London--With elections looming in Britain, the Irish government has taken the unusual step of beginning a campaign to warn its biggest trading partner against leaving the European Union.
British Prime Minister David Cameron's promise of an EU membership referendum by 2017 if he is re-elected has set off alarm bells in Dublin, keen to guard its burgeoning recovery from a painful economic crisis.
"Keeping the EU intact, with the UK at the centre of it, is really worth fighting tooth and nail for," Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said at the launch of a study on the possible impact of "Brexit", or Britain exiting Europe.
Concerns centre on the effect on trade between Britain and Ireland that amounts to over 1 billion euros a week ($1.1 billion) and the prospect of managing a land border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.
Dublin is also loath to imperil progress on peace in the north, and the turnaround of its long-fraught relationship with Britain.
"It's the main geopolitical risk to Ireland in the next 12 months, more so than a war in Russia or the Greek situation spilling over," said Stephen Kinsella, senior economist at the University of Limerick.
Dublin kept silent over a 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, but has decided to speak out on EU membership, Ireland's ambassador to Britain Dan Mulhall told AFP.
"There is concern in Dublin. Ireland is the country that would be most affected by a British exit from the EU, apart from Britain itself," Mulhall told AFP.
"Whenever I have the opportunity I will make the point. In almost all of the speeches I do publicly I include an element about Europe."
AFP
