We now come to the question of the facilities available to the committee and members of the European Parliament. The position is that the European Economic Community committee sought a large staff of 14. This request was so out of line with what I thought reasonable that the Minister for Finance decided a study should be carried out to find out what, in fact, are the needs of the Committee. My original thinking was that if they had a staff of five, including two people allocated to help the members of the European Parliament, they would, by the standards of this House, be very well staffed and the position could be reviewed after a certain length of time if that staff proved inadequate to cope. The committee in their wisdom chose to look for a staff of 14. The Minister for Finance reacted, understandably, by saying that he could not agree to this without a study being carried out. In the meantime the committee has a staff of two. The study commenced on 12th February and is expected to be completed in the next few weeks. I regret the delay. Whether the committee handled it wisely or well is a matter about which the House will have to make up its mind. By making a claim for a staff of 14 they created problems for themselves instead of solving them. No doubt the committee have a different view on this. I hope the study will show what the needs are and that they will be quickly met.
I am particularly concerned that members of the European Parliament who have spoken in this House are unhappy with the service they are getting. This hold-up is connected with the staffing of the committee. It seemed to me that the two problems could best be tackled as one and the staff serving the European Parliament delegation, who are all members of the committee, should be closely associated with the secretariat of that committee. Perhaps that was a mistake and the two problems should have been tackled separately. It would have been better if the needs of the delegates had been tackled separately. That, of course, is speaking with hindsight.
The present secretariat have the duty of keeping the European Parliament delegates and members of the committee informed. It may be that the staff of two are not in a position to do this adequately. I would not be surprised if that were the case.
The staff of my Department are available to assist in matters of policy. It would be an improper use of my staff for them to be substituted for the work of the secretariat of the committee in providing factual data to members. Members are entitled to guidance on policy from all Departments and that will be given by officials and, where necessary, by Ministers. If members of the European Parliament wish to see me at some stage to discuss policy issues I am always available for that purpose. I will be glad to help any way I can within the limits of time available. I wonder if the position will ever be completely satisfactory if they have to handle all this themselves and take the initiative in seeking information and guidance in policy without having research assistance for that purpose. I am sympathetic with the points made in this House by members of the European Parliament. If I were a member of the European Parliament I am sure I would share their sense of frustration. I will do everything I can to ensure that they are given the necessary assistance to carry out their work, if they are not being put in a position to do that work as effectively as we would like to have it done. We have a responsibility to see to that and I will do anything I can to help to get that problem resolved as rapidly as possible. If it is partly my fault that their problems have become tied up with those of the committee I am sorry in retrospect that I ever suggested that the two should be brought together in that way though at the time it seemed a reasonable suggestion. I hope we can help them to resolve these problems.
The House, in my view, has been impressed by what it has heard about the problems they face. I am aware of the strain there must be on these Deputies in travelling. Whatever burden of travel I have it is worse for them, they have more travelling to do than I. I do not seem ever to travel in a plane in the general direction of Brussels, Luxembourg, and Strasbourg without meeting Deputies going backwards or forwards. They have not the advantage a Minister has of having staff available to him. Even their travel is sometimes more difficult than it is for a Minister whose path is often smoothed in various ways en route.
The problem of coping with the unfamiliar procedure of another Parliament, the linguistic problems, which the Deputies face are all very serious and are aggravated by problems such as the inadequacy of the telephone link with Europe and the fact that they do not seem to get Irish daily newspapers until some days later with the result that they are out of touch with what is happening at home. All these create serious problems for them and it is the duty of this House. and the Government, to give them every assistance they can in carrying out their very difficult task. This debate, which has been useful in many ways, has been particularly useful in highlighting these problems and in putting pressure on us all to get them resolved to the satisfaction of the Deputies concerned.
The points made by Deputies about linguistic problems are certainly valid. There is no doubt that we are not well equipped for this purpose. None of us really has the range of languages which is necessary to be 100 per cent effective in this multi-lingual environment. I share the sense of frustration of Deputies in this. I have no German and I find myself from time to time at meetings where the informal discussions are carried on in German. It is a case of either having to switch to English for my benefit, which may inhibit the conversation somewhat, or else I am left unable to know what is being said. Other Deputies have similar problems with French.
This does leave us at a disadvantage and Deputies have stressed the importance of developing our educational system so that it is normal for educated Irish people to have a fluency in foreign languages like French and German as it is normal for most of the educated nationals of these countries. Those Deputies are right to stress this need.
Deputy Thornley mentioned the problem posed for all countries in Europe by multi-national companies and their activities. This is something of which we have been rendered more conscious by the energy crisis. I support Deputy Thornley in what he said on this. We supported the initiative of the Danish Government in asking to have this matter studied within the Community framework and in Washington we also supported and pressed, for the inclusion of studies of the activities of multi-nationals as part of the work to be undertaken arising out of the Washington energy conference. This is something about which European countries generally are concerned. It was not listed by the United States amongst the topics to be considered and we had the job of ensuring that it was added as an eighth item to the list of seven topics they had mentioned and ensuring that it was not narrowed down because there was proposal that one should only look at the future activities of multi-nationals. The European countries at Washington were not prepared to accept that and that proposed limitation was removed by agreement.
We are pressing that this matter should be studied at expert level, not merely studied by the co-ordinating group itself at a level of generality. I can assure Deputy Thornley that both in relation to the energy crisis and the general European industrial situation we are concerned to ensure that multi-national companies have to act in a transparent manner so that the Governments in the countries in which they are operating know what they are doing and they have to carry their fair share of taxation and that they do not become a power over and above and beyond that of Governments.
I should now like to come to the question of regional policy. Deputy O'Kennedy raised this matter in a somewhat contentious way when he spoke. He was critical of our handling of regional policy and I should like to take up what he said because I think that in his mind there was a certain amount of chronological confusion. He said that I was at fault—I am referring to Volume 269 of the Official Report, column 710, of the 29th November—because this country was aware of rumours and suggestions and I did not state my position in the House or take Members into my confidence or get public opinion behind me until it was too late. Deputy O'Kennedy said then that if I could give evidence of statements made during that period he would be glad to acknowledge it. That is the fault he imputed to me. For himself he spoke about Fianna Fáil convening a special meeting during the summer break to make a statement on the matter. He referred to the arguments which they put forward in August. Later, in response to an interjection, he referred to the Fianna Fáil statement appearing in the Press sometime in late August.
The picture painted by Deputy O'Kennedy is that of a negligent Minister for Foreign Affairs idling away his time on other matters from May to September while in August a vigilant Fianna Fáil Party, aware of the rumours and reports circulating in Europe, took action in the matter to alert the country to the problems facing Ireland in regard to the regional policy. It is a dramatic picture, it is an attractive picture from an Opposition point of view, but it is unfortunately based on several chronological errors which totally invalidate it.
The fact is that the Fianna Fáil meeting which Deputy O'Kennedy twice described as having taken place in August took place on Thursday, 13th September, and the statement issued was reported in The Irish Times of 14th September. The vigilance of the Fianna Fáil Party was not such apparently as to note the statement I issued on 24th July. Deputy O'Kennedy said that I said nothing and if there was any evidence of statements he would be glad to hear about it. It would have been a little better if the Fianna Fáil Party had noted the statement I issued to the Press on 24th July and, having taken a leisurely 7½ weeks to consider that statement, it would have been a good thing if they had taken an account of that in the statement they issued 7½ weeks later.
The statement I issued arose when these rumours developed for the first time, rumours to the effect that the July proposals of the Commission, due to come out at the end of July, would not, in fact, reflect the thinking of the Commission which we endorsed and found satisfactory in its document in the month of May. The first rumours to that effect appeared in the Press on a day when the Council of Ministers was meeting in Brussels. They were drawn to my attention immediately. Before that meeting ended, and without any delay I personally drafted a statement, had it typed and issued it to the Press. This is the statement which was issued on that date:
My attention has been drawn to speculation in the Press in regard to the possible size of the EEC regional fund and the extent to which Ireland might expect to benefit from it.
It is my understanding that the Commission has not yet decided what it will propose to the Council of Ministers in this matter. The position, of course, following the normal Community procedure is that the Commission will make proposals in due course and that the Council of Ministers will then make the necessary decision.
Regional policy is concerned with the transfer of adequate resources from richer to less developed areas in order to promote a balanced economic evolution in the Community as a whole. This was particularly emphasised at the summit meeting of heads of State or of Government last October, which said that resources of the fund must be such that, co-ordinated with national resources they would correct the principal regional imbalances in the enlarged Community during the course of the development of the economic and monetary union, namely by 1980.
I am convinced that the Council Minister will carry out this mandate of the summit meeting which would, of course, imply a transfer of resources to Ireland far greater than the relatively negligible sum mentioned in Irish newspaper reports.
When the matter comes to the Council, I shall, if proposals are made by the Commission, which fall short of the summit decision, make absolutely clear the Irish Government's position in respect to this commitment of the summit.
A proper regional policy is a vital interest to Ireland, whose operation on an adequate scale would be a necessary pre-condition of progress towards the achievement of economic and monetary union.
I do not think I could have acted with greater speed. Within a couple of short hours of the rumours being published, I had this statement issued sounding a note of warning to the Commission on the proposals they might adopt if the proposals being put to them took the form mentioned in the newspaper reports, the first newspaper reports on the subject.
The promptitude of my reaction was in somewhat marked contrast with the leisurely process by which Fianna Fáil over a period of seven and a half weeks considered the matter and finally issued a statement on 13th September. For Deputy O'Kennedy to tell this House that I said nothing between May and September, and that Fianna Fáil issued a statement in August is, with respect, the height of impertinence. It is such a travesty of facts that it is something which one would not normally expect to be done by a responsible Member of the Opposition. No doubt if Deputy O'Kennedy were here he would say he forgot that it was in September and not in August he issued his statement, that he was unaware of the fact that I had issued a statement, and that when he denounced me for not doing so he had not got around to checking.
That is not the way a responsible Opposition act. Criticisms of this kind on the handling of a matter by the Government should be more firmly founded on fact than the fiction put forward by Deputy O'Kennedy here on 29th November. I am sorry I have had to wait three months to put the record right. Unfortunately, the debate—a good and useful debate—was broken by the Christmas interval and is taking place now at the end of February. I did not have the opportunity in that time to put things right. I hope the Press will give the same publicity to the facts about this as was given to the travesty of the facts put forward by Deputy O'Kennedy in the debate on 29th November.
On the question of regional policy there are several other things I should like to say. First of all, I think from the debate there is some confusion about the nature of a regional policy. Deputies seem to have an impression that the European Commission will start new schemes in certain parts of the country, pumping large sums of money in which were not previously being pumped in. That is not the nature of this scheme. What this scheme does is to aid and assist financially member governments with schemes they operate. We have in existence schemes of this kind because, on the one hand, we have grants given to industry from our own financial resources and, on the other hand, the State provides infrastructure for industrial and tourist development in various parts of the country.
What the Regional Fund will do will be to reimburse us for part of these costs, thereby enabling us to pursue these policies more extensively and on a larger scale. The question of where this extension takes place and how we reorientate our policy towards particular parts of the country is entirely a matter for us. It is up to this Government to decide that, given the increase in resources coming to us by way of reimbursement of the existing pattern of expenditure, we will first enlarge this expenditure by at least the amount of the additional aid given and secondly reorientate it towards part of the country where the need is greatest.
We will, of course, be claiming money back in respect of grants given. If grants are given in County Wicklow for industry, or in County Louth, we will put in our claim for reimbursement of the share of industrial grants in these cases just as we will in the west. If Deputies are thinking that we will be operating this scheme in relation to the west only they are wrong. We must operate it in respect of anywhere we give assistance or grants, and are entitled to get the money back. We have to get the maximum amount of money back.
When we get the money it means that our expenditure on these schemes, industrial grants and infrastructure for industrial and tourist development, will be relieved by that amount. We will be enabled therefore to extend these schemes and have them on a larger scale. In doing that we must re-direct our policy towards the west and north-west, neglected for so long under Fianna Fáil, and ensure that there is an adequate regional development programme in those areas which there has not been for the past 16 years. We must use Irish money made available by the relief of the existing Irish schemes in all parts of the country to operate an adequate and generous regional policy in the west and the north-west.
Deputies should be clear that that is how the scheme works. It is in reimbursement of existing expenditure by us in every part of the country. thereby releasing resources enabling us to put a bigger effort into the areas that really need it. It is we who decide that. If the regional policy adopted in two or three years time is regarded as unsatisfactory, there is no alibi for us in the EEC. We will be responsible for the policy as to where the money goes, not the EEC. That must be clearly said. It is up to us in Government to prepare an adequate regional policy and use the extra resources made available by the reimbursement of Irish expenditure throughout the whole country to have an adequate regional programme in the west and north-west. That is what we propose to do.
When people ask have we schemes ready, there is misunderstanding. It is the existing schemes in operation which will be reimbursed. My worry is not that the scale of our existing industrial grant and infrastructure provisions will not be sufficient to claim back the amount of money allocated to us. My worry is to the contrary: that the way in which this policy has evolved and the proportion of the money which is to be allocated to countries with much lesser needs than ours is such that the total sum available will not be sufficient to reimburse the level of activity and will not bring us sufficient extra money to enable us to do what we need to do in the parts of the country which have been so long neglected under the previous Government. I am glad to have the opportunity of making clear, I hope, how the Regional Fund works. It is important that people should be clear on this.
On the question of our attitude to the fund I am glad to have the opportunity of explaining to the House the stage we have reached. The position is that the scheme as put forward in July by the Commission allocated virtually half the total resources in effect to Britain and France. The Commissioner for Regional Policy has on a number of occasions—quite bluntly and frankly, it must be said—explained this allocation in terms of political need and the need to take account of political reality.
It is our view that while the European Commission must be conscious of political reality and must not put forward starry-eyed proposals which are not capable of securing support it is wrong for them to have such regard for political so-called reality as to produce a scheme which is unrelated to genuine need in Europe for a regional policy. We do not accept that the scheme as put forward was adequately designed for this purpose. The fact that half the money was, in effect, allocated to Britain and France—two countries which are not among the poorest in Europe, nor are they the countries which have the major problems—meant so far as we were concerned that the scheme was basically wrongly designed.
Our criticism of it on those grounds has, I am afraid, been upheld in an unfortunate way in that the German Government share this view so strongly that they are not prepared to provide the sums of money necessary to provide a fund twice as large, roughly, as what is needed to deal with the problems of Ireland and Italy and certain areas of difficulty like Greenland, in order to hand over funds to their great commercial rivals Britain and France.
So, this triangular conflict has evolved with the British Government anxious to have a Regional Fund out of which Britain would get a large sum of money to help to persuade public opinion that the EEC is a more attractive proposition economically than British public opinion now thinks it is; the French Government anxious to ensure that France should not secure from the fund anything less than Britain; and the German Government unwilling to subsidise on this scale their great commercial rivals Britain and France. That is a triangle which it is our job to flatten into a straight line of some kind, but it is very difficult to flatten it into a straight line, just as it is difficult to square a circle.
In December at a meeting of the Council of Ministers I made a proposal designed as far as possible to reconcile these conflicting points of view. I had already put forward a proposal showing what we would seek from the fund if it were on the scale proposed by the European Commission, that is, 2,250 million units of account over a three year period. In December, faced with this conflict, in an attempt to resolve it I put forward a compromise proposal which had three features. First, it managed to do what was necessary with a fund 600 million units of account smaller than that proposed by the Commission thereby going a long way—I felt far enough, but apparently it was not the view of the German Government—to meet the viewpoint of the German Government, a fund of 1,650 million units of account. It provided the same net benefit to Italy and the United Kingdom as the original fund so the net transfer—that is the gross transfer less the gross contribution to the fund— to those two countries would be approximately the same as the Commission proposed, and the net transfer to Ireland would be twice what the Commission had proposed because the Commission's proposal in the case of Ireland was grossly inadequate.
That proposal was received as a useful contribution to the debate. Unfortunately, it did not receive the endorsement of Germany as regards the sum of money. Germany is not yet willing to give a sum of that magnitude. However, the proposal was well received as a compromise of compromises, showing what could be done with a smaller fund than the Commission had proposed and providing equal benefits for Britain and Italy and substantially greater for us. It made clear what we thought appropriate in the Irish instance.
In that debate there was a clear acceptance by the President of the Council of Ministers and by Commissioner Thomson that the Irish case was a special case that needed special treatment. The case we put forward, that every part of Ireland is a region in need of aid, that we have no part of the country from which to draw resources and, therefore, unlike all the other member countries we are in a unique position and require additional aid beyond what any so-called objective criteria may seem to show, was accepted in principle by the President of the Council and by Commissioner Thomson; it was not demurred at or disagreed with by representatives of any other country present.
That is not to say that the proposal I made for the doubling of the Irish share was accepted but only that the principle was accepted, that whichever of the various systems of criteria were applied they would need adjustment to give Ireland more than the amount that would emerge from the different criteria because of our special need.
Unfortunately, agreement has not been reached on the Regional Fund. The German Government have not been willing to provide a sum of 1,650 million units of account. It is arithmetically impossible to give to the United Kingdom and Italy similar net benefits and to give to Ireland the additional benefits we need out of a smaller fund. The conflict remains between the German Government who are only willing to provide a smaller sum, the British Government who are anxious to ensure that the net benefit to them will be as great as the Commission proposed, the French Government anxious to ensure that their net contribution to the fund will not be unduly enlarged beyond the very small figure proposed by the Commission, the Italian Government trying to ensure that they get at least what the Commission proposed, and the Irish Government trying to ensure we get additional assistance over and above what the Commission proposed.
The conflict between these interests is not easy to resolve. The division in the Community at the Washington energy conference has not helped the situation because it led immediately to the postponement of the meeting on 18th February of the Council of Ministers at which regional policy was to be discussed. I cannot bring the House any further on this at this time. As there has not been a meeting of the Council of Ministers since the Washington conference it is not clear what is the mood of the different countries or what are the prospects of getting agreement on this or any other Community policy. I shall be attending Council of Ministers meetings on Monday and Tuesday next, preceded by a meeting of the Political Committee of Foreign Ministers discussing political co-operation. After that we will have a clearer picture of the mood of the Community in the post-Washington period, of the extent to which member countries regard as very serious the conflict that arose in the Community, or the extent to which they show a desire to smooth over those difficulties, to re-establish the unity of the Community, unhappily broken at the Washington conference.
At this stage I cannot express to the House any views on the speed with which we will resolve the question of regional policy or the likely terms. I can only say this—it is important that it be said—unless proposals emerge that are significantly more favourable to this country, particularly in terms of the percentage share of the fund and also the absolute sum of money involved, than that put forward by the Commission it will not be possible for the Irish Government to accept the proposals. There should not be any doubt in anyone's mind on this point. It would not be to our advantage to agree to a regional policy on the lines proposed by the Commission. If necessary—I hope it will not be necessary—it is better that we put a spoke in the wheel at this stage, insist that the matter be further considered and a more genuine regional policy emerge, better designed to reach the needs of countries like Ireland and Italy, than to accept a scheme that would relegate us to a position of relative insignificance in terms of benefits from the scheme which should have been designed primarily for countries such as Ireland and Italy.
At this stage I cannot tell the House if there will be a regional policy or if there are proposals put forward which we could accept. I cannot tell the House that it may not be necessary in the ultimate analysis for this country to use its veto if a proposal unsatisfactory to us is put forward and accepted by other countries. All this remains ahead of us; perhaps we will have a clearer idea by Tuesday night on where we stand.
There were other general questions raised with which I should like to deal. Deputy Wilson wondered if economic and monetary union would suit us. This is a question that is not susceptible of a simple answer. In one sense, not only would it suit us but something of the kind is essential for us. Unless there is a monetary union involving fixed parties of currencies the CAP will remain at the mercy of parity shifts between member countries. We will remain in the position of being unable to get the full benefit of the CAP because of changes in parities and the operation of monetary compensation adjustments, such as exist as present. Already we are in the position where the effective value of the unit of account is quite different from what it was when fixed for the purposes of the CAP and we are losing significant sums in terms of domestic purchasing power as a result. So long as the Community remain at the mercy of these parity shifts, as long as there is not a monetary union strong enough to withstand shocks and sure enough to maintain the parties of the different currencies as fixed, the CAP will have an element of insecurity and it will not bring the benefits to the farmers of this country that it should bring.
More than anyone else, except possibly France, we have an interest in the coming into existence of a monetary union. At the same time, we must recognise that if a monetary union evolved in the immediate future, without an adequate regional policy to help us to accept the strains that would be imposed on our economy, it could create great problems for us. We want to see a strong, worthwhile regional union that will ensure the survival and success of the CAP. To secure these two aims in that order are the principal economic objectives of Ireland in the Community.
At the same time, in examining the approaches made by other countries to the question of monetary union it seems to me at times that other countries who have not had our experience in the past 50 years of operating a de facto monetary union are not totally clear about the implications of such a union or on the steps necessary to achieve it. Last April, at the Council of Ministers, I endeavoured to draw the attention of other Minister to this, to point out to them that some of the thinking behind the monetary union proposals is, in economic terms, simpliste, and dangerously so. I have endeavoured to point out that the achievement of monetary union can be secured only if the economies of member countries and their institutional structures in terms of wage negotiations, for example, are assimilated to each other. So long as member countries have different rates of inflation, deriving from totally separate processes of wage and salary bargaining, not even influenced by each other through a lack of transparency brought about by the different currency units, so long as that situation exists it will be difficult to maintain parity between currencies.
We hope to make a contribution to thinking on monetary union, to deepen that thinking and to make it a little more sophisticated. We hope to use the experience we have had from a de facto monetary union for the last 50 years in order to contribute to the evolution of monetary union in Europe that will protect the CAP. By helping in that educational process we hope there will be a regional policy strengthening our economy and enabling it to stand up to the pressures and shocks to which it will be subject within a monetary union. That is the best answer I can give in a tentative way to the question posed by Deputy Wilson on monetary union.
Deputy O'Kennedy raised a question about political co-operation in the Community. Here again Deputy O'Kennedy betrayed some confusion of thought. He seemed to think this was something completely new, in which this Government had become involved. He said "Most of us were surprised to know of these consultations". These are consultations referred to in page 7 of the report where reference is made to the fact that a wide range of topics has been discussed by this political committee, consultations in the field of foreign policy and so on. He said "Most of us were surprised to know of these consultations" and went on to imply that this was something new which had not existed previously. I am surprised at this because the fact is that these consultations are something which have existed in the Community for many years past. Indeed, before we joined the Community the then Government participated in these discussions and there were two meetings attended by Dr. Hillery, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, on the 26-27 May, 1972, and on 20-21 November, 1972. At these meetings discussions took place on the Middle East, Mediterranean policy, the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Paris Summit both before it and after it in terms of what action might be taken after it in the political sphere.
The previous Government therefore were deeply engaged in these consultations at that time, including consultation on the Middle East. Deputy O'Kennedy talks as if this is something completely new and expresses some concern as to whether this may affect our position as a non-aligned country in relation to foreign policy. He asks was there not at least an awareness that a precedent was being established here in discussing the Middle East. No precedent was being established. Dr. Hillery established the precedent in discussing the Middle East on 26-27 May and 21st November, 1972. We have been following in the path he trod and happy to do so and happy to continue to do so also in future.
The fact is that the member countries of the EEC have been engaged for a good while past in trying to co-ordinate their foreign policy. I cannot say that they have had very much success in the sense that deep divergences still exist, divergences of foreign policy which became especially apparent in relation to the Middle East crisis, when the divergent sympathies of member countries led them to take up perceptibly different positions. However, on 6th November, 1973, meeting together, the Foreign Ministers sought to reconcile these divergences and to take a common line on the Middle East. This we did. This posed no difficulty for us because the common line consisted in making a stand on Resolution 242 of the United Nations and that is something which we had supported from the beginning. So, we were happy to support this initiative. Indeed, I can say that in the July meeting on political co-operation in Copenhagen the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs asked that the question of the Middle East be discussed and we supported that. Unfortunately, this proposal of Italy and Ireland to discuss the Middle East did not secure support. No such discussion took place and it was because of that that the nine countries found themselves at the outbreak of the Middle East war in a position of confusion as to their position and I regret very much that the Italian/Irish initiative of July was not followed up at that time.
Far from being fearful that these foreign policy consultations might involve us in something that would not be in our interests, I feel the contrary —that if there were more consultations and more co-operation and if we were able to hammer out some kind of agreement it would be much more in the interests of this country and of Europe as a whole. It is the lack of co-operation that I regret rather than the efforts to achieve co-operation.
These divergences in attitudes to foreign policy issues have, of course, found expression elsewhere. In the Washington Energy Conference there was notable divergence of approach between the French Government and other governments. Our purpose at that conference was above all to maintain the unity of the Community and we worked with the other Governments in putting forward compromise proposals and trying to secure agreement to an approach which could be acceptable both to France and to the other governments, some of them concerned to conciliate the American position and not to find themselves in conflict with the United States.
We failed, but it was not for the want of trying. It is fair to say that Ireland played a more active part at that conference in seeking conciliation and agreement than any other country. If agreement was not found within the Community it was. I am afraid, because it could not be found, not because an effort was not made to find it.
Of course, the countries of the Nine are countries with very divergent historical traditions. It is not perhaps surprising that they should have difficulty in reaching agreement. We ourselves with our tradition of resisting colonial rule obviously view things somewhat differently from some of the other members who still tend to think in terms that represent a throw-back to some degree to the period when they were colonial powers. Obviously, reconciling these attitudes takes time. Between these former colonial powers there are rivalries deriving from their past history and between the European countries which were not colonial powers there are historical differences. Some had bitter experiences of Nazi persecution. Some suffered terribly. Some were countries in which the Jewish community suffered terribly during the war and whose populations therefore retain to this day an understandable and wholly laudable sense of obligation to the Jewish people, and this finds its reflection to some degree in their foreign policy. Other countries who did not suffer in that particular way, who had not this acute experience of the horror of Nazi persecution of the Jews, see the Middle East war more in terms of the interests of the states there today rather than in terms of what happened in Europe 25 years ago. It is inevitable that these different historical experiences—still vivid in the minds of people who are in charge of foreign policy in these countries and still vivid in the mind of public opinion in these countries—should have a reflection in different attitudes on policy issues like the Middle East.
It will not be easy for a Community of countries with such extraordinarily different histories to conciliate these differences and arrive at a common viewpoint. Yet if it falls to do so the European Economic Community may find it very hard to build into something firmly established, because as an economic community it is going to require for its full evolution as an economic and monetary union a governmental structure of a federal kind. Unless we can arrive at that, some of the great gains, such as the common agricultural policy, may find it hard to survive; yet if we are to arrive at that kind of governmental structure such a federation must have a common foreign policy, must be able to get over historical differences of the past and arrive at a common viewpoint.
The purpose of this political committee is to do this, not by any country riding roughshod over others but discussing and debating together and trying to build on what is common to us as nine European countries undergoing a similar experience in the European Economic Community. That is our task. It is a vitally important task. It is one in which we can play a role and our role is perhaps in some ways an unique one as the only member which is not a member of NATO. But for our presence there the meetings of the political committee would be meetings of countries all members of NATO, all sharing and participating in NATO meetings—in fact the political co-ordination committee could become, without our presence, almost a NATO working group. That it cannot do when we are there because we are not involved in NATO. The tendency of some countries at times to forget the forum they are in is something that we are there to correct and to ensure that the Community does not evolve as an element of NATO but evolves independently and evolves its own foreign policy separate from and apart from the NATO framework.
The most dramatic expression of this divergence arising from the presence of Ireland is in relation to the two declarations that the United States Government sought to have agreed with Europe in the year 1973 and early 1974. Some other countries might have been able to agree to a single declaration had NATO and the EEC been concentric and not overlapping circles but, of course, as we are not a member of NATO we cannot subscribe to a declaration which has defence elements in it involving us and therefore there are two declarations and not one. Other countries also for different reasons prefer that there should be two and it is because we are members that it becomes essential that there should be two declarations rather than one and our presence is helping to maintain the distinction between the European Economic Community and the European end of NATO—a distinction which could otherwise be overlooked at times if membership of the EEC comprised only members of NATO.
And so our role is in its own way quite an important and active one, in which we try to secure not just our own interests but the interests of Europe as a whole and indeed the interests of world peace. So much for the foreign policy side.
I want now to make some general comments in conclusion on the Community and where it is going. First of all, it is worth remarking about this debate how little, I think nothing, was said about the kind of fears people had when we joined the Community and when we debated it at the referendum. The fact is that it has not brought urban unemployment on the scale that some people feared. The debate has been about being within the Community and we have been fortunate in that we have not carried on the referendum debate when it is no longer relevant. It was relevant at the time: it was vitally necessary the issues should be disclosed to the Irish people, that all the possible dangers should be seen so that they could be taken into account in the decision taken.
Where we have the great advantage over Great Britain is that we had a referendum and the issue was settled. Having been settled, we can now have a debate here on the real issues of the Community and how it works. We are not going over the old ground again and again as is being done in Britain, and in this respect our political system has proved better than the British system. We have got the EEC debate out of our system. We have been able to spend this year working constructively within the Community without having to look over our shoulders all the time. I think it is a pity that the British political system did not permit a referendum of this kind. On the other hand, perhaps if they had a referendum they might not have joined and that might have created problems for us. Certainly, from our point of view this debate has been a far more constructive one than a similar debate would be at this time in the House of Commons.
On the future of the Community, no one looking at it realistically could be happy with the situation today. It is interesting to try to analyse why we are in these difficulties. It seems to me there are several aspects to this problem. First of all, there is the fact that Britain has not been a wholehearted member during the past year, that British Ministers have had constantly to look over their shoulders at British public opinion, that they have had, for example, in relation to regional policy, to make it appear much more important and valuable than it ever could be to Britain. This has made it more difficult within the Community to reach agreement on new policies than would otherwise have been the case.
There is also the fact that the French Government have not, it seems, been able to work out a completely coherent policy on their internal relations in the Community and their external relations with the US. The French Government more than other Governments in the Community are conscious of the dangers to European independence vis-à-vis the United States and are anxious that Europe should be independent of the US and not be unduly dominated by the US—that is something which all of us share, all of us being in full friendship with the US with whom all our countries are closely linked: we wish Europe to have an identity of its own and to stand on its own feet as far as possible and we hope it will be possible to a greater degree in the years ahead.
The French Government have been particularly concerned about this, and we respect this concern and to some degree share it, as all member countries do in one way or another. At the same time, the French Government have not drawn what I would think of as a logical conclusion: that if Europe is to stand on its own feet vis-à-vis the US, if it is to be more independent of the US, it must first become more united; it must be brought together in a much closer union than exists at present; it must have a much more effective, decision-making system and it must achieve both in the political and economic spheres a much greater unity of purpose and of the ideas than it has now. If this conclusion had been reached by the French Government, they have pursued this in the Community in a way that would have produced the kind of results in terms of positive progress that were needed within the last year. It is this, as it appears, ambivalence in the French policy that has held up progress in pursuing European unity.
Then there is the case of Germany. There is a country which has become suddenly conscious of the fact that because of the structure of Community policy, because of the pattern of wealth in the Community, because of the relative importance and role of different countries, it is paying a very high proportion of the costs of the Community, and German public opinion is becoming resistant to paying more and more, yet it does not see the progress towards greater European union which German public opinion genuinely favour. So you have on the part of Germany a reaction against the lack of progress which now, in the matter of regional policy in particular, is contributing to lack of progress.
There are, therefore, on the part of all three major countries special problems which have come to the fore in the past year and have prevented the Community making the progress that we in this country would like to see. Our role can only be a small one but it will always be a constructive role. Because we are outside some of the interplay of power politics, because our rightful interests are limited in scope— they are very important to us but they arise only in very specific areas—we are in a position sometimes to see more clearly perhaps than some of the major powers and we are free to make a contribution towards the reconciliation of differences and to put forward constructive proposals as to how difficulties may be overcome.
That is the task we have been trying to pursue in the past year. Whatever view there may have been of Ireland a year ago, within the Community today among the various member governments, officials and informed public opinion nobody is in any doubt as to whether Ireland is some kind of British satellite, brought in with Britain and backing the British view regardless. In fact on many issues our views and those of Britain diverge markedly. What people know is that Ireland is a communitarian member— to use a curious adjective imported into the English language by the French—that we are genuinely concerned for the survival and success of the Community, that we adhere to our Community obligations, that we can be relied on to be constructive, not ever to abandon our vital national interests and that, subject to that limitation, we can be relied on to play a constructive role, a European role.
I think we have in this past year won ourselves some respect in the Community on that account. That respect is worthwhile in its own right, for its own sake, for a country like us. It also has, even in the crudest commercial terms, a cash value. When we come to press a matter where our vital interests are at stake, the fact that we have made a positive and constructive contribution will help us. This has been the case in regional policy.
When I in September toured the European capitals to put across the Irish viewpoint, to explain why as we saw it there is a special problem for Ireland that required special treatment, I met with great sympathy in the various capitals. That sympathy has since then been translated into support at various degrees of activeness for our proposals and our approach to regional policy in the Community that we would not have secured had we not been able to go there as representatives of a country playing an active and useful part in the Community.
If the day ever comes when all the Irish representatives in Europe do is to look for more money here and more money there and new schemes to assist us somewhere else, then we will not even secure that limited objective, because our credibility will have disappeared. The fact is that we are beneficiaries of the Community on a large scale. Quite apart from the benefits to agriculture, the Exchequer benefited last year by more than £50 million. Within a year or two that figure will exceed £100 million, a sum we would otherwise have to find from taxation or borrowing at home.
These are important benefits. We are net beneficiaries and we will remain beneficiaries only so as long as we make a positive contribution in the sphere of Community policies, so that people feel it is worthwhile contributing something to have the Irish there, so that they will not resent the fact that we got out far more than we put it. It is our job in presenting the Irish case and in representing Ireland in the Community to ensure that that is the impression we leave with the people we meet, that that is the impression the European people have of Ireland. In that way and in that way alone will we secure both our own national interests and the interests of Europe.
