Working Groups

• Balkans Group
• China Group
• Climate Change Group
• Digital Future Group
• Economists' Group
• Energy Efficiency Project
• Energy Policy Group
• Enlargement Group
• ENP Group
• Foreign & Defence Policy
• France Group
• Future of Europe Group
• Germany Group
• Illegal Internet content study
• International Financial Architecture Group
• Justice Group
• Russia Group
• Sustainable Agriculture Project
• United Kingdom Group
• United States Group
• YPN

United Kingdom Group

Researcher: Shane Fitzgerald

Chair: Dr Garret FitzGerald

Project Leader: Paul Gillespie

About the United Kingdom Group:

The IIEA hosts a long-running project, chaired by the former Taoiseach Dr. Garret FitzGerald and led by Dr. Paul Gillespie, dedicated to analysing the UK’s policies towards the EU and their implications for Ireland, Britain and Europe. The project group has so far published two major reports on the subject in the form of the books Britain’s European Question (1996) and Blair’s Britain, England’s Europe (2000). These studies analysed Britain’s dual sovereignty problem arising from the end of its imperial role, concluding that, since the end of the Cold War, it has faced a crisis of state and national identity concerning both its external position – in Europe and the world – and its internal constitutional structure.

In 2009 and early 2010 the group has focused on the European policies of the Conservatives under David Cameron. Group members travelled to the UK in the summer of 2009 and engaged in a series of meetings and interviews with members of parliament, peers and shadow cabinet ministers, as well as with senior officials, journalists, think tank directors and policy analysts. The conclusions of this delegation, updated in light of subsequent events, were published in November of that year in an interim assessment, David Cameron’s European Strategy.

The IIEA has since invited a number of British experts to Dublin. Damian Green MP, Lord William Wallace and Professor Robert Hazell delivered keynote addresses before the May 2010 election. Lord Andrew Turnbull, Professor Simon Hix and Lord Nigel Lawson visited us soon after to share their analysis of the result and to join in a discussion on the challenges which the coalition now faces. On 30 June, the Minister for Europe, David Lidington, delivered a keynote address on “UK Policy in Europe” and met members of the group.

An analysis of the European policies of the new British government will be published in the coming days.