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The European Union will release more than €1 billion in funds to promote reconciliation in Northern Ireland on Monday, days after police seized military-grade equipment they believe was intended to be used to try to kill police officers in the region.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, EU Vice President Maroš Šefčovič and British Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris will be at the event The new €1.14 billion program launched in Belfast is the latest installment of a program launched in 1995 to support peace and reconciliation.
Varadkar will also hold a bilateral meeting with Heaton-Harris, with tensions currently rising between London and Dublin over an amnesty bill that would end crimes committed during Northern Ireland’s three-decade conflict. Investigation of Atrocities.
Despite opposition from Northern Ireland’s parties and rights and victims’ groups, Westminster MPs last week passed the so-called Heritage Bill, months after the EU and UK agreed a Windsor framework to ease Brexit. The bill has renewed tensions between the two sides. Trade Friction.
The Irish government is considering taking legal action against London over the bill to the European Court of Human Rights.
Varadkar will raise Dublin concerns with Heaton-Harris on Monday and discuss progress on the implementation of the Windsor framework with Šefkovic.
After Brexit, Northern Ireland will remain within the EU’s single goods market, but the Democratic Unionist Party, the region’s largest pro-British political group, remains unconvinced by the Windsor agreement and has protested in a way that has paralyzed local politics.
The first phase of the red and green customs channel system established under the Windsor framework will come into effect on October 1st – allowing goods entering from the UK and staying in the region to skip inspections, and only controlling goods heading to Ireland and the EU.
The EU’s Peace+ funding aims to address social and economic challenges and help build communities in the region, which remains deeply divided 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement ended trouble. The project comes at a time when Northern Ireland is dealing with political, financial and policing crises.
The Stormont Assembly and power-sharing executive committee have been on hold for more than a year due to the DUP’s opposition to the Windsor framework. Varadkar criticized London’s “unwillingness” to work with Dublin to help resolve the crisis ahead of the UK election.
With no minister or budget, the region has fallen into a severe financial crisis.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland is also in turmoil after Chief Constable Simon Byrne resigned last week amid a series of scandals, including an accidental data breach in August that exposed the personal details of 10,000 serving officers and staff at the service. Information is posted to the Internet.
This highlights the dangers police still face. In February, one of Northern Ireland’s most senior detectives narrowly survived an attack. Police last week seized guns, ammunition, grenades and plastic explosives in the city of Londonderry, also known as Derry, and made several arrests in a terrorism investigation.
Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan said the importance of the weapons seized “cannot be underestimated”. . . We believe the intention was to launch an attack and try to kill police officers. “
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