There must be no doubt that the peace process in Northern Ireland has now entered its critical phase. Everything that has happened over the past five to six years has been leading to this point, the Adams-Hume dialogue, the maturing of new political thinking within the unionist family, the choreographed diplomacy between Dublin and London, the successive ceasefires. Now the process comes to its crucible. Within a few short weeks, the parties which have been meeting at Stormont have to determine if they can reach agreement for the governance of Northern Ireland, for relationships between North and South and between Ireland and Britain, broadly along the lines of the document published yesterday by the two Governments. If no such agreement emerges, the British Prime Minister has let it be known, Her Majesty's Government will act over the heads of the politicians to give effect to new arrangements. That would be a course of last resort.
If the politicians can hammer out their compromise, it will be put to referendum, North and South, for endorsement or rejection by the people of Ireland as a whole. And on the assumption that it will have majority support in both parts of the island, it will then pass into law. A new assembly will sit in Belfast, elected by proportional representation, with power and authority effectively shared between the two communities. Executive agencies will come together from North and South under the umbrella of a North-South Ministerial Council. And a new Intergovernmental Council will be created to deal with "the totality of relationships" and will include representatives of the two sovereign States, of Northern Ireland and of the devolved assemblies to be established for Scotland and Wales. These would be developments of truly historic proportions.
The demarche by the two Governments in advancing yesterday's document - "Propositions on Heads of Agreement" - has brought the process at Stormont Buildings to a head and has put an end to the procedural wrangling and point-scoring which had all but reduced the talks to a parody of political dialogue. But it does not yet reflect a compromise or consensus, much less an agreement between the participants. Reactions have been mixed, from broad acceptance among SDLP and UUP spokesmen to caution among the smaller parties - including Sinn Fein - to predictable hostility from unionists and nationalists who remain outside the talks.
All moderate people - whether nationalist, unionist or neither in their political inclinations - will recognise the document as a workable blueprint which addresses the aspirations and fears of both traditions. Taken to fulfilment it would lead to the creation of an extremely complex set of institutions, characterised by a range of checks and balances. But the political problem it seeks to solve is one of the most complex in the world. It is remarkable that its essence can be reduced to about 45 lines spread over two pages. It now lies on the table before the negotiators at Stormont Buildings as the two Governments' best effort to define the parameters of an agreement which can command broad support across the communities. Slow movement or none may have been acceptable or understandable up to this point. But it behoves the parties themselves - and the chairman of the talks, Senator George Mitchell - to ensure that the pace does not now falter.