The Government's announcement this week that it will open consulates in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Ankara is of greater significance than first appears. The latter is straightforward enough, merely an extension of our representation abroad, but the plans for Department of Foreign Affairs offices in the two capitals where the new UK parliaments will sit creates a different and possibly contentious scenario altogether. Its name is Belfast.
When Tony Blair was pressurising the unionists on the Belfast Agreement and threatening a dreaded all-UK referendum, he argued there would be benefits. Recognition of the Northern Ireland state and consequent diplomatic representation would be among them. The opening of Irish consulates in Scotland and Wales is viewed by some as a prelude to opening a similar office in Northern Ireland. It would then follow that all three UK jurisdictions would establish relations in Dublin. A changed situation, indeed.
On a related matter it was noted by those who follow diplomacy and Anglo-Irish relations closely that Blair announced in the North last week that he would hold a bilateral summit with the Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi, in Northern Ireland in the autumn. Nothing madly unusual, except for this. For 70 years Dublin has resisted such bilateral meetings being held in the North because international visitors thus recognise the Northern Ireland state and the Department of Foreign Affairs has made this point clear, through its diplomats, to friends abroad. An indirect outcome of the Belfast Agreement is that Dublin is no longer withholding recognition of Northern Ireland as part of the UK. London was quick off the mark. Maybe Prodi is the right name to start with.