Hard Brexit How to address the new conundrum for the Island of Ireland?

This paper was published on 14 February 2017, on the web page of Queen's University Belfast's Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Tension at the Fringes of the European Union. Since the access via QUB is not always reliable, an online only version on a personal word press page was created. The post envisaged alternative futures for Northern Ireland after “Brexit”, which would have allowed the statelet to remain in the EU (which is what its population voted for: 56% of those voting in Northern Ireland were in favour of remain). The options were not supported by those working on Brexit in Ireland, and included for Ireland to become an outermost region of the EU, an EU Grouping of Territorial Cooperation, using a small state analogy and finally also was the first paper to establish a paralell to the German Reunification process.