President Biden to appoint former Rep. Joe Kennedy III as U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland

President Biden will appoint former Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Joe Kennedy III – a grandson of former senator and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy — to be the subsequent U.S. particular envoy to Northern Ireland, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News. The place will deal with financial growth and never the thorny negotiations involving the Northern Ireland Protocol. That protocol is supposed to take care of sustaining an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland as promised beneath the 1998 Good Friday Agreement however has been difficult by Britain’s exit from the European Union. 

Despite the more and more tense political scenario in Northern Ireland ignited partially by Brexit, the Biden administration had left the place vacant till now. The Irish-American neighborhood had been urging Biden to nominate somebody and had floated the identify of former Rep. Bruce Morrison, a Connecticut Democrat, for the position.

Kennedy, who has the cachet of his household legacy and historic ties to Ireland, shall be a high-profile appointee who carries the burden of shut ties to Mr. Biden himself. It will even be a perch from which the 42-year-old former congressman can relaunch his political profession, which has stalled following his failed 2020 problem to Sen. Ed Markey within the Massachusetts Democratic main.

Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s appointee to the position, left the particular envoy place in 2021. Mulvaney, a CBS contributor, advised CBS News: “This is an excellent choice. Joe is extraordinarily capable and will do a great job of representing U.S. interests. There are very few bipartisan topics in Washington these days but preserving the Good Friday-Belfast Agreement is one of them. And Joe will have bipartisan support for his efforts.”

The peace deal introduced an finish to 30 years of battle in Northern Ireland, throughout which greater than 3,000 individuals died. It was coordinated by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell in partnership with each the British and Irish governments, and created a power-sharing meeting that meant to stabilize a society largely divided alongside sectarian strains.

Unionists are predominantly Protestant and need continued ties to England. Nationalists are largely Catholic and need nearer connections to the Republic of Ireland which gained independence from British rule in 1921.

The coming yr shall be consequential in Northern Ireland because the UK, EU and Ireland work out the Northern Protocol.

It will even be historic for the Kennedy household. The coming yr will mark 60 years since President John F. Kennedy, America’s first Irish-Catholic president and the great-uncle of the previous congressman, made a 1963 go to to his ancestral dwelling within the nation simply 5 months earlier than his assassination — the primary go to of a sitting president to Ireland. Mr. Biden, the second Irish-Catholic president, is predicted to go to earlier than the tip of his time period.