Bridging the Atlantic - Ireland's Increased Role in EU-US Relations post Brexit

The “Bridging the Atlantic” conference, convened in Washington on December 5, 2019, discussed new global trends and threats in transatlantic relations, including Brexit’s impact on the Good Friday Agreement and on the European Union (EU), the emergence of unprecedented digital battlefields, trade tensions, terrorism, migration, and the potentially reduced role of the United States in the world.

The conference, held at Riggs Library in Georgetown University, was sponsored by UCD Clinton Institute, Georgetown University’s BMW Centre for German and European Studies, Georgetown University’s Global Irish Studies Initiative and by the Embassy of Ireland. 

In her first major visit to Washington, the conference keynote address was delivered by Ireland’s Minister for European Affairs, Helen McEntee. The Minister noted that from the founding of the Irish state 100 years ago, “our state has been global in outlook, conscious that – culturally and politically, as much as geographically – we lie at the point where east and west converge. At the centre of transatlantic relations, part of Europe, but inextricably bound to America.”

Read a published report on the conference by Clinton Institute Advisory Board Chair, Ted Smyth.