Compromise vital for talks to succeed

David McKittrick looks at the issues the two sides must address if they are to reach agreement by Thursday's deadline

DESPITE the Government's daily-repeated expressions of optimism on the multi-party talks, the actual position is that the major parties have not yet strayed significantly from their preferred visions of Northern Ireland's future governance.

This means that success in the enterprise is entirely dependent on the emergence, next week, of an 11th flurry of concession, barter and trade- offs in the run-up to next Thursday's talks deadline. The hope is that, at that point, compromise will become the order of the day.

The overall structures expected to form the basis of any new agreement have long been clear: the devil, however, is in the all-important details of how they would function and how they would relate to each other.

The institutional elements are a new devolved assembly in Belfast, a new north-south body and a new London-Dublin relationship.

This would be accompanied by the modification of articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution, which lay claim to the territory of Northern Ireland.

The new wording would take account of the consent principle and would have to be acceptable to Unionists.

Nationalists, meanwhile, have what is termed an equality agenda, aimed at ensuring that Catholics and nationalists will be assured of fair treatment.

The problems of policing and possible prisoner release, which are clearly not capable of solution by next Thursday, will be farmed out to commissions for longer- term consideration.

The Irish government and John Hume's SDLP want a cabinet-style administration to run a proposed new legislative assembly linked to a strong new north- south institution. While prepared to modify articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution they will be careful to ensure that any new wording affirms the Irishness of nationalists within Northern Ireland.

The Ulster Unionists, meanwhile, favour a weaker assembly without legislative powers and without a cabinet.

Under their scheme, the assembly would function largely through committees, the whole assembly functioning as the decision-making body rather than being run by a cabinet. They also favour a purely consultative north-south body, which would lack executive powers and would be under the tight control of the assembly.

The Unionist view, which has been described as a minimalist approach to a new settlement, is very much at odds with the nationalist aspiration for a far-reaching new dispensation on a par historically with the political settlement of 1920-21.

While all these issues have been thoroughly and even exhaustively rehearsed during months of discussion, the talks are governed by the maxim that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed".

While this has ensured that there is as yet no agreement, it has also meant that the parties have heard each other's views aired, often at tedious length.

The net result is that the basic structures have become familiar, and so too have the views of all the parties on them. The hope of both governments is that next week the parties will shift to fall-back positions which will be acceptable to each other, and thus successfully close a deal.