In Ireland, Leo Varadkar served as the new Prime Minister. Completely as agreed in the coalition negotiations of his party Fine Gael with Micheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil, who is prime minister until now. The fact that the two centre-right parties were able to agree on a coalition (which also includes the Irish Greens) is a unique event in Irish politics. Until then, since Irish independence a hundred years ago, they had always looked away. Michael Martin at his farewell:’The hallmark of a centrist democrat is the ability to respect differences, find common ground, and work together. This is what we do.’

After being selected as Martin’s successor, Varadkar was highly optimistic about a solution to the trade crisis in Northern Ireland. Now, almost twenty-five years after the Good Friday Agreement, we must not lose the opportunity to maintain peace, he wrote in a open letter in Belfast Telegraph. ‘An entire generation of young people in Northern Ireland have been blessed with the peace and political settlement of the Good Friday Agreement (…) With all sides, US and EU, we must ensure a better future for all.” New brand Taoiseach (Irish name for Prime Minister) announced his intention to visit Northern Ireland to meet with all the leaders. He also wanted to get in touch with his British counterpart, Rishi Sunak. called a labor union Varadkar’s position is ‘disappointing’. Sticking to a trade protocol between the UK and Northern Ireland solves nothing, says John Stewart of Ulster Union Party.

Good words

The Northern Irish government has been in a stalemate since elections this spring. There is no government and parliament is not functioning, due to the blockade of the Union of Northern Ireland DUP. Unionists demand that the EU-UK protocol be scrapped. DUP (United Democratic Party) along with Sinn Féin of Northern Ireland, who came out on top in the election, would form a new government, the Executive, must be formed. If Unionist resistance continues much longer, there might be one new election possibly at the same time as the already scheduled municipal elections.

Varadkar’s nice words about Northern Ireland’s future are thrown into a strange light when, at the same time, he says that he sees no cooperation in Irish politics between his party and Mary Lou McDonald’s Irish Sinn Féin, who is also a member at there. made a fortune in the last election. He later responded to remarks by his predecessor Martin suggesting that a coalition of Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin would be difficult, but he would not exclude anyone beforehand. ‘I am totally against it’, said Varadkar, if Fine Gael teamed up with Sinn Féin. “I will cancel my membership.”

Biden sent Kennedy

Can US aid solve Northern Ireland’s crisis? US President Joe Biden going about Joe Kennedy as Special Envoy for Northern Ireland. Former Congressman Kennedy is the grandson of Robert Kennedy. This surname is of course still highly respected in Ireland. But whether that’s the case with Northern Ireland’s Unionists remains to be seen. Last week, there was a high-level meeting in Brussels between British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Vice President Maroš Šefčovič of the European Commission. An agreement could be reached in February. But it remains to be seen whether DUP will work.

For now, Great Britain is still preoccupied with other matters. Throughout December, there have been strikes by mail carriers, health workers and other groups of disaffected workers. In England and Wales thousands of ambulance workers went on strike for better pay. According to the three unions, this should at least increase in line with inflation. It was 10.7 percent last month. He CBS UK Report that the economy in the UK was weaker than previously thought and the projected low growth was lower than expected. Reuters concluded based on another survey that Brexit has been a nightmare for UK SMEs. The survey found that about 56% of companies had difficulty adapting to the new rules for trading in goods, while about 44% of companies also reported having difficulty obtaining visas for their staff. ‘Brexit is the biggest bureaucracy a company has ever had to deal with,” the Chamber of Commerce report quoted a British businessman as saying. “Simply importing parts to repair broken machines or raw materials from the EU has become a time-consuming nightmare for small companies.”

After all, it could serve as an incentive to resolve Anglo-British trade issues to and from Northern Ireland as quickly as possible.