With Brexit, what kind of border will the Republic of  Ireland and Northern Ireland have? People on both sides are worried. The European Parliament is committed to avoiding a hard border.

EU politics

UK Brexit

EU borders

Brexit in Ireland: fear of a hard border

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/20609741/N01-PUB-170929-BREXIRM-EN.srt

John Sheridan is one of 30,000 people who cross the border

between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland every day.

For this farmer whose fields lie on either side of the border,

One side is going to be in Europe and the other side is not.

It is as simple as that. So how is it going to work?

The border stretches 500 kilometres across Ireland,

with twice as many border crossings as the entirety of the EU's eastern frontier.

On one side, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

In the south is the Republic of Ireland.

For 30 years, this border was the subject of a bloody conflict

between pro-British loyalists and pro-Irish republicans.

Result: 3,500 dead until the 1998 peace agreement.

people on the island also fear a return of tensions

Our main fear on Brexit is seeing a hard border again after 20 years.

We do not want to see this. We have a Good Friday Agreement

that was brought in 20 years ago, and everyone is working on that.

The last watch tower on the border was dismantled in 2007.

Peace walls still separate Catholic and Protestant communities in Belfast.

Parliament's Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt,

is committed to doing everything possible to avoid a hard border.

What we never will allow, is for Ireland to suffer

from the British decision to leave the European Union.

That's a commitment that we have taken with the European Parliament.

And that's a commitment also that has been taken by the whole European Union.

A resolution has already been approved in the European Parliament

pledging to preserve peace and limit the effects of Brexit on the island of Ireland..