As new evidence shows that British exit from the EU would cost Northern Ireland £1bn a year, a parade of Welsh politicians line up to reconfirm their commitment to Britain's EU membership.
By Will Cousins
Wales and Ireland finished more or less honours even in the Six Nations rugby tournament. Wales won a tight match between the two sides in Cardiff, while Ireland clinched the title on points difference on a thrilling final weekend. But now that sporting rivalry is out of the way for another year, there is something on which the countries of these teams seem to agree – the vital nature of British membership of the EU.
On Tuesday, the Northern Irish Assembly released a report forecasting that British exit from the EU could cost 3% of Northern Irish GDP, or £1bn a year. While on Wednesday, a parade of Welsh MPs (all of them Labour) lined up todescribe the benefits Wales gets from being a part of the EU, and the inherent risks involved in leaving.
The common arguments apply, of course. The value of the European Single Market. The power of the EU in negotiating free trade agreements. The invaluable research funding provided by the EU’s Horizon 2020 program. But there are some other benefits that Wales and Northern Ireland have in common, and which deserve to be focused on.
The first is structural funding. One third of the EU’s annual budget goes on the so-called “cohesion” policy- quite simply, redistributing wealth from richer regions of the EU to poorer ones. This is not a top down programme- the money goes to national and devolved governments, and in England local enterprise partnerships, to spend. The money is targeted towards growing the economy, encouraging business creation and creating good jobs in places which badly need them.
Both Wales and Northern Ireland are recipients of large amounts of EU money. For the last funding period, lasting from 2007 to 2013, Wales received £2bn. It is estimated that 30,600 jobs, and 10,400 businesses, were helped into being by this programme. Take the Centre for Nano-Health at Swansea University. £10mn of EU money helped create a world-beating, integrated organisation, employing 50 academic staff, which has succeeded in pulling in an additional £15mn of private sector investment. For the 2014-20 period, Wales will benefit from an additional £2bn.
Northern Ireland will receive €513mn from 2014 to 2020. One example of the advantages EU membership has brought is the glittering new Giant’s Causeway visitor experience, for which Brussels provided one-third of the £18.5mn cost. The Giant’s Causeway is a world heritage site, and in its first six months the new centre attracted 320,000 visitors. Total EU funding for Northern Ireland added up to €2.4bn over 2007-2013, including extensive agricultural support.
There is one aspect of Northern Ireland’s relationship with the EU which makes it unique among the nations of Britain- its shared land border with another EU state. Currently, popping across the border to do your shopping is as easy as anything. I do not suggest for one moment that, were Britain to leave, this comfortable arrangement would be replaced by passport controls and razor wire. But any tightening of the border whatsoever, for example in the form of tariffs, would be deeply damaging to Northern Ireland’s economy.
The Republic of Ireland is a very important trading partner for the UK. In 2013, £26.7bn of British exports went to the Republic. It is also one of those rare countries with which Britain enjoys a trade surplus- in the same year, imports were just £17.5bn. But only 5% of Britain’s exports go across the Irish Sea. For Northern Ireland, however, it is a very different story. In 2013/14, the province’s manufacturing exports totalled £18.1bn. Fully £1.6bn of those, or almost 9%, went to the Republic. What is more, it is a growth market- exports rose 9.9% in that year.
The debate about Britain’s European future can, like so much else in this country, be London-centric. Too little emphasis is placed on those regions which are net beneficiaries of the EU budget. And while the unique consequences of Brexit on Northern Ireland are being loudly discussed in Dublin and Belfast- witness the Irish Prime Minister’s commentsyesterday- they have not received nearly enough attention in London. Eurosceptics, in particular, seem unwilling to acknowledge the existence of any problems in this regard, or even to acknowledge the existence of the EU’s cohesion policy. In a week when YouGov showed support for staying in the EU at a record high, perhaps they had better start.