Nationalists believe that the removal of trade barriers and the levelling of economic and social conditions within the EU will facilitate moves towards Irish unity, according to Dr Dennis Kennedy, of the Institute of European Studies at QUB.
Addressing a conference in Belfast yesterday entitled "25 Years On - The Impact of EU Membership on Northern Ireland", Dr Kennedy disagreed with the nationalist analysis, saying: "The goal of preserving the `essential unity' of Ireland, and the belief that Europe could offer a new and imaginative path to that goal, would seem to have distorted the realities of the European dimension in nationalist eyes.
"This is not to argue that the European dimension is irrelevant . . . But it is to question seriously whether the European experience, or the EU institutional model, has any direct relevance to the Northern Ireland problem."
The Fine Gael MEP, Mr John Cushnahan, who also addressed the conference, argued that persistent negative attitudes to Europe on the part of successive British governments over the past 25 years had undermined the North's role and influence in Europe.