Record of informal discussion on procedural guidelines and agenda for plenary session on 19 June 1996 at 10.15

This document contains the summary record of the informal discussion on procedural guidelines and the agenda for the plenary session that took place on 19 June 1996. The meeting began with the Chairman announcing that second draft of the rules of procedure had been circulated and that he was going to go over each point paragraph by paragraph. With regards to paragraphs 7 to 9, Peter Robinson recommended that the words "consult" and "consultations" be replaced with the phrase "having regard for the wishes of". Reg Empey and Michael Ancram expressed satisfaction with the change, and Steven McBride suggested only a minor amendment to the phrase. On the request of delegates, the Chairman offered to ask his staff to reproduce the paper to provide the participants with an old and a new version of the relevant paragraphs. Robinson also raised issue with the two formulations in paragraph 23, and asked for clarification about who all were included in the category of "participants" in paragraph 13. For the latter query, Ancram responded that the Ground Rules paper might have an answer which kicked off a debate on the respective status of and internal consistency within the Ground Rules paper and the draft procedural guidelines paper. Robinson declared that the new rules should supercede the Ground Rules and that the latter should be discarded. McBride indicated that the Northern Ireland Forum had emerged out of an act of which the Ground Rules were an important part. David Trimble opined that the procedural guidelines incorporated enough of the Ground Rules and that the delegates had developed provisions that had been in the Ground Rules paper much further, making any references back to them unnecessary. He also stated that he did not believe that the Ground Rules paper had any legal standing. At Patrick Roche's intervention, the Chairman asserted that the status of the two papers needed to be resolved as soon as possible. Mark Durkan and McBride said that the present discussions were teetering on addressing substantive matters and so should be reserved for the plenary sessions, but Trimble argued that the points raised should be addressed now. Dermot Gleeson and Sean Neeson stated that the Ground Rules paper, produced impartially by both Governments, was integral to the talks process and it could not be disregarded or fragmented. Ancram repeated his point about how the original question by Robinson emerged from a gap in the draft procedural guidelines, and that the Ground Rules would fill those gaps. Empey asked for an adjournment to discuss this issue with the other delegates, and the meeting subsequently adjourned at 11.20.

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Introductory Informal Discussions on Procedural Guidelines and Agenda 1996-06-19 10:15

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Writing Peace: George J. Mitchell Collection

Record of informal discussion on procedural guidelines and agenda for plenary session on 19 June 1996 at 10.15

Wednesday, 19 June 1996

Writing Peace: George J. Mitchell Collection