When I moved the Adjournment last evening I was making the observation that the common market, which was the vernacular Anglo Saxon phrase to describe the European Economic Community, had transformed itself from being truly primarily an economic association to being truly a social community. Much of the problem that the Euro sceptics, not just here but in the United Kingdom, have with regard to the relentless progress that has been made towards an ever closer union of the European people is that they regard a market, such as the common market, as simply that and no more. A community, such as the one we are in the process of slowly but relentlessly constructing, is a much wider and deeper thing. It contains values and aspires to address issues which markets, by their nature, neither aspire to nor are capable of addressing or resolving.
I wish to address the way in which this debate will be conducted between now and whenever the referendum is held and the manner in which this House will communicate, to a largely indifferent public, the momentous nature of the project in which we are engaged. The press gallery is empty. The young people who now occupy the Visitors' Gallery and who have not yet sat the junior certificate will be trading and earning their salary in a currency yet to come into existence, the euro. By the time they are 25 years of age the European Union will have 20 member states; the Republic, with a population of just 3.5 million, will be part of a Union of 500 million people and the constitutional and legal structure of what I describe as a post-federal Europe is slowly but surely being put in place. If the young people in the gallery are to take away one memory of their visit to Leinster House — and for some it is the only time they will come here — they should recognise they were here at a time when another important brick in the reconstruction of Europe was put in place by elected democrats in this Assembly on the same day in the aftermath of the murder, by Nazis and Fascists of Northern Ireland, of people who were simply going about their business.
Europe is being reconstructed by democrats to ensure that future generations of young people, from whatever country in Europe, never again go to war. If somebody thinks World War II and European nationalism and the devastation and havoc it has brought about is something we watch on television in romantic black and white war movies they have only to look at what is happening in part of Europe, Serbia, where rampant nationalism is causing the deaths of people. Across central Europe problems of nationalism and tensions associated with Europe's failure to resolve national conflict can be found in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The Amsterdam Treaty, and it will never win a prize for being the most elegantly written, is building upon the foundations put in place by the European Coal and Steel Treaty, the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. There are those who say this is the wrong way to construct a new Europe, that this is a messy way to put complicated and obscure structures in place, whose comprehension, even to the specialist, is extremely difficult to realise.
Europe did not start its construction with a cleared site. Comparisons with that of the United States, where the indigenous peoples were effectively cleared away by the settling Europeans, presented themselves with a tabula rase upon which the 13 founding states, which became the United States, were able to construct a remarkable Constitution which has stood the test of time. To use an analogy from a previous profession, architecture, the tabula rasa presented to the constructors of the new European Constitution was the devastated landscape of Europe after the Second World War, not all of which was cleared and much of it had to be incorporated into a new construction. The edifice of post-federal Europe, which we are in the process of constructing, must, for political reality, include elements of previous structures and components that relate to the political culture of the various parts that make up the European Union. Nothing could be a better illustration of the difficulties surrounding the architects of the new Europe than the difficulties in the second and third pillars of this Treaty.
The first pillar relates to the clear linear structure of the Treaty of Rome, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on the one hand and the Commission on the other and the role of the courts in Luxembourg as a mechanism for dispute resolution. This is truly a community in construction, moving relentlessly to a post-federal constitutional structure, that will become the hallmark for such regional groupings of sovereign states in the middle of the next century. The timidity with which issues relating to policing, justice, immigration and related matters have been addressed by Justice Ministers from all countries is reflected in the intergovernmental nature of those deliberations and the failure to incorporate those elements of European concern into the main framework of the Treaty structure.
I welcome the limited but necessary transfer of some elements of the justice and home affairs provisions into the main structure of the European Treaty on two counts. I welcome it, as an Irish member of this Assembly, where we will see the transfer of powers to super European institutions and as a European democrat on the basis that the behaviour of some of the activities covered by the treaty provisions will be accountable, however limited that form of accountability may be, to the courts in Luxembourg and the European Parliament.
If we wish to proceed down the road of a European construction, to which I am committed, we will have to be courageous and effectively transfer more sovereign powers in the areas of justice and home affairs and a common foreign and security policy, to democratically accountable institutions on the European platform. In time that means the common European foreign policy and its related security policy will be implemented in a coherent manner, which tragically did not happen in regard to the break-up of former Yugoslavia, and will be accountable in a democratic manner to the European Parliament and to the national parliaments of the 15 member states of the European Union.
There is a communication problem in explaining to the electorate what it is we are trying to achieve. To date, because of our economic status and relative underdevelopment compared to the rest of northern Europe, we have been in receipt of substantial transfers from the Structural Fund, the Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund and under the mechanisms of the Common Agricultural Policy. Before the students in the Visitors' Gallery complete their leaving certificate examinations and enter the world of work we will no longer qualify for such transfers. The current round will come to an end in 1999. I hope satisfactory transitional arrangements will be made — the Government will have our full support in this respect — covering the duration of the next tranche of funds which is expected to be of the order of five to seven years, depending on the realpolitik of the day. Within eight years, certainly no later than 2010, by virtue of our economic development and because of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, this country will be a net contributor to a union which will then have at least six additional members giving a total of 21 member states with a total population of the order of 500 million.
It is the public's perception that it is good for Ireland to be a member of the European Union because we are takers rather than givers. We receive money from the taxpayers of Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland and we are not expected to give much in return. We have, collectively, achieved success. That gives cause for celebration. The figures Deputy Gay Mitchell quoted were extraordinary. They show that we have moved from a position where per capita income was 50 per cent of the European average when we joined the European Union on 1 January 1973 to the point where it is now in line with the European average. In many respects, our quality of life and standard of living based on such indicators as the rate of home ownership are higher than those of many citizens in what would be described nominally as the richer countries.
The Labour Party is vigorously committed to pursuing the idea that Ireland has a contribution to make to the European Union which has an important contribution to make to world affairs in the next century. Ireland, as a small neutral country which finally gained independence after the War of Independence and the Versailles Treaty was signed in 1922, with countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland and Slovenia which gained independence in the past four or five years, as distinct from the big imperial powers, has to make a positive contribution. This treaty will go some of the way towards redistributing wealth to tackle the problem of poverty within Europe because of the competences granted by its provisions, including the chapter on employment. However, we have to ensure the new post-federal Europe which is rapidly being constructed does not take on the attributes, arrogance and assertions that characterised the French, the Germans and the British in their heyday when they thought they could write a French, German or British agenda that best served their economic or geopolitical interests.
I welcome the fact that there is no provision for Ireland's participation in a military or defence alliance without the express consent of the people in a referendum. In the post-Cold War period, the role of neutral countries such as Ireland, Austria, Finland and Sweden and of countries which have a policy of non-aggression such as Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium all of which were neutral at the start of the Second World War and invaded by their neighbours, has to be stated clearly in the legal statutes in a post-federal Europe to which we must make a positive contribution. Concern about what is contained in the treaty is increasingly being expressed by people outside the House who do not share the consensus celebrated inside it. This concern is being distorted and misrepresented.
A number of key issues that we thought would be addressed in the Treaty were not dealt with in the negotiations in Amsterdam. They include the concept of one commissioner per country with Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy having two commissioners and the issue of qualified majority voting. Instead of reacting passively to proposals from other member states or groups of member states in the construction of a post-federal Europe and trying to defend what is euphemistically described as the Irish interest but which really means protecting the income stream of Structural and other funds to which I have referred, we should start to actively, progressively and positively propose structures that would give shape to a humane, socially progressive post-federal Europe. The Amsterdam Treaty is a small but significant step in that direction.
I appreciate the manner in which the White Paper has been drafted. I am concerned that the debate on this issue will not take place in the context of a referendum to change Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution. Now that we are facing a different Europe in which Ireland will have a changed role because of its economic success we have to move from a position where we respond passively to proposals relating to the European project to the point where we react positively and seek with other small member states to dictate the future we want for ourselves, our children and grandchildren.
Deputy Gay Mitchell referred to the trauma of war being the godfather of the European project and spoke movingly of Helmet Kohl's family as a symbol of that experience. The future of Europe and its security will depend critically on the role small nation States play in its construction. We are all familiar with the stone wall boundaries of fields. Anyone who looks at their construction, whether in County Down, Connemara or County Wicklow, will note that while the big stones provide the cover and structure, the small stones and the little ones wedged in between the big stones provide the stability necessary to ensure the edifice does not fall. That is an honourable role for small States to play in the future construction of a post federal Europe. It is the role we must actively take on and communicate, with enthusiasm, to our fellow citizens when we ask them, as my party will, to vote in favour of this Treaty, bearing in mind that the safeguards in regard to the exercise of options contained in the complexity of the Treaty have been doubly stitched into the amendment. First, their application is ringfenced to certain prescribed articles set out in the Minister's speech and, second, before any Administration or Government wishes to exercise any of the options contained in those provisions or Articles it must get the approval of both Houses of the Oireachtas.