Briefing paper on the proposed Defence of Democracy Directive

Read our latest Briefing Note in which Dr Anthony Soares, Director at the Centre for Cross Border Cooperation, examines the proposed Defence of Democracy Directive and how it may conflict with the Windsor Framework.

Increased collaboration between Northern Ireland and Ireland has been a major achievement of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, most notably amongst civil society organisations.

The European Union played a significant role in funding this increased collaboration, in particular through the PEACE and INTERREG Programmes, and now through the PEACEPLUS programme.

The Windsor Framework (the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland), which forms part of the Withdrawal Agreement that is the legal framework for the UK’s departure from the EU, is declared to set out ‘the arrangements necessary to address the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, to maintain the necessary conditions for continued North-South cooperation, to avoid a hard border and to protect the 1998 Agreement in all its dimensions’ (Article 1(3)).

It contains a further joint UK-EU commitment ‘to maintain the necessary conditions for continued North-South cooperation’ (Article 11).

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