Bons Amis: Taoiseach Enda Kenny and French President Francois Hollande in Dublin today. RollingNews.ie photo.
By Irish Echo Staff
The weather was warm and so was the Irish welcome for French president Francois Hollande in Dublin today.
The one day official visit by the French leader was also an opportunity for a sympathetic Irish embrace just one week after the Bastille Day terror attack in Nice that killed 84 people and injured dozens of others.
The Hollande visit was seen as being doubtful just after the tragedy, but the French leader proceeded with the visit, one of several to European capitals spurred by the UK Brexit vote.
And Brexit was on the French president’s mind when he declared that Ireland was entitled to “a special place” in the negotiations on the UK’s departure from the European Union.
In what the Irish Independent reported as “a major boost for Taoiseach Enda Kenny” Mr. Hollande acknowledged that the Good Friday Agreement and land border between the Republic and Northern Ireland will need to be at the center of Brexit talks.
He said that while France and Ireland were the UK’s nearest neighbors, Ireland was "even more of a neighbor than France.”
President Hollande said that his country understood the position Ireland must take in advance of the Brexit talks.
In the context of the Good Friday Agreement, Hollande said: “I do recognize that there is a special place for Ireland. A special place has to be found in the negotiations.”
Hollande’s words ran somewhat counter to those uttered last week at a meeting in Berlin between Mr. Kenny and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Merkel seemed to suggest that Ireland could expect no special consideration as the Brexit process moved forward.
"It's difficult to give guarantees at this point of time," Merkel said.
"We don't even have the position of the United Kingdom. We have to wait for Great Britain to take a stand and give us an idea of the type of relationship they are thinking about," she said.
Kenny and Hollande held talks for an hour this morning ranging over Brexit and the threat of terror in Europe.
Both stated that they want the British government to trigger Article 50 (of the Lisbon Treaty) which formally sets a Brexit in motion “as soon as possible.”
“It’s the British that will have to bear the consequences,” Mr. Hollande said of the Brexit process.
According to reports, Hollande also delivered assurances that Ireland’s 12.5 percent corporate tax rate was not under any direct threat as a result of Brexit.
Political leaders in the North are expecting to bring an identical rate into effect in 2018.
“In terms of taxation, or tax harmonization, that has nothing to do with Brexit,” Mr. Hollande told reporters.
The taoiseach expressed the sympathy of the Irish people over the tragedy in Nice.
“An appalling litany of outrage was inflicted on Nice and the people of France,” Mr. Kenny said.
