There is not any mutual defence commitment in the PfP and, therefore, membership does not affect our policy of military neutrality. The decision to join this body is a routine foreign policy decision and such decisions do not require referenda. That has always been the position of Fine Gael and we do not see any reason to change it now.
I want to speak about Ireland's policy of military neutrality – what it means, where it may lead us and its costs and benefits. In essence, Ireland's neutrality is a modestly armed neutrality. Unlike other neutrals, such as Sweden and Switzerland, which guarantee their neutrality by developing large armies and armaments industries, Ireland has chosen to keep a very modest military establishment. As an island nation, we did not even have a Navy or merchant fleet large enough to guarantee our own supplies at the outbreak of war in 1939. We do not command that capacity in 1999 either.
Neutrality is a strategy, not a religion. Realism is a necessary component in any discussion on neutrality. I will quote from one of the more realistic contributions made on neutrality in this House. Fianna Fáil Deputies, particularly Deputies from County Clare, might pay particular attention to this quotation from a former Member of the House who asked:
Is it likely that we could escape if there was a major European conflict at the present time? If there is such a condition, will we continue to export cattle and food to Great Britain? Will the export of food be regarded as contraband of war or would it not? If we are going to send food from our ports to Britain, when Britain's enemies, let us say, will be trying to starve her, will our position be respected by other people?
The Deputy in question was Eamon de Valera. He was speaking in this House on 29 April 1938. He was much more realistic in his appraisal of the realities of a European war than are many Deputies in the House today. Many Deputies speak about neutrality as if we had never joined the European Union in 1972 and as if this island was completely isolated from events on the mainland of Europe or on our neighbouring island. They have internalized a romantic version of de Valera's achievement in maintaining neutrality between 1939 and 1945 in a way that de Valera himself never romanticised it. He was realistic enough to know that four factors preserved Ireland's neutrality in that period – the good fortune of our island status, the fortuitous defeat of the Luftwaffe over Britain in 1940, the timely diversion of Germany's energies towards Russia and away from the West in 1941 and American entry to the war in 1942. If Ireland had been attacked at any stage between 1939 and 1945, it would not have been neutral.
When de Valera spoke in 1938 in such a downbeat way about our capacity to maintain neutrality, we were probably more self sufficient as a nation than we ever were in our history before or since. Our economy in 1938 was a comparatively closed economy. Our needs were simple and we could survive on our own. Nowadays, we are one of the most open economies in the world. We depend on other countries and they depend on us. If de Valera had doubts in 1938 about our ability to stay unaffected by a European war at that time, how much more doubt must there be about that today?
Eamon de Valera's successor as leader of Fianna Fáil, former Deputy Seán Lemass, was equally realistic about neutrality. He understood that, when we joined the European Union, we were moving towards a political as well as an economic commitment to our neighbours in Europe. He realised that, ultimately, we might create a political union in Europe and, if we did so, that would involve us in an obligation to defend what we had jointly created.
In July 1962, Seán Lemass told the New York Times that: “We are prepared to go into this integrated Europe without any reservations as to how far this will take us in the field of foreign policy and defence.”. The leadership of Fianna Fáil today does not have that full-hearted commitment to Europe which Seán Lemass displayed. The current leadership of Fianna Fáil, like the current leadership of the British Conservative Party, wants to dine à la carte at the European table. It wants to take the benefits without taking full responsibility for the means by which those benefits are created. An undefended Europe would not be the peaceful or prosperous place it is today and would not be such a good market for Irish goods and services.
Our Constitution states that "war shall not be declared and the State shall not participate in any war, save with the assent of Dáil Éireann.". That provision should not change. Ireland should ensure that any decision committing us to war is one that this House, and this House alone, should take. However, that does not mean we should be uninvolved with other European countries in pursuing a policy of collective security in Europe. The Constitution states the legal position but Ireland can and should, where and when appropriate, give political commitments to defend the values we share alongside our European neighbours.
There is a tendency in debate here at home to underestimate the extent to which Ireland has already committed itself to European defence. The Taoiseach told the Dáil on 14 October that "a mutual defence pact is not even on the agenda of this European Union's Common Foreign Security Policy.". In contrast, I ask Members of this House to listen to some of the things to which the Taoiseach agreed in the conclusions of the European Summit in Cologne on 3 and 4 June of this year. The Taoiseach agreed to the following statements, made by him, on our behalf, jointly with the other EU Heads of Government:
We, the members of the European Council, intend to give the European Union the necessary means and capabilities to assume its responsibilities regarding a common European policy on security and defence. We are determined to foster the restructuring of the European defence industries amongst those states involved.
The Taoiseach also approved and adopted a report, prepared by the German Presidency for the Cologne Summit, which included the following statements:
The focus of our efforts, therefore, should be to ensure that the European Union has at its disposal the necessary capabilities, including military capabilities, and appropriate structures for effective EU decision making in crisis management within the scope of the Petersberg Tasks.
The Petersberg Tasks are defined in this report, as including tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. I stress that "peacemaking", as well as peacekeeping, is included in the Petersberg Tasks. Peacemaking means imposing, by the use of force, peaceful conditions under terms laid down by the peacemaker. It is very difficult to distinguish that from war making, unless one gets into subjective questions of motivation which are highly elastic.
To give effect to these decisions in Cologne, the Taoiseach also approved a decision making structure for the European Union which will include regular meetings of the General Affairs Council, as appropriate, including Defence Ministers, an EU military committee consisting of military representatives making recommendations to the political and security committee, and an EU military staff including a situation centre. If the Taoiseach agreed to these things in Cologne in June, how could he tell the House last week that a military pact is not even on the EU agenda?
These plans for the maintenance of security within the continent of Europe are reasonable and necessary – I support them. Subject to the maintenance of the constitutional guarantee I quoted earlier, Ireland should support them. These plans are necessary. The United States will not continue to pay the costs of European defence for the next 50 years in the same way as it has done for the past 50 years. At present most European states have large standing armies, but little capacity to deal with any problems any distance away from their own borders. They do not have transport capacity and have to rely entirely on the United States for that type of logistical support. While the United States may be willing and may want for the moment to have a virtual monopoly of this type of logistical capacity for some time to come, there is no guarantee that it will always want it. If the United States was to suffer an economic setback, the forces of isolationism would take hold there and Europe could find itself suddenly on its own as far as its defence was concerned.
After a century of isolationism, in the 19th century the United States became actively involved in regulating the peace of Europe in the period between 1917 and 1919. Thereafter, the US Congress rejected the Treaty of Versailles and lapsed into isolationism again until it was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbour in 1942. It was during that period from 1919 to 1942 when the United States maintained a stance of military isolation from Europe, that the Nazis and the Fascists rose to power in Europe and took over the entire continent, with the exception of Sweden and Switzerland, without any military response from America. There is no reason to be certain that isolationism vis-à-vis Europe will not become a predominant political attitude in the United States again during the next century.
Furthermore, as US economic interests move towards the west coast and the Pacific Basin, it is increasingly likely that the United States will concentrate its strategic interests in that sphere. The growth of armaments in the east Asian area is a matter of grave worry to us all, but it is a special worry to the United States. Remember, it was from across the Pacific that the United States was attacked in 1942.
Thus, if the United States were to be forced by economics to make a choice between its commitment to European defence and a commitment to security issues in the Pacific, it is not impossible that it might decide that they had even more at stake in the Pacific, than it has on this side of the Atlantic. It is for these geo-strategic reasons that Europe must equip itself to defend itself, and to maintain security in and around the borders of the European Union.
Ireland cannot stand aside from this and say we will not take part, and that the outcome of any discussion on European security will not involve any moral commitment by Ireland. Seán Lemass would not have taken that position and did not take that position. The Taoiseach's statement in the Dáil on 14 October in this debate that a mutual defence pact was not on the EU agenda was invalidated within four days by the Dehaene report published on 18 October. This report put a defence pact definitively on the EU agenda. It called for a merger of the EU and the Western European Union within a single institutional framework. The Western European Union is, by any definition, a mutual defence pact. If Western European Union and EU are merged before enlargement, all new members will join the merged organisation taking on all the commitments, including those inherited from the Western European Union.
I note the Taoiseach told the press on 18 October that he would never agree, in the context of such a merger, to an EU mutual defence guarantee like that in the Western European Union Treaty. This is very different from the position taken by Seán Lemass, who as I have shown, did not place a limit on Ireland's commitment to European Union. In taking his position, the Taoiseach may be relying on one sentence in the Cologne declaration which states: "The different status of Member States with regard to collective guarantees will not be affected". That is quite different from saying that no such collective guarantees should ever be put in the EU treaties. Collective guarantees could be put into the EU treaties but with a right for some countries, existing members but not new ones, to opt out. The Taoiseach said last week he is opposed to any collective security guarantees for anybody going into the EU treaties, but he did not get a declaration to that effect at Cologne in June. All he got was a right to opt out, and no more.
If the Taoiseach really believes that collective guarantees should not be included in the EU treaties, why did he not seek an assurance on that at Cologne? The Taoiseach quoted a speech by Eamon de Valera in 1946 earlier in this debate. Reflecting on the League of Nations, Mr. de Valera said that if there was to be an alternative to futile discussions "there must be a method whereby effective forcible action may be taken". If this is so, I put the following question to the Taoiseach. If at some time in the future the United States no longer maintains a military presence in Europe, a threat to European security emerges and the United Nations is deadlocked by the veto of one of the permanent members of the Security Council, by whom would the peace and security of the European Union then be protected?
Is it the position of other parties in this House that Ireland will not offer an answer to that question? Is it their position that we will leave it to the British, the Germans and the French to find an answer? If we opt out, they will find an answer because they will have to find one. However, it may be an answer that Ireland will not like. It may be the wrong answer. It may be a belligerent and foolish answer, and those countries are capable of belligerence and foolishness. Ireland will then have no substantial grounds for complaint, because we will have freely opted out of any say in their decision.
Opting out of commitments relieves us of a burden, but it does not relieve us of responsibility. Opting out of commitment may mean that we will have no say in what is decided, but it does not mean we will be unaffected by what is decided. That is the dilemma that Ireland will have to face in the negotiations that are now under way to develop a Common European Defence Policy. Members of this House should realise that these are serious negotiations which will come to a conclusion probably within the next year and it is important that we are clear-sighted in the choices we make. We should be in having a say rather than outside not having a say.