Northern Ireland: a cold peace with fragile foundations

The Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of armed strife in Northern Ireland has turned 25 years old on a bittersweet anniversary. A quarter of a century later, the fragility of a diplomatic achievement that has resulted in a peace without solid foundations has become apparent. The violence was quelled in exchange for sacrificing the right to justice of the 3,700 victims of the IRA and radical loyalist, and ensuring impunity for the perpetrators. Terrorism, moreover, has not

Appeared in full: since then, dissident groups on both sides

On the high price that was paid for the 1998 agreement speaks in our pages of

Professor Rogelio Alonso, author of the book

, which questions the cost of political concessions and immunity from prosecution to put an end to

or

, a euphemism that conceals a gigantic historical trauma.

, who have shown no remorse. In turn, the parties heirs of the republican and loyalist bands - Sinn Féin and the DUP - today have electoral primacy. While it is not possible to draw parallels with the Basque Country, where there were not two sides with their respective armed organizations, but a terrorist group - and without religious affiliation - that acted alone, the process in Northern Ireland did

The president of the United States – a country that played a crucial role in uniting in the pact the will of the British and Irish, as well as that of the Northern Irish themselves – has just visited Belfast to renew the celebrations for that success carved out by his predecessor Bill Clinton. Joe Biden's journey, however, has been marred by the need to

but they turn their backs on the common institutions again. Biden called on them to end the political limbo in which Ulster has been submerged for a year, when loyalists left the Executive due to disagreements over the Irish Protocol linked to the post-Brexit agreement.

Rishi Sunak's renegotiation of the protocol has made progress in breaking the impasse, removing bureaucratic hurdles between Britain and Northern Ireland after Brexit intensified disunity in Ulster. But the truth is that, 25 years later,

Peace has not translated into integration, but into a cold coexistence that has a high risk of volatility: London has just raised the anti-terrorist alert in the territory.