North-south bodies working together for common interests will transform relations between people in the way European co-operation healed wounds between former enemies in the last century, Mr John Hume said.
He was giving the closing address yesterday at the European Cross-Border Co-operation Conference in Queen's University, Belfast.
The conference, "Lessons For And From Ireland", was organised by Mr Andy Pollak, an Irish Times journalist and director of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies, Armagh, in conjunction with Queen's Centre for International Research.
Mr Hume said: "In the first half of the last century there were two world wars, yet the people came together. It's the greatest example in the world of conflict resolution. Work together on issues of common concern and the healing will follow." He said the value of the European experience could be seen clearly through the workings of the North-South institutions set up under the Belfast Agreement.
"As we speak there is a renewed crisis. I can't help making the observation that those who are now seeking such extreme steps as the halting of the Executive fail one simple test: they have no alternative to the agreement."
Addressing opponents of the agreement, he asked if they wanted to be back in the "throes of violence" within six months.
Mr Hume said the principles of the Belfast Agreement were identical to the central principles of the European Union.
The agreement had respect for difference at its core, he said, and it had people working together for common interests, "spilling sweat together, not blood.
"By working together we can break down borders and prejudices of the past. A new society will emerge in a generation or two but there will be no victory for either side."
Mr Hume said he paid tribute to friends in Europe for their "practical generosity" to Northern Ireland through bodies such as the Peace Programme, INTERREG and the International Fund for Ireland. "Europe has been at the forefront of peace in Northern Ireland." European institutions could take real and justified pride in the contributions they had made to bringing stability to Northern Ireland, he said.
On Saturday, Dr Martin Mansergh, Special Adviser to the Taoiseach, told delegates at the conference that North-South co-operation was helping to underpin peace and stability in Northern Ireland. He was sure it would contribute to employment and prosperity in the future.
Dr Mansergh acknowledged that suggestions on cross-Border interaction from the Irish delegation in the final week of negotiations on the Belfast Agreement had been "too much too soon" for unionists.
"Democratic decisions by the people, and nothing else, will determine the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, which will not be changed over the heads of the people of Northern Ireland without their agreement and participation," he said.
However, Dr Mansergh said North-South co-operation had been one of the most positive aspects of the peace process, and hoped its importance would be neither exaggerated nor played down.
"It is an important part of a constructive agenda that will lead to better relations and indeed better living standards on the island of Ireland." Prof Liam O'Dowd, from the Centre for International Borders Research at Queen's, said crossborder interaction allowed for the furtherance of common interests as well as the acknowledgment of difference.
"Borders and border regions may still be laboratories of change in which we may glimpse some of the promise as well as some of the dangers of the future of European integration."
