cross-Border Studies which opened in Armagh a year ago. Mr Pollak, a journalist, is on leave of absence from The Irish Times. "Controversy about relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland," he said, "tends to obscure the broad consensus that exists in both jurisdictions about the value of cross-Border co-operation on practical issues."
