In reporting to this House on 24 April last on the meeting of the European Council held in Brussels on 29-30 March 1985, I said that the Government proposed to arrange for a discussion in the House, before the Milan meeting of the European Council, on the report of the Dooge Committee, on European Union, and on European developments generally. The discussion today which will also refer to the Spinelli draft treaty and Report No. 14 of the Joint Oireachtas Committee is on foot of that commitment and in response to requests from Deputies. Deputies will be aware that the meeting in Milan is to take place on Friday and Saturday next.
I originally envisaged that this discussion might have taken place at an earlier date but developments over the past two months did not, however, lead to the emergence of any clear scenario as to likely or desired follow-up by the Community on the report submitted by the Ad Hoc Committee on Institutional Affairs chaired by Senator Dooge. Indeed, on the eve of the Milan meeting, the position is still not as clear as one would wish although after discussions with a number of Heads of Government within the past week I am now in a better position to direct the attention of the House to the issues that are most likely to arise for possible decision.
I think, however, that I should first recall briefly some of the historical background. The primary Community to which Ireland acceded on 1 January 1973, following an 83 per cent "Yes" vote in a referendum in which voter turnout was 70 per cent, is entitled the European Economic Community. The Treaty of Rome on which this Community is based is largely concerned with economic, commercial and related social matters. Much of the impulse for the establishment of the Community was economic in nature: this is true today in regard to the motivation for new steps towards European Union. And yet, from the outset, the founding fathers of the Communities were motivated by aspirations that went beyond purely economic, trade or social matters. This commitment is seen in the Preamble to the Treaty of Paris, establishing the Coal and Steel Community, which provided for the safeguarding of peace by creative efforts and laying the foundations of a broader and deeper community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts. Similarly, the Preamble to the Treaty of Rome sets down the commitment to an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe and their resolve to strengthen the safeguards of peace and liberty.
From the outset, also, these political aspirations were well understood in Ireland. What I have just said about the treaties is closely based on paragraph 6.1 of the White Paper, "The Accession of Ireland to the European Communities", published by the then Government in January 1972 before our people voted in the referendum on accession. Earlier references could also be quoted. Not only was there understanding of the Community's ultimate political goal: from as far back as 1962, each successive Government declared their commitment to the achievement of European Union. On 18 January 1962 the then Taoiseach, Mr. Sean Lemass, addressing the Ministers of the member states, said:
It is natural that we in Ireland should regard with keen and sympathetic interest every genuine attempt to bring the peoples of Europe closer together ...We were happy at the development of a strong movement towards closer European Union .... In the Bonn Declaration the Member States reaffirmed their resolve to develop their political co-operation with a view to the union of their peoples and set in motion procedures designed to give statutory form to this union. I desire to emphasise that the political aims of the Community are aims to which the Irish Government and people are ready to subscribe and in the realisation of which they wish to take an active part.
In applying for membership of the Communities, the then Irish Government declared their acceptance of the treaties, of the decisions taken in their implementation and of their political objectives and indicated their readiness to join in working towards the goal of political unification in Europe. These commitments were reaffirmed when negotiations opened in 1970 on Ireland's reactivated application.
Similar sentiments have been expressed by successive Taoisigh — Deputy Lynch, Deputy Cosgrave, and the Leader of the Opposition who, when he held office as Taoiseach, said in Dáil Éireann on 11 March, 1981 at column 1396, Volume 327 of the Official Report.
We could not, and would not wish to opt out of the obligations and aims inherent in the achievement of the ideal of European unity.
European Union, however, is not a precise concept. Over the years, many different views have been advanced as to what the content of such a union should be and on forms which the political unification to be eventually achieved in Europe should take, having regard, in particular, to the much greater diversity of Europe, as compared, say with the United States. Various attempts had been made up to 1983, either to map out a blueprint for progress towards European Union or to recommend particular substantive or procedural steps to expedite progress along the road. All failed to lead to a decisive step or breakthrough. Time does not permit for any extensive analysis of the reasons for this failure but one important cause was the faulty working of the Community's institutional system. I shall touch on this later in my remarks.
In all European circles, a realisation had been growing over the past two or three years that there was an urgent need to address the state of crisis in the Community, exemplified, on the one hand, by the delay in decision-making and paralysis of the institutional system and, on the other, by Europe's economic decline relative to the United States and Japan, seen in terms of wide gaps in performance on economic growth, job creation and tackling unemployment and in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation and technology. With the settlement, at least for a time, of the budgetary and other problems which had deeply divided the Community, the European Council, at Fontainbleau, turned its attention back towards restoring momentum to the Community and relaunching it along the path of European integration envisaged by its founders. It was decided to establish a high-level committee of personal representatives of Heads of State or Government ot report on the steps to be taken to that end.
The Government fully supported this decision and were glad to assume the responsibility during the Irish Presidency of establishing this committee under a distinguished Irish chairman. Within a very brief period, the Dooge Committee produced a substantive interim report in time for the European Council meeting in Dublin last December. The European Council decided that the final report of the committee would be the main subject for discussion at the meeting in Milan this month.
Before referring to the report of the Dooge Committee, let me take some time to refer to the parallel initiative of the European Parliament which led to its adoption of the Draft Treaty on European Union in February 1984, a document which is the subject of Report No. 14 of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities. The adoption of the Draft Treaty by the European Parliament represented the culmination of a process initiated back in 1980 by the indomitable Italian MEP, Altiero Spinelli, whose European commitment dates back to the Italian Resistance and to a conviction formed and expressed before the guns of World War II had ceased to sound in Europe. It is very largely due to the lead given by him and his co-workers and to the sustained follow through by the European Parliament that we owe the revitalisation of the debate on the future of the Community. In taking this major initiative, the intent and inspiration of which the Government can broadly support, the Parliament placed the onus on the Governments of the member states to advance the integration process envisaged by the Draft Treaty.
The latter is unlikely to be fully acceptable, in its present form, to all member states, but its broad thrust is probably shared by most, if not all the Governments of the Twelve. However, the main focus of current activity is centred more on the report of the Dooge Committee. This has been laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas and, I believe, circulated to all Deputies. I shall not therefore attempt to summarise it. It does not take the form of a new draft treaty in legal form. Rather, it sets out the objectives, policies and institutional reforms which it believes are neccessary and for these purposes contains recommendations in the following areas: creation of a genuine political entity, creation of a homogeneous internal economic area, the promotion of the common values of civilisation, the expression of an external identity and the operation of efficient and democratic institutions. Deputies will have had an opportunity by now to review the specific recommendations. Later in my statement, I will be setting out views on some of the major issues raised by the report.
For the present, I simply note that Senator Dooge was able to agree with the majority consensus on all issues, except two. He did not agree to the inclusion of the section on security and defence and, though in agreement with the principle underlying the text favoured by the majority of the committee in regard to principles of voting in the Council, he was unable to support the actual text because, although not excluding the pleading exceptional circumstances of a vital interest, it did not include any explicit reference to the protection of vital national interests in exceptional circumstances. I should also say that despite Senator Dooge's efforts the section on the promotion of economic convergence is very weak and is far from providing a satisfactory basis for progress towards European Union.
The meeting of the European Council in Brussels last March decided that detailed examination of the proposals would continue over the following months by means of bilateral contacts, in order to enable the European Council to arrive at final conclusions at its June meeting. Widespread bilateral contacts have been taking place and, as I undertook last March, I have ensured full Irish participation in this process. Mr. Ferri, personal representative of Prime Minister Craxi, came to Dublin for discussions with senior Irish officials. I discussed the matter in Lisbon with Commission President Delors, the British Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister of Portugal, and, briefly and informally in Madrid with Prime Minister Gonzalez. Last week in Rome, I met Prime Minister Craxi and, separately, Christian Democrat members of the Governments of five member states, including the Federal German Chancellor and the Luxembourg Prime Minister, and Ministers from Italy, The Netherlands and Belgium, as well as Commissioner Andriessen. Subsequently, I had discussions with President Mitterand in Paris and Vice-President Narjes of the European Commission in Dublin. There have also been preparatory discussions at formal and informal meetings of the General Affairs Council while the Italian Presidency circulated some time ago a draft mandate for an Intergovernmental Conference, as proposed in the Dooge Report which has prompted reactions and proposals from other member states. Nevertheless, despite all this activity the situation is rather fluid and the likely course of events is not easy to predict.
Before going in more detail into the actual issues that may arise in Milan, and the Government's approach to these issues, I want to review the impact of Community membership on this country, so that the significance to us of our participation in the Community, and of its successful future development may be apparent.
We are substantial net beneficiaries in a number of different ways. In purely financial terms our gross contributions of £208 million in 1984 were exceeded four times over by payments from the Community of £851 million, plus loans of £126 million on advantageous terms from the European Investment Bank. The net transfers of grants represented last year 10.8 per cent of our current budget receipts, and reduced by that amount the level of taxation required to provide current services and support farm incomes. In the absence of this net payment we should either have had to increase the present VAT rates of 0, 10, and 23 per cent to rates which, for example, could be of the order of 8.5, 18 and 27 per cent respectively, or else have had to increase by 30 per cent the average tax bill of the average income taxpayer — or have affected some combination of such tax increases.
Over the period since we joined, the accumulated net inflow of non-repayable moneys has added up to £3.8 billion, which expressed in 1985 money terms amounts to no less than £6.8 billion.
Access for our farm sector to EC markets has meant that the price levels obtainable have been far higher than they would have been had we remained outside the Community. If in 1984 we had been obliged to market all our agricultural exports at world prices the returns from those exports would have been some £700 million, or around 45 per cent, below what they actually were. This would obviously have had an absolutely disastrous effect on farm incomes. Indeed, given the over-supplied state of world markets for many products, it is quite possible that we could not have sold some of the production at all. In such a situation, it would have been totally uneconomic for our farmers to produce anything near their present output levels and agricultural production would have effectively collapsed. Given that the dependence of our economy on agriculture is still relatively heavy, our GNP would have been a great deal lower farm we not within the EC. The impact would not, of course, have been confined to agriculture as the effects of lower farm incomes, and consequently reduced purchasing power, would have been felt throughout the entire economy.
On the industrial side, as over two thirds of the sales of the new industries here are directed towards EC countries and as location within the EC was the prime motivation of the vast majority who came here after 1972 and of some who came immediately before that in anticipation of our entry, it is clear that a majority of the 70,000 relatively highly paid jobs in these industries would not have come into existence but for EC membership. Together with the loss of jobs in services dependent upon direct purchasing from these industries, or upon the spending of the purchasing power generated here by the industries that would have been lost and by agriculture operating at a much lower level of activity than in the Community, the total loss of employment would have been enormous. And this sharply reduced and poorer labour force would have had to find the massive sums now made available to us through net payments from the EC out of higher taxation.
That simply could not have been borne. The level of public and social services would, therefore, by now have been at a level that would have been totally unacceptable to our people—or, indeed, to any other northern European people. The compensating gains by staying out and producing a certain range of high cost goods in small and inefficient industries for the home market behind high protective barriers — if that were the preferred alternative — would have been absolutely minimal by comparison.
It is as well that these facts, which are rarely stated clearly, should be put forward at the outset of this debate, so that the debate may take place in an atmosphere of reality.
Those who urge that we would be better to be outside the Community, alleging a threat to our neutrality — which I shall later demonstrate is not put in jeopardy by membership — ought to reflect upon these facts.
The Community could, however, benefit us and other member states much more than it does at present. For example, if the barriers to technological industry that now exist within the Community were removed, we should have more industries and more jobs here. Because at present some major countries continue to try, contrary to the Community competition rules, to seal off some of their markets in favour of firms locating within their borders, we have lost a number of high-tech firms that would have come here.
Again, if the Community's total resources were not limited by the application of the unanimity rule to the raising of the limits on the share of VAT to be levied by the Community as own resources, a better financed Community would extend its activities in ways from which, as at present, we should benefit significantly. These resources are, in any event, far below the minimum levels necessary to create a Community with a power to pursue policies capable of influencing significantly its own future evolution. I shall return to this point later in the context of the proposals for European Union.
In many other ways, too, the present faulty operation of the decision making system is damaging the interests of Ireland, as of other member states and the Community generally. This is because in cases where the Treaty provides for decision making by qualified majority, even where countries do not invoke the veto aspect of the Luxembourg compromise, or even overtly hint that they may do so, a vote is not called because of the realisation that if it were to be called, the veto would be invoked. Thus a decision is postponed again and again, often on relatively minor issues.
Similar delays and blockages occur in the quite separate cases where the Treaty itself requires unanimity. For example, proposals to harmonise national safety requirements or standards in the interests of free movement of goods, are made under Article 100 of the Rome Treaty which requires unanimity for a Council decision. The result has been that action on many such proposals has been blocked in some cases for up to 20 years. This has perpetuated fragmentation of European markets and prevented the exploitation of economies of scale, thus allowing non-European firms to gain an unnecessary marked, in some cases overwhelming, advantage. All of us in the Community are the losers.
Ireland is the most significant beneficiary of EC membership in terms of net measurable transfers. Other member states also gain substantial advantages, not so easily measured, but in some cases very large indeed, for example, from the Customs Union, but if we limit ourselves — because we have to — to net measurable transfers, those to Ireland are in most cases ten to 20 times greater than to — or from — most other member states, amounting to 3.9 per cent of our GDP in 1983, compared with 0.19 per cent to Italy, 0.2 per cent to the Netherlands, 0.4 per cent to Denmark and net transfers the other way from Germany, France and the UK amounting to 0.4 per cent, 0.4 per cent and 0.19 per cent respectively, of GDP.
It is therefore vital for us that obstacles to the taking of decisions in the Community be eliminated. Of course, there will be some cases where we would be the losers rather than the gainers, and we shall have to be prepared to take a little of the rough with a lot of the smooth. Thus if more rapid movement towards a genuine single internal market, which would be of immense benefit to sectors here which at present lose out because of continuing barriers to trade, were to be made possible by applying majority voting in respect of such matters, now determined by unanimity, we could be adversely as well as favourably affected in areas like transport, and would face problems in the insurance area, for which we might need and have to seek some temporary provision. But overall we should be the net gainers if in respect of the internal market decisions could be blocked only by a country which does, in fact, have an objectively verifiable vital national interest — a situation which it is now generally recognised will have to be provided for by some solemn procedure of invocation that will discourage its use except in cases where there really is a vital national interest.
I would venture to comment that in the past 12 years we have had to defend very few vital national interests — our milk production and our fish resources being two. Both were recognised by our partners as being vital national interests and were treated accordingly, giving us in each case the exceptional right in each case to go on increasing output when all other member states had to cut back. In the event, we did not need to invoke the Luxembourg compromise in these two cases and have, in fact, not sought to do so in other cases, although, like everyone else, we have to admit that we have at times dragged our feet about matters that would be inconvenient, or would have involved using some of the substantial net financial benefits of membership to finance adjustments to Community standards.
Thus our position on decision making is clear — we want to free up the present system, removing the abuses while retaining a provision to deal with genuine issues of vital national interest, to be advanced and proved objectively by formal procedure that no country would embark upon unless the issue were a really grave one.
Within this general area of decision making one must distinguish between two aspects — first, the need to restrain the abuse of the Luxembourg compromise in cases where the existing Treaties provide for qualified majority voting, while retaining procedures to deal with genuine cases of vital national interest and, secondly, the quite different question as to whether the existing provisions in respect of unanimity voting cover the correct range of cases, namely, those in which there is a genuine need for unanimity.
There may be cases where a move from unanimity to qualified majority voting might be desirable, as I have said in relation to decisions concerning movement towards a genuine single market, which is particularly important to us as a small country which so often finds itself frustrated by non-tariff trade barriers placed in its way particularly by larger and more powerful countries. But because of the wide differences between overall expenditure and tax levels in member states, and especially the very big differences between internal taxes on such articles as spirits and tobacco, which reflect differences in national attitudes towards the consumption of these goods that have serious potential health implications, there would have to be provisions to accommodate our particular circumstances. The economic, social and health consequences of the drastic changes in tax levels that would be necessitated by harmonisation of taxation, because of the enormous differences between internal taxes on some of these items at present, are such that they would be clearly unacceptable.
There are also institutional reforms which, as a country with a powerful interest in the success of the Community we favour, as do most other member states.
Thus the erosion of the power of the Commission, and in particular of its exclusive right of initiative in respect of new proposals, has been damaging to the Community and to our interests as a small country. Increasingly as the years have passed, successive Commissions have been less inclined to play the kind of political role as prime movers of new policies which the Treaty requires them to do. Their proposals have tended to become more and more timid, as they have sought to anticipate and take account of the likely objections of member states before formulating their proposals lest they find them blocked by the use of the Luxembourg compromise.
This has been because bitter experience has taught them that if they do not, in effect, accommodate in their proposals objections, especially of the larger countries, one or other of these will object and the proposal will get nowhere. In my personal view, this trend has become even more marked since the establishment of thrice yearly European Councils of Heads of State and Government at the Paris Summit at the end of 1974, for at European Council meetings the Commission appears especially tentative about putting forward proposals, and as a result the initiative has, I feel, tended to pass back from the commission to the major member states, quite contrary to the provisions of the Treaty.
We favour the full restoration of the Commission's Treaty powers as the best way of protecting the interests of small countries. We also as a Government favour — and have done so since we put forward the proposal at the Rome European Council in December 1975 — the investiture of the President of the Commission by heads of government and by the European Parliament. We also believe that he should himself play an important role in the choice of the national commissioners, so that he may get together around him a coherent team of high-calibre people.
It has also been suggested that the Commission's management powers in respect of the implementation of Council decisions should be extended. Worthwhile steps in this direction also appear necessary to avoid overload on the Council structures in a Community of Twelve but in some instances this might, of course, require a fairly precise initial mandate from the Council indicating in a fair amount of detail how the Council wishes the policy to be implemented and what interests would need to be safeguarded in this process.
The strengthening of the powers of the European Parliament is also essential. Although it seems that in the neighbouring island, and perhaps in Denmark, there is resistance to this because of an illusion that what is at stake would be a transfer of power from national parliaments to the European Parliament, this is not in fact the case. There is no such proposal. The problem is to secure some kind of democratic control over the decision making powers of the Council of Ministers, which at present in effect rules by decree. The absence of an adequate role for the European Parliament outside the budgetary area, for example, in relation to the ratification of Community treaties and the enactment of Community legislation, is a grave defect in the democratic structures of the existing Community.
It also encourages the Parliament to act with less responsibility than might otherwise be the case in the only area where it has effective power, namely the budget. It would be helpful in this connection if it also had some function in relation to the raising of some part of Community revenue.
It has to be recognised, of course, that any movement towards co-decision between Council and Parliament must be so structured as not to introduce significant delay into the decision-making process and that there must be a system of mediation through which a decision can be reached reasonably rapidly where there is disagreement. Solutions that have been suggested to this problem include the transmission of Commission proposals to the Council through the Parliament, which, within a specified period, could append its comments on a proposal, or a meeting between representatives of Council and Parliament at which an effort would be made to reconcile differences, with the last word left to the Council. The views of Deputies on how this process might best be undertaken would be welcome.
Other issues that could arise in relation to the movement towards a European Union include the development of the European Monetary System; the closely associated issues of economic convergence of member states which at present have widely different levels of per capita income and living standards and the concentration of short term economic policies, technically known as conjunctural policies; the extension of the Community's competences to new areas; and the expansion of own resources, as well, of course, as developments in relation to political co-operation.
We favour the development of the European Monetary System. We should like to see our neighbour Britain become a full member of the system. This would reduce to a very narrow range fluctuations between the Irish pound and sterling, which have created many problems for us since 1979. Moreover, the inclusion of sterling would strengthen the system itself. We should like to see a greater movement towards use of the ECU both for public and private purposes.
I am convinced that progress towards the economic and, therefore, the social goals of the Community, and in particular towards the reduction of unemployment, will be slow and uncertain until the economic space of the Community is treated as a unit for short term economic policy purposes. The policies of individual member countries should be co-ordinated through the Commission so as to achieve the kind of coherent result that emerges from central policy making in countries like the United States or Japan. So long as some larger countries in the Community retain the illusion that they can successfully operate autonomous short term economic policies and so long as they fail to grasp that their power to do so under modern conditions is very restricted, just so long will the Community remain a sleeping economic giant, unable to pursue its own economic interests coherently in relation to the rest of the world.
Another economic issue that for us — and I believe also for Italy and Greece, as well as the new members, Spain and Portugal — is vital in the pursuit of the objective set out in the Preamble to the Rome Treaty which recites that its signatories were "anxious to strengthen the unity of their economies and to ensure their harmonious development by reducing the differences existing between the various regions and the backwardness of the less-favoured regions". This fundamental principle of the treaty has not hitherto been given the importance that is its due. Countries like Italy, and later Ireland and Greece, and most recently Spain and Portugal, have been significantly influenced in joining the Community by the presence of this commitment in the Treaty, and it has at times been disturbing to remark a tendency to downplay or ignore this principle.
The achievement of the objective that the Community is now setting itself, namely, a genuine European Union — implies clearly a scale of funding far beyond anything currently available.
It has long been argued by Irish Governments, and has also been widely accepted within the Community, that closer economic and monetary integration involving the transfer to Community level of the control over the major instruments of economic policy, would need to be paralleled by substantial reinforcement of Community action in favour of the less prosperous regions of the Community, including arrangements for transfers of resources on a significant scale. These would be required in order to offset the potential centripetal efforts of integration on less-developed areas or to help these areas adjust to any external shocks affecting their economies. While there are undoubted gains from economic integration in the absence of adequate convergence or safeguard mechanisms, there may also be risks of an uneven distribution of these gains, even to the point of some areas being net losers.
Inter-regional mechanisms and transfers, both over and hidden, operate in national states and enable them to maintain a single currency and an integrated economy. Similar mechanisms are required at Community level —they exist, for example, in the Regional Development Fund, but as yet in a very undeveloped and inadaquate form.
This whole area was studied by the MacDougall Group, the Study Group on the Role of Public Finance in European Integration, and it was dealt with along the lines I have just sketched in their 1977 report. They concluded that substantial increases in spending that would help to reduce inequalities in living standards would be necessary even in a period of pre-federal integration and that measures that would bring the Community budget up to 2 to 2.5 per cent of Community GNP would only begin to be economically significant in reducing inequalities and facilitating integration. Even this, they decided, would be of extremely limited significance in regard to the possible use of the Community budget for the purpose of stabilising the economy of the Community and of its component parts in the face of cyclical fluctuation in economic activity. A previous study in 1975 by the Study Group, Economic and Monetary Union, 1980, the Marjolin Group, had concluded that the minimum quantitative basis for European public finance would be 5 per cent of GNP.
By comparision with these assessments of what as a minimum would be needed by way of Community resources in order to give real effect to the commitments and objectives of the Rome Treaty, the actual resources available to the Community are very restricted indeed. The recent increase in own resources enables it to supplement the proceeds of Community import duties and levies by 1.4 per cent of the Community's VAT base, instead of 1 per cent as hitherto. But next year, the very first year in which this extension of powers comes into effect, the needs of the Community are now estimated by the Commission to require own resources amounting to 1.35 per cent of GNP in addition to the import duties and levies. In other words, the new margin to be introduced at last after such long and bitter arguments is likely to be used up almost completely at the very outset, thus starting once again, perhaps next years, the wrangle about raising the level from 1.4 per cent to 1.6 per cent by the action of national parliaments. The figure of 1.6 per cent is itself only a fraction of that needed to make a European Union a reality. Here the gap between the willing of the end and the willing of the means remains wide.
Another major issue for discussion at Milan is the French proposal for European co-operation in advanced technological research for civilian purposes. This has great merit, coming as it does at a time when the American SDI initiative — leaving aside for the moment its military implications — threatens to dominate and absorb European research capacities unless a countervailing initiative of a civilian character is launched in Europe. At this moment there are many distinguished scientists in many European countries who are awaiting the outcome of Milan before deciding whether to sign on to participate in SDI, which could thus involve a massive, and in terms of future technological progress, possibly fatal, brain drain for our Continent. It is of vital importance to all of us in Europe, therefore, that Milan succeeds in taking a clear decision on Eureka, involving a firm commitment to go ahead at once with research in a number of key fields, supplementing private resources where necessary with Community funds.
This project has aroused intense interest throughout western Europe, not alone in Community countries but in Norway and in the three neutral countries of Switzerland, Austria and Sweden. The structures of Eureka should be such as to ensure that while centered on the Community, these other non-EC countries will also be given a full opportunity to take part, so that their important scientific resources may be available to this European project, rather than be drawn away into the American orbit.
We are willing and anxious to play our part in this project. Our resources in this area are limited, but not negligible, and in a couple of sectors we have significant scientific skills to offer. What is less clear is whether we have Irish firms capable of participating in the development stage of this research. If these do not exist, then we shall have to bring them into being — a process in which it might be necessary for the National Development Corporation to play a role.
We would be anxious that this project should develop along lines similar to ESPRIT, the Community-based European Strategic Programme for Research in Information Technology, within which provision is made that 10 per cent of the specific projects will be small projects for which small firms and consortia could hope to tender successfully. The importance of this from our point of view is clear. In the absence of major Irish technological enterprises, our ability to benefit from development spending and from the industrial application of this research is likely to depend upon firms in Ireland, most of them small by international standards, securing a share of the funding, to which we as a member country will be subscribing.
We would also be interested in discussing with our partners whether there could be any application of the principle of a Community intellectual property in the results of this research — admittedly a novel concept and one which could be difficult to apply in practice.
The other matter that will arise at Milan is that of developing further the process of political co-operation, that is, the attempted co-ordination of the foreign policies of member states of the Community. Great practical progress has been made in this area since 1973 when we joined the Community. Policies which we have traditionally espoused, for example, recognition of the rights of Palestinians to self-determination in parallel with the right of Israel and other States in the area to having secure and guaranteed borders; support for human rights in Latin America vis-à-vis authoritarian regimes which have generally — although not invariably — been rightwing dictatorships; support in the late seventies for a solution to the problem of Rhodesia, based not on the so-called “internal settlement” but on the involvement in negotiations of the Patriotic Front; support for genuine independence for Namibia; opposition to apartheid in South Africa. All these and other policies to which Irish people have been attached have at various times since 1973 gained increasing support from other members of the Community through the process of political co-operation.
Moreover, Ireland has played a constructive role in this area, for example, through my own visit to Portugal in June 1975 as President of the Council of Ministers, which opened the way towards Community co-operation with the process of development of Portugal into a pluralist democracy and away from becoming a near-Communist State; as was threatened at that time and more recently, in our 1984 Presidency, by organising and presiding over the San José meeting of the Ten, as well as Spain and Portugal, with the five Central American countries and the four Contadora countries which are seeking to establish peace in the region.
Political co-operation has from the outset been concentrated on seeking and often finding, by consensus, common positions on matters of foreign policy, and on discussing the interests we have in common with our partners in the political and economic aspects of security, excluding military or defence questions with which, as a non-member of any military alliance, we are not involved.
As such, political co-operation has worked well, and we would be happy to see it evolve constructively. There now is a widespread view that the effectiveness of the work of European political co-operation could be enhanced if it possessed a secretariat— many countries would say "a light secretariat"—with administrative functions and the task of preparing papers for Ministers in conjunction with national officials. For my own part I find that the present system, with the secretariat effectively provided by the country holding the Presidency, sometimes aided on what is called a "troika" basis by the preceding and following Presidencies has worked quite well.
However, with the additional administrative burdens that enlargement will bring in its train, a small secretariat providing administrative assistance to the Presidency might well be warranted. Some countries propose that the ad hoc structures of European political co-operation should be given formal recognition by putting them on a treaty basis, although it is not entirely clear what the benefit of this would be, given that the system must in our view continue to operate by consensus — viz. no common action to be taken against the wishes of an individual member state. This matter may come for discussion at Milan.
The UK Government have in fact proposed a draft treaty, parts of which, however, we would not be prepared to accept: in particular a provision that would require that no member country could co-sponsor a resolution at the UN if any member state opposed it. This seems neither desirable nor practicable.
In the discussion of these matters Ireland finds itself in a different position from its partners, all of whom are members of the North Atlantic Alliance, while Ireland is neutral. It should be made clear that no other Government have put any pressure at any time on us on this issues of neutrality. Presistent reports to the contrary are quite simply inventions. No one should allow themselves to be fooled by this propaganda.
As I pointed out earlier, Senator Dooge disagreed with the section on security and defence in the report because it contains proposals that seek to go beyond the existing guidelines on political co-operation. These provide only for co-ordination in the area of foreign policy on the political and economic aspects of security. The section contains suggestions that, in the view of the Government, are more appropriate to military alliance frameworks. On this issue, Senator Dooge was reflecting the position of the Government. Irish policy in this regard is both understood and accepted by our partners. In discussion of the report's proposals, we will continue to take the line that there are subsisting and valid distinctions between these aspects of security that are appropriate to political co-operation and those, such as operation defence questions, that are appropriate to alliance frameworks.
The fact is that our country's position in this matter is known to and understood by our partners and no question arises in this context of any change in the Government's commitment to maintain Ireland's neutral position of non-membership of military alliances.
It is clearly in our interest to distinguish most clearly between our insistence on our neutral position on the one hand, even if this be seen by some as making tidy arrangements between different institutions more difficult to arrange and, on the other hand, our positive stance on the further development of the Community. It would be very damaging, indeed, to our interests if we were to add to any problems that our position on neutrality might be felt by some of our partners to pose for them, but which they are willing to accommodate, an intransigent position on other aspects of the process of European union.
Fortunately we have no interest in creating other problems and every interest in solving them. As a result both in the preparation of the Dooge report — and this House will, I am sure wish to pay a warm tribute to the Leader of the other House for his skill and patience in securing agreement of the representatives of Heads of Government of nine other member states to so much of its contents — and in seeking with our partners to put into effect its proposals, we are glad to be able to be positive, and to be joined with the original six Community members in seeking to move ahead together in as many ways as possible. The goodwill which we have always enjoyed in the Community — and which I should say has brought us many tangible benefits — has been enhanced by our positive stance on so many of these issues.
It is in this positive spirit that we view the proposal, first put forward in the Dooge report that an Intergovernmental Conference be convened to negotiate a draft European union treaty. It is difficult to gauge the degree of support that now exists for this approach or even for holding a conference designed to agree on further steps in the integration process, not necessarily enshrined in a new treaty. Some member states are opposed to the proposal and there have been signs that others are now less confident of the merits of this approach. On the other hand, the Declaration on European Union adopted at the meeting of European Christian Democrats in Rome last week, at which the Governments of six member states were represented by Heads of Government or Cabinet Ministers, came out in favour of a conference with a precise mandate to achieve the objectives set out in that declaration which raise no problems for Ireland and whose achievement would bring significant benefits to us.
Against this background the Government will support calling a conference, if it enjoys a reasonable prospect of success, and we have conveyed this attitude to the Italian Presidency. To have such a prospect it would be necessary to have a clear mandate enjoying a broad measure of support, and an appropriate timetable, so that the conference would not drag on until momentum was lost and the political climate altered for the worse. No service would be rendered to the cause of European Union of such a conference were a failure. Thus prudence is required. But I do not wish to convey a hesitant attitude. We would encourage the Presidency in trying to ensure a basis for convening a conference that could lead to a new leap forward in European integration. Equally, we will support whatever procedure is best calculated to secure meaningful progress, on a balanced basis, towards an entity that would be worthy of the title "European Union", with economic and political integration proceeding broadly in parallel.
I look forward to the comments of other speakers on the matters I have mentioned during the course of this speech and on any other aspects of the Dooge report or the Spinelli report that they may wish to advert to. I am sure the debate will be a constructive one, and that it will help myself and the Minister for Foreign Affairs to play a constructive and positive role at Milan.
Before concluding may I add a few words by way of general comment. Both at the time when we debated joining the Community and since we have been a member of it, there has been a tendency in this country to look at our membership almost exclusively in terms of the material benefits we have secured from membership — and to look no further. In part this reflects the fact that these benefits have, as I said at the outset, been immense and, in so far as they can be readily identified and measured, far greater in relation to our economy than in relation to any other.
But the construction of Europe is much more than a matter of pounds and pence received. The Community is the guarantee for us and for our descendants that this western part of the European Continent will never again be the site of conflicts between its peoples. The era of war within Western Europe is dead and, apart from occasional acts of terrorism, many of them emanating from outside Western Europe, one of the only two remaining sources of significant violence within this area of 320 million people is, tragically, to be found in our own country, in Northern Ireland. I hope and believe that the conflict in Northern Ireland can also be brought to an end and I know that our European partners, conscious that this alone remains as an area of significant violence in Western European apart from the Basque Government in Spain, would wish to help us along this road if the opportunity arose for them to do so.
I would add one further consideration. Western Europe is today in a new and very difficult phase of its history. Technologically it is being outpaced by the United States and Japan. Its economy is sluggish. Its arteries of economic activity have become blocked by a kind of sclerosis, which if it is not cured, will lead to a decline that would effect all of us— is already affecting us to some degree— in our daily lives. We find ourselves part of a Continent which, having for centuries led in innovation, is now lagging behind, one in which, while unemployment falls in America and Japan, the numbers out of work continue to rise.
We in Ireland are suffering from this more than most. With such a young population and a birth rate that was rising steadily till the beginning of this decade, we more than any other European country, need — and will, until the end of the century, continue to need — rapid economic growth in the countries around us, to which our economy is tied by geographical reality.
It is therefore in our interest more than in that of any other country that Europe, through a mingling of its cultures and a sharing of its scientific and entrepreneurial resources, and through concerted sharing of its scientific and entrepreneurial resources, and through concerted changes in institutions, laws and practices that inhibit growth and the expansion of employment, break out of its long period of torpor and resume its earlier world leadership in innovation and enterprise. That can happen only through the invigorating effects of the removal of the barriers that, despite all the best efforts to date of those who founded the Community, continue to prevent it from functioning effectively as a single economic unit and a single market. Europe for us is not merely a matter of national interest; it is also an ideal, and an imperative.
