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Time is running out as the UK is set to leave the EU on 29 March, and an orderly withdrawal is not yet secured. EURACTIV has travelled to Northern Ireland, where Brexit is more than a political or economic issue – it is a challenge for peace.

Even though Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, it will leave the bloc with the rest of the UK at the end of March. In a widely-divided post-conflict society, Brexit has only increased the polarisation.

For decades, Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic of Ireland were at the heart of a sectarian conflict between Catholic Republicans – defending the reunification of Ireland- and mostly Protestant Loyalists, in favour of remaining in the UK-.

In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement put an end to the thirty years of conflict and provided the divided society with the possibility of choosing whether they felt British, Irish or both.

The agreement, together with the membership of the European Union, eased the tension and allowed the island to turn the border from a battlefield into a source of opportunities and cooperation, from a barrier into a gateway.

Now, Brexit has challenged that, particularly in case of a ‘no deal’.

“This isn’t just about trade and tariffs,” Peter Sheridan, a former police officer during the Troubles turned CEO of Co-Operation Ireland, a peacebuilding charity, told EURACTIV, “This, here, in Northern Ireland, is about identity.”