I wish to share my time with Deputy Conor Lenihan.
I affirm the Government's broad support for the thrust of the motion and thank Fine Gael for tabling it. It offers this House a worthwhile opportunity to address an issue of fundamental importance for Ireland and for Europe. In particular, I hope that everyone in Dáil Éireann is prepared to confirm their support for the enlargement of the European Union and to do all they can to ensure that Ireland does not impede or delay the accession of applicant states.
I assure the House that the Government is taking all appropriate steps within its power to ensure that enlargement can proceed on schedule. However, it is important to realise that this is an issue which should rightly concern not just the Government, but everyone in Ireland, inside and outside the Oireachtas, who is committed to the development of the European Union and to achieving its goals of peace, stability and prosperity in Europe. Those aspirations are shared widely in this House, including by the Fine Gael Party which has an honourable tradition of support for Ireland's national interest in Europe, irrespective of the political complexion of the Government of the day. It is good that it has today demonstrated its willingness to participate in the national debate.
It is also the case that the endorsement of the Treaty of Nice changes needed to bring enlargement about is ultimately a matter for the people. It is they, and not us, whom we need to convince to demonstrate their support for enlargement by endorsing the institutional changes required for it. For that reason I query any assumption implicit in the phrase "as soon as possible", that it is somehow possible or desirable for the Government to set or adhere to a timetable which does not reflect and respect the serious public concerns about the Union which were revealed in last June's referendum.
However, the fact that the Government is continuing to consider how best to address these concerns, in particular as they are being explored within the National Forum on Europe, must not be taken as implying any ambivalence or hesitation on fundamentals. It is the clear and united position of the Government that enlargement must proceed on schedule and that this requires the ratification of the Treaty of Nice by all member states of the European Union, including Ireland.
The enlargement issue has continued to develop and firm up since the referendum. This time next year should see the end of negotiations for the accession of up to ten new members of the EU. The highest political priority is being given, both by the members states and by the candidate countries, to making it happen. Negotiations are continuing in line with the Commission's road map strategy and the majority of candidate countries are proceeding well in their preparations for EU membership. This assessment is endorsed by the Commission in its strategy paper on the enlargement process, published last month. The Commission paper confirms that it should be possible to complete negotiations by the end of 2002 for those candidates that are ready and makes clear that a "big bang" entry of ten new members together is highly probable. The objective set by the European Council in June in Gothenburg, that they should be able to participate as members in the European Parliament elections of June 2004, remains achievable.
These views are shared by the Governments of all the EU member states. At the General Affairs Council yesterday we recorded this agreement in a set of conclusions which will be endorsed by heads of state and Government at the Laeken European Council on Friday and Saturday. The tempo of the accession negotiations has undoubtedly increased during this year. We have now reached a point where substantive and, at times, difficult issues are being addressed and solved in the negotiations and real progress is being achieved. This was confirmed yesterday and today in Brussels at a meeting of the accession conferences, where both member states and candidate countries agreed to finish discussions on several sensitive chapters or policy areas.
An important conclusion of the Commission strategy paper is that the financial perspectives agreed in Berlin in 1999, which provide the framework for the financial aspects of enlargement, are adequate to accommodate the accession of up to ten new member states. Ireland welcomes this clear statement; it concurs with our own estimation that for the purposes of enlargement there is no need to re-negotiate such fundamental agreements. The accession process is based on the principle of differentiation, whereby each candidate proceeds towards accession according to its own merits and level of preparedness. The speed with which they have adapted in recent times to the demands of EU membership is a tribute to their political leaders across the spectrum and a tribute to their people, who must carry through the necessary changes.
For this year there have been no major problems or requests from the candidate countries to which Ireland cannot agree. We do not underestimate the very difficult political choices these countries have to make. Ireland judges each transition request by the candidates on its merits, with an open mind and a full understanding that candidates, in certain areas, have particular needs which must be taken into account in a spirit of fairness and flexibility. However, in being sensitive to the specific short-term adjustment needs of individual candidates, Ireland, like all other member states, will want to be satisfied that any transitions granted to candidates do not distort the functioning of the Single Market, a corner stone of the EU.
Enlargement is, therefore, a profoundly important development not just in the history of the European Union, but in the history of Europe. It is in Ireland's economic interests, including in the areas of trade, investment and agriculture, as was made clear in the two forum sessions devoted to those topics. It is in Ireland's political interests to see a stable Europe and a European Union in which small states form a clear majority. There is, rightly, a strong consensus in this House and more widely that we should do all we can to support it and bring it about.
We are doing so in a number of ways. Ireland is playing an active and positive role in the formulation of the Union's detailed positions in the continuing negotiations. Through the so-called "twinning" scheme, a number of Irish officials are, or have been, seconded to work in candidate country administrations offering practical advice based on our own experience of adaptation to the demands of membership. We offer financial support to their officials to come to Ireland to take part in courses and seminars. We are expanding our network of diplomatic missions in the candidate countries, with the recent opening of embassies in Cyprus, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia supplementing those in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. This means that we are much better placed than before to interact with them on an informed and intensive basis. My Department and I also value our useful dialogue with the embassies of the candidate countries in Dublin.
However, the most critical and significant thing we have to do, with our existing partners in the EU, is to make the institutional changes necessary for enlargement. The necessity that further treaty change takes place before enlargement was recognised in the Treaty of Amsterdam. Unfortunately, during the Treaty of Nice referendum campaign, and since, the contents of the Amsterdam treaty and specifically its protocol on enlargement have been repeatedly misrepresented. It was suggested that up to five new member states could join without treaty change. This is not what the protocol said. It envisaged some treaty change taking place before any new member joined. It is untrue that five new members could have joined on an unchanged basis. The protocol also stipulated that at least one year before membership of the Union exceeded 20, there would be a comprehensive review of the treaty's institutional provisions. I do not know how people can, in good faith, read that deadline for further change as allowing enlargement to proceed without change.
It is almost certain that many more than five new members will join at or around the same time. While this was apparent even before the referendum, the situation has crystallised further since then, as set out in the Commission's report last month. Even if the minimalist interpretation of the Amsterdam protocol was true, which it is not, it has ceased to be relevant. I note that none of those who have sought to rely on it has taken the logical step of selecting which five of the applicants they would choose to admit and which they would tell to wait outside for some indefinite period.
In the run-up to the launch of last year's intergovernmental conference, which led to the negotiation of the Treaty of Nice, the intentions of the EU and the purpose of the Intergovernmental Conference could not have been clearer. The Cologne European Council of June 1999 decided that:
In order to ensure that the European Union's institutions can continue to work efficiently after enlargement, the European Council confirms its intention of convening a Conference.early in 2000 to resolve the institutional issues left open in Amsterdam that need to be settled before enlargement.
Six months later in Helsinki it was declared that:
The Union has made a firm political commitment to make every effort to complete the Intergovernmental Conference on institutional reform by December 2000, to be followed by ratification. After ratification of the results of that Conference the Union should be in a position to welcome new Member States from the end of 2002.
It has, therefore, been the consistent and settled view of the European Union for over four years that further institutional changes are required for enlargement to proceed. Those institutional changes were negotiated during 2000. The marathon final negotiating session, at the longest European Council ever, finished exactly one year ago today. The Treaty of Nice is the final outcome of the negotiations and provides the legal framework within which the EU is pursuing the enlargement negotiations. To put it bluntly, the Treaty of Nice is necessary for enlargement. If it does not enter into force, the accession process will be thrown into chaos and for it to enter into force it must be ratified by all 15 member states, including Ireland. For us not to ratify would indeed be, in the words of the motion before the House this evening, to impede or delay the accession of applicant states to the European Union. I am sure that there is no wish in this House, or more widely in the country, for this to happen. We have been assured by the great majority of those who have opposed the Treaty of Nice that they do not oppose enlargement. I do not doubt their sincerity but I do doubt their logic because the inevitable consequence of a failure to ratify Nice would be to impede and delay enlargement.
There is simply no question that our partners are prepared to abandon the Nice treaty and proceed in some other way. Nice represents the results of a long and difficult year of negotiation. There are numerous careful and delicate balances within it and, being aware as I am of the firmness of the positions held round the table, there is no reason to believe that any different outcome either was or would be available. At the General Affairs Council on 11 June, just after our referendum, Ministers, while expressing their readiness to help Ireland find a way forward, excluded any reopening of the text signed in Nice. They said that the ratification process will continue on the basis of this text and in accordance with the agreed timetable. This was confirmed by the European Council at Gothenburg.
That is the situation in which we now find ourselves. On the one hand, there is the Nice treaty which is necessary for enlargement and to which the European Union as a whole is committed. I should add that the applicant countries themselves strongly support the ratification of Nice on schedule. On the other hand, there is the fact that the referendum enabling Ireland to ratify the treaty was defeated.
This places not just the Government but Ireland as a whole in an unprecedentedly difficult position. In such a situation, the wisest course has to be to take the time to reflect carefully on the situation, to assess its causes and its meaning and to work out calmly and methodically how to move ahead. That is precisely what the Government has been doing. In so doing, we have been criticised on both sides.
Many of those who oppose Nice have accused the Government of failing to represent the views and interests of the Irish people. They say that we have been apologising for the referendum result. That is false. We have said that, as the Government which negotiated Nice and being committed to the European Union and to enlargement, we regret the result – as we do, but we have apologised to nobody. The sovereign right of the Irish people to exercise their own choice has never been questioned either by the Government or by our partners – as Prime Minister Verhofstadt said again last week. Some of our critics argue that, immediately after the referendum, we should simply have gone to our partners and told them, and by extension the applicant countries, to forget about Nice, that it was dead. What they think would have happened then is not clear. Some suggest that our partners would have simply accepted that no treaty changes were possible and that enlargement could proceed regardless. Others say that it should have been possible to negotiate some radically different treaty – even if they omit to explain how they would persuade other member states to do so or what dramatically new elements could have been agreed.
Frankly, this line of argument is quite unrealistic. It holds out prospects which are simply illusory and without any foundation. It would have us dictate to the other 14 member states what they should seek to do. Just as others did not seek to dictate to us, we are not in any position to ask other member states to stop their pro cedures for the national ratification of a treaty which they negotiated, agreed to and support. Just as I do not apologise for what the Irish people said, neither do I apologise to anyone for seeking to pursue our national interest in remaining at the heart of the European Union and in enlargement. For us to block enlargement through a failure to ratify Nice would have potentially catastrophic consequences for our situation within the Union.
However, while our partners have ruled out any changes to the text of the treaty as negotiated – just as happened after Denmark initially rejected the Treaty of Maastricht and indeed when General de Gaulle himself tried to change the Treaty of Rome in the 1960s – they have indicated their willingness to assist us in whatever way possible. It may be that there are aspects of the Treaty of Nice, or of the development of the Union generally, on which reassurances could be useful. This possibility is one which the Government is bearing in mind, including as we monitor the debate in the National Forum on Europe and elsewhere.
Just as we could not have simply turned to our partners after 7 June and instructed them to throw the Treaty of Nice in the rubbish bin, it would equally have been wrong and counterproductive – and ultimately, in practical terms, impossible – for us to have proceeded as if nothing significant had happened. For the truth is that what happened was a surprise and a shock – to the Government, to others on the "yes" side, and indeed, I believe, to some on the "no" side. It was certainly a grave disappointment to the other member states and to the applicant countries, so many of which looked to Ireland as a role model for small country success in the European Union. For many, it was this last aspect which was most extraordinary. Ireland is recognised throughout Europe as having made outstanding use of the opportunities offered to us by EU membership. In surveys, our people are consistently among the most positive in their assessment of the benefits of membership. These surveys also suggest a strong level of support for enlargement. For many, it was as if Europe's poster child had become the prodigal son.
In that situation, it was and remains essential to analyse what happened, to explore its immediate and deeper causes and to consider how to address the concerns which have been identified. It is more important to do things right than to do them quickly, bearing in mind that the deadline for ratification of Nice is the end of next year.
In the immediate aftermath of the vote, one thing upon which all commentators agreed was that there were multiple reasons for the "no" vote, and in many cases had little or nothing to do with enlargement or the Treaty of Nice itself. Another critical factor was, of course, the disap pointingly poor turnout. These initial impressions were broadly confirmed by the European Commission survey which appeared at the end of October. It revealed alarmingly high levels of public apathy and confusion about the treaty and about the European Union generally, which underlay both the abstention rate and the "no" vote. While this factor was statistically the most significant, specific fears were expressed about issues such as the alleged loss of national sovereignty, perceived threats to our policy of military neutrality and the power of large member states as against small. It was also apparent from the survey, as from the referendum itself, that most people had found the campaign lacklustre, uninspiring and uninformative. I am by the way amused, but not surprised, that Patricia McKenna, MEP, is so strongly opposed to any attempts to amend the legislation governing the Referendum Commission so as to improve the quality of debate and to enable the public to be better informed.
Given that such a range of issues contributed to the outcome of the referendum, what is needed in response is a comprehensive and multi-faceted approach which takes the time needed to work through the problems. The Government has adopted such an approach. The Nice treaty is, in itself, comparatively modest and insignificant in its content, though its purpose, enlargement, is deeply important. It has triggered a debate on the far wider question of Ireland in Europe. That is a debate which the Government is happy to have, and one we are confident which we, and others who are committed to Ireland's playing its full part in the Union, can and will win.
Even before the referendum, it had become clear that, just as the European Union itself is changing, so is Ireland's place within it. The Union itself has successively, over a series of treaties, broadened out the scope of its activities and concerns from the original socio-economic core. Ireland has gone from being one of the poorest and least developed members of the Union to one of the wealthiest and most economically dynamic. In any circumstances, this would make it necessary to reflect on our priorities and objectives within the Union. The Government had intended, even before the referendum, to establish a forum for this purpose. We saw that this would dovetail well with the broader future of Europe debate which is taking place within the Union, the next stage of which will be launched at the Laeken European Council this weekend.
I am happy to commend the forum for its work to date and to pay tribute to its participants and the skill, wisdom and dedication of its chairman, Senator Maurice Hayes, and its secretariat. I believe the forum is succeeding in its objective of fostering a broadly based and inclusive debate on the place of Ireland in an enlarging Union. The focus of the initial phase of its work has been on enlargement and in the short space of time it has been meeting, it has explored the issues with considerable thoroughness. The forum has heard from a number of candidate country representatives, and from experts on sectoral aspects such as agriculture, trade and investment, the environment and social policy. It has heard from those who support enlargement and the Union and from those who oppose both. Its structure has allowed parties and groupings represented in the Oireachtas to have their say and has also involved, through the special observer pillar, the social partners and other groups with a particular interest in EU matters. In the new year it will be travelling widely throughout the country building on last week's session in Cork.
Within the forum, and I understand the elements of this may usefully be drawn out, there has indeed been, as the Government would have hoped, a substantial consensus on the importance and desirability of enlargement. It would be valuable to have that message clearly underlined, in particular outside Ireland.
My one regret is that media coverage of the forum has so far not been equal to the importance of the issues it is addressing and the substance of the contribution it is making. I know, as do all of us in this House, that the dumbing down of the coverage of politics and public affairs is a wider problem, but I find it irritating that very often those who lecture us on the inadequacy of political debate themselves constitute a large part of the problem by failing to report on substantive discussion when it does take place.
That said, the value of the process so far has been two-fold. First, as indicated earlier, it has, in a systematic way, underscored the importance of enlargement and its potential benefits for Ireland while placing the challenges and potential risks in their proper context. I said to them at the time that this was not so, that the Government wanted open debate, that we were prepared, even at our own disadvantage, to skew the structure and procedures of the forum towards smaller groups and parties and that we were not interested in trying to establish an artificial consensus where none was possible. I said we would appoint a chairman who would be scrupulously fair.
Our good faith and sincerity have now been clearly demonstrated by how the forum has evolved and I hope that this will be acknowledged. At times I have heard it suggested that we have gone too far to appease the "no" side and that we have given it a privileged and undeserved platform from which to sustain its attack on the Union. My response to that is two-fold. First, whether we like it or not, more than half of those who voted in the referendum, albeit in a low turn-out, voted "no". It may well be that many of them do not necessarily share the views of those most active on the "no" side, whose direct mandates tend to be very limited. However, there is no point in pretending that the "no" vote did not happen or that it does not highlight real issues.
Second, there is a real debate under way and the way to win it is to take part in it actively and constructively, to make one's arguments as cogently as possible, and to refute those of one's opponents. That is what my colleagues and I are trying to do with others in the forum. We are arguing that enlargement is good for Ireland and for Europe and that committed membership of the EU will continue to be firmly in Ireland's economic and social interests into the future, just as everyone knows it has been so far. We are arguing that pooling sovereignty within the Union enhances Ireland's influence over the turbulent external environment in which it must operate and that we need European co-operation against crime through measures such as the European arrest warrant, which is to be debated in this House tomorrow. We are also arguing that small states have much more say within the EU than they would outside it, and that their role is protected by the treaties.
We are also addressing our opponents' untruths and exaggerations about the Treaty of Nice and about the Union. We are showing that the changes to be made by the Nice treaty are of a modest character and do not alter the fact that our relative position in the institutions will continue to be greatly in advance of what our population size alone would suggest. We are pointing out the facts about the Union's developing crisis management and humanitarian capacities and exploding the myths about a European army.
The EU is continuing to develop, with Ireland's support, its common foreign and security policy as a means of playing a greater role for peace, stability and security in Europe and in the wider world. A core element of this work is the framing of a security and defence policy to equip the Union to undertake humanitarian aid, conflict prevention and crisis management tasks as provided for in the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties. Against this background, Ireland is fully committed to the European security and defence policy and is playing an active role in the development of both its civilian and military aspects. In doing so, Ireland has the opportunity to play a constructive role in promoting peace and stability. If we have learnt anything from the horrific events of 11 September, it is the critical importance of co-operating to enhance the prospects for peace.
Our participation in European security and defence policy is in the full knowledge that it is consistent with Ireland's excellent record in UN peacekeeping. It is also fully in keeping with our foreign policy principles and objectives and takes account of the changing and more complex nature of peacekeeping. Involvement does not entail any mutual defence commitment and does not affect our position as a non-member of a military alliance. We are satisfied with developments in the security and defence area during the Belgian Presidency. The progress made, in both the civilian and military spheres, will be outlined in the presidency's report to the Laeken European Council.
My understanding is that Fine Gael shares this positive approach to Europe. The party needs to think again about its refusal to take its seats in the forum. While it will calculate where its own political interest lies, it is strange to see Fine Gael adopting an abstentionist posture. It would be in the broader national interest for the party to bring its views and opinions on these issues to the pro-European side in the forum. Fine Gael's perspective would strengthen the hands of all of us who wish to see the Nice treaty ratified and Ireland's position in Europe copperfastened. A place at the forum will be kept open for Fine Gael indefinitely, as it moves on from focusing on enlargement to debating wider Future of Europe issues.
Some of those who query the role of the forum place it in false opposition to the Oireachtas. That is unjustified. We need not limit or confine debate but should encourage it by every possible means. Debate in the forum complements and underpins that in the Dáil but does not replace it, as the debate on this motion demonstrates.
The Government is conscious that one of the most telling arguments in the Nice campaign – even if it had nothing to do with the treaty itself – was the allegation that the inadequacy of the role of the Oireachtas in scrutinising European business contributed to a substantial democratic deficit. We can all agree in this House and in the Seanad that Oireachtas scrutiny has not been as systematic or intense as it should have been, despite the good work of the Joint Committees on European Affairs and Foreign Affairs. In responding to the Labour Party's European Union Bill last June, I promised the Government would bring forward its own proposals in this area. Work has been continuing in my Department and at interdepartmental level since then, including a careful examination of practice in other member states. Simultaneously, the Whips' committee has been looking at proposals for reform of Oireachtas procedures and Standing Orders generally. I hope the Government will, early in the new year, be in a position to present a package of measures relating to the handling of EU business which will place Ireland among the Union's most advanced member states in this regard, while taking account of how negotiations in Brussels proceed.
The lesson I would draw from experience elsewhere is that a culture of dialogue and consultation between the Executive and the Legislature is as important as formal structures and procedures. This requires the investment of political will, energy and resources on both sides. The role of national Parliaments in the architecture of the Union is one of the subjects identified for further consideration in the future of Europe debate. This week's European Council will establish a convention to explore the options in relation to this and many other issues in advance of the Intergovernmental Conference to be held in 2004.
The Future of Europe process is an entirely separate exercise from the Treaty of Nice. In an ideal world we would not need to deal with both questions at the same time. The purpose of the Nice treaty is to make the minimum changes necessary for enlargement, while the Future of Europe debate is a broader one. As it happens, many of the issues which arose during the referendum campaign have much more to do with it than with the Nice treaty. To ratify the Nice treaty would not be to prejudge the outcome of the Future of Europe process. Its basic purpose is to address the sense of disconnection between Europe and the people by making the Union more transparent, intelligible, democratic, and closer to the people.
Second, while some sensationalist headlines might be generated from time to time, the reality is that nobody is contesting the fundamental primacy of the nation state as the basic building block of the European Union, now and into the future. What is involved is the possible improvement and development of existing arrangements, not the creation of some kind of federal super state. Third, having said that, we in Ireland should have the confidence to play an active and positive role in the convention and the eventual Intergovernmental Conference. The objectives of this exercise – such as the simplification of the treaties or greater clarity about who is responsible for what within the Union – may in practice not be easily achieved but they are in our interests and in the interests of all who care about the Union and popular support for it. The future of Europe debate has the potential to address many of the concerns which arose during the Nice treaty referendum campaign.
I reiterate my and the Government's appreciation for this motion. It is imperative that the steps necessary to allow enlargement continue be taken, whether in Brussels, in the member states or in the candidate countries. We in Ireland have a specific role to play. The Government is acutely conscious of the obligations upon us but the sensitivity, complexity and importance of the issues involved require us to be measured, careful and comprehensive in our response. I urge all those who support Ireland's full engagement in Europe to play their part, with us, in doing what is needed to make enlargement possible.