The British-Irish Council, which meets today in Jersey, has so far been the least active element of the Belfast Agreement. Its brief - "to promote the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of these islands" - is ambitious indeed. But it has taken second place to the more urgent tasks of stabilising the Agreement's primary institutions and managing its crises. Today's meeting will yet again be overshadowed by such concerns; but this should not deflect attention from the useful work which has slowly got going between the various administrations involved, nor from the Council's potential.
Competing political pressures have also affected the Council's development. Originally intended by the Ulster Unionists as an East-West counter-balance to the North-South institutions, the Council has not had the same priority for governments in Dublin and London. They have their own interests in, and opportunities for, closer co-operation, informally and formally, without having to resort to the Council. And since its introduction was predicated upon devolution of power from Westminster to Scotland and Wales in parallel with the creation of the Northern Ireland Executive, it has also had to compete with their new inter-governmental relations within the United Kingdom. This has taken some of the momentum from the unionists' case for developing the Council to balance the North-South bodies.
In fact there has been more political energy in favour of the Council from Scotland and Wales, directed towards the Republic, than from Northern Ireland. The Scottish and Welsh are keen to encourage new relationships. And the crown dependencies - Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man - find it gives a completely new structure within which to pursue their interests, broaden their influence and confirm their autonomy. Jersey can point with justice to progress made in the knowledge economy issue allocated to it at the first Council summit, held in Dublin on December 17th, 1999. Similar progress has been made on drugs, allocated to Dublin and on social inclusion, where the Scottish Executive and the Welsh Cabinet are the joint lead administrations. London leads on the environment and Belfast on transport.
The Council has also prepared a useful indicative list of 12 possible future topics for co-operation, including health, agriculture, culture. education and approaches to European Union issues. The Council's scope and function are inherently limited, since it does not have policy-making or agenda-setting roles and lacks a permanent secretariat. It must proceed by consensus and depends greatly on the willingness of the various participating administrations to make use of it. In deciding whether the council will become more active, they should remember the mandate to promote relationships between the peoples of these islands, a task made easier by the political and cultural changes of recent years. Summits cannot do all the work required. There is much scope for initiatives by responsible ministers and for bilateral activity. The Council would also benefit from a greater inter-parliamentary input, as from the respective civil societies.