Deputy Michael Higgins was in possession when the debate adjourned and he has 18 minutes left.
European Council Meeting: Statements (Resumed).
Before the adjournment I had complimented the staff of the Department of Foreign Affairs in relation to the logistics involved in the recent Council meeting to which the Taoiseach's statement refers. That having been said and listening this morning to the statements of the Taoiseach and of the Minister for Foreign Affairs I cannot but confess to having been somewhat alarmed by the looseness and, indeed, the dangerous nature of the language on occasion. What I mean by the looseness of the language, is that the summit having dealt with the twin developments of German unification and of European political union, the statements did not, in any sense, attempt to define political union or the procedures by which political union might be discussed either in this House or among the public.
It appears that we are to have a rerun of the unaccountable, the undemocratic, the uninformed mass of nonsense that surrounded the Single European Act debate in this country. Neither did it define such key concepts as security, yet it made some tendentious reference to a future role in relation to participation by Ireland in different fora which might discuss a changed role for Ireland. It slid over the issue of neutrality, in fact it avoided it altogether. I want to set the record straight in this regard in view of the fact that one of the Opposition spokespersons, Deputy Barry, in his reported statement on RTÉ, which diverges slightly from the speech I heard in this House this morning, spoke about the time being ripe now to question Irish neutrality. We heard the suggestion that people had not debated Irish neutrality in the past and that our definition of it was somehow incomplete. I am weary of the intellectual dishonesty of the suggestion that neutrality has not been debated by political parties in this country. The Labour Party have consistently published their position in relation to neutrality, and I will say a little more about that in a few moments.
For the record — and let members of Fine Gael please read it — James Connolly argued for neutrality during World War I. The Labour Party participated in the anti-conscription strike which was the first such action within the Labour movement in Europe. At the 1919 Berne International Labour Conference a Labour delegation led by Tom Johnson submitted a memorandum which committed the Irish workers to "maintain these principles of peace, anti-militarism and opposition to war which are the crowning glories of the labour and socialist movement". In 1928 at the Second Commonwealth Labour and Trade Union Conference in London the Labour Party again made a submission and I quote:
... it is not unreasonable to fear that Great Britain may again become involved in wars....in the case of such an event it would seem unquestionable that some, at least, of the other states .... would desire to be acknowledge as free from responsibility and immune from attack .... so long as they maintained neutrality.
My precedessor as Chairman of the Labour Party, Michael Keyes, in 1941 in a major statement said:
As a neutral country we have no war aims to declare. But neutrality in itself is an important aim. It has been the aim of the Labour Party from its inception, we have proclaimed it in Dáil Éireann .... when others who applauded it today were discussing the conditions under which we might participate in a European war. And besides the very fact that we may still engage in the productive arts of peace ought to have inspired our Government to state in definite terms the goal at which our efforts are to be directed .... a new order is to be established. Justice is promised where injustice formerly prevailed.
In 1969 we had a major document published in that regard.
Lest people think I am speaking historically in the atmosphere of European political co-operation, let me say we published documents on positive neutrality expressing that neutrality did not mean you had no opinions or you did not participate in building the alternatives to war and oppression. In our document issued in 1985Ireland and World Peace the topic of positive neutrality was expanded. I could go on, but let me say I do not want to hear expressions of the arrogance of those parties whose support for neutrality has been conditional. In the case of Fianna Fáil if there was a hint of Irish unity around the corner their position on neutrlaity could always be suspended. That was the view of Mr. de Valera all his days in Cabinet. From the Fine Gael benches we were told so often that we were militarily neutral but not ideologically neutral; we were part of the moral commitment of the West, which was not, in a sense, the wild west; it was some unstated claim for the hedemony of Christian values and Christian democracy not only in Ireland or Europe but the world.
That is right.
If these parties want an inner dialogue on neutrality, let them have it and I will welcome it, but let them at least respect what is in print from the other parties. I want to set the record straight just this once on this issue.
In the Taoiseach's speech today there is every evidence that if we ran things well as a small country faced with the elaborate tasks of the Presidency we might feel proud in many senses. I suppose it is right that we have some flushes of self-congratulation. There is equally every evidence of a rush of blood to the head and we might be in grave danger of losing the run of ourselves, to put it colloquially, as we proceed to sort out the world. The Taoiseach said something which reflects an extraordinary hubris. I quote:
Europe now stands on the threshold of an age in which it can achieve new levels of economic growth and resume its world role of intellectual and cultural leadership, as it leaves behind the dreary barren years of the post-war period.
There are those with a mild acquantance with history who would suggest that the years of the war itself, when facism was tearing Europe apart and threatening not only Europe but the world itself and democracy all over the world, was a dreary and barren period. Equally there are historians who might think, in response to the appalling happenings of Auschwitz, Dachau and so on, that the birth of a human rights movement was neither dreary nor barren, but there is this notion that the ringmaster of the new dialogue of Franco-Germanic reconstruction of their role in Europe is somehow included and it would not be beyond the grounds of pretention, given the present Fianna Fáil view, to imagine we were somehow or other involved in some new axis of power in the world that included Bonn, Paris and, God help us, Dublin Castle. It is time we earthed ourselves a little. The conference was taking place in the country that contributes the highest unemployment rate to Europe, has one of the highest emigration rates, one of the worst distributions of income, wealth and participation, the least developed institutions for participation and decision making in the Community, neither a foreign affairs committee nor a social affairs committee in its Parliament and no dialogue whatever going on in relation to European affairs with institutions that are separate from Parliament itself. Before we get carried away entirely let us remind ourselves of what we are and what this new Coalition are willing to preside over. They have to their credit that they have blocked the formation of a foreign affairs committee in this Parliament. I would like to be generous on this occasion and say to this President du jour of the Council when he likes to listen that if he wants a dialogue on what is meant by European political union he can find it from the spokespersons on Foreign Affairs on this side of the House. We would be willing to participate in it. He does not include that.
Later in the speech, apart from moving from world leadership, he decides that the people of Europe deserve him and his counterparts as leaders. Early in the speech there is an interesting piece of nonsense:
We are living through a major formative period in European history; a time during which the future of the Continent and its people will be settled for a long time to come. The leaders of the Community have the major responsibility of providing the people of Europe with enlightened leadership at this time of decision.
No Pope has ever put it better, but where are the people in Europe? What is meant by this European common home? Where is the Europe of all the citizens? Where is there any reference to participation? The notion is that the people of Europe are so fortunate to have enlightened leadership at this stage so that they can be led into discussion of things which only their betters can discuss.
It is in that atmosphere of claiming it wants to be in charge of massive and historic changes in Europe that we have words used occasionally such as "democratic deficit". This point has been developed by my colleague Deputy Ruairí Quinn and I do not feel inspired to say very much more about it. There is democratic deficit in this society, in these institutions, in Europe and among the public of Europe, and there has been little intent during the Irish Presidency to redress this.
The second interesting point about this speech this morning from our Taoiseach is the fact that there is one reference to social cohesion and no reference to the Social Charter. The reference to social cohesion is in respect of a meeting that took place, appropriately, in Ashford Castle, and it does not develop what the findings were from that dialogue. The Social Charter slipped away so you might say the meeting was not really dealing with these issues. By the simple construction of ordinary logic, from the speech of the Taoiseach one could say that he was dealing with a European political union that would serve economic and monetary union or perhaps at best some form of economic union within the Community. The Irish public are entitled to ask questions about this. What has happened to the guarantees given about the co-existence of social changes, the Social Charter and the progress towards the completion of the Internal Market? Was this drafted by an official in Iveagh House and thrown out late in the day in the face of the public so that they might swallow the pill of the Single European Act?
I should like to warn the House that a debate will open up here that will get to the root of this problem. To speak of European political union, divorced from the commitments of cohesion as they were in the Single European Act and also from the notion of the Social Charter and a Europe of citizens' rights, particularly of workers' rights, is one kind of debate but, equally, the debate can be about a form of union between the citizens of Europe in which there is a social base, a rights perspective and a Social Charter. That is an entirely different debate. One would get no hint in the Taoiseach's speech of there being any serious thinking in the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Presidency or whatever Departments are running the Presidency. What there is is this Louis XIV thinking, that somehow or other one of us has been chosen by history to be the ringmaster at this crucial stage in the history of Europe. I listened to the Taoiseach's reference to the new Europe's relationship with the greater world, in so far as it is allowed to exist at all. The following quotation is indelibly imprinted on my mind:
Europe ... can ... resume its world role of intellectual and cultural leadership, as it leaves behind the dreary barren years of the post-war period.
It is worth reminding the President of all the Europeans, who is our Taoiseach, of the world to which the European Community relates. It is a world in which the poorest 20 per cent of the population have 1.8 per cent of the world's GNP; in which the richest 20 per cent have 77.9 per cent; in which the developing world with its 75 per cent of population has 17 per cent of the world's GNP. I could go on. There is a very strange imbalance here.
What is to be the relationship of the new and enlarged Europe to that kind of world? It is not an unfair construction to hear, when conservative speakers make a speech, that they regard the rest of the world as being in some sense backward, as not having "growed up" like Topsy to European levels of consumption. That is why on the periphery of the Council last weekend the German spokespersons on the economy offered as an opinion, to anybody who wanted to listen, that even if they were paying for German unification themselves they might have to go back to 1982 consumption levels but they would, of course, be superior to French consumption levels. As for the British and Irish standard of living, let us just be polite and not speak about them. What lies behind the speech of the Taoiseach is the unstated assertion that the strongest will pay for its own unification in its own backyard and what is more, in so far as it is the paymaster of the Community, it will give an odd wink through the window of European consultation to the European partners.
However, there is no indication in the speech by the Taoiseach, or the speech by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, that there will be any involvement at the level of partnership among European Community members to discuss any serious aspect, consequence or evolution of German unification. There is in the language used a very interesting point. I was in Brussels on Thursday and Friday at a meeting of people who were chairpersons of social affairs committees in relation to secondary legislation. After a few quiet explanations to the effect that we had a sub-committee dealing with social and environmental affairs we pointed out that we did not have a social affairs committee at all. I outlined the conclusions of the recently published report of the committee of which I am chairman. That committee, for example, reported — this was agreed by all sides of the House — that there had to be a conterminous development of the completion of the Internal Market and the social action programme. It also agreed, for example, that it could not accept the submission of the Federation of Irish Employers that all the rights of the social type would have to be subsidiary to the completion of the market. There was general agreement among all parties on the committee about that. They went on to speak about the cohesive and the integrated nature of economic and social developments. People were thrilled by this thinking in the Community, by the thinking of this obscure committee on this strange little island that I was from but which does not have a social affairs committee. They were very polite and asked me privately how that relates to the views of the Irish Presidency or of the Ministers who speak at Council meetings on our behalf. It is widely perceived that our position in relation to the Social Charter, workers' rights and the right to freedom, is very thinly behind that great anti-European herself, Mrs. Thatcher.
There was a certain amount of embarrassment in explaining how we as a Parliament can have a sub-committee which has a consensus in favour of the co-existence and the same time frame for economic integration and social rights. Mid-morning, by flash of inspiration as I listened to the Taoiseach, I realised that we were just a Parliament and we were not the enlightened leader. The enlightened leader sometimes passes on this non-consultative status of looking into his heart, which he has inherited from the great tradition of the Government side, occasionally to his Ministers, who take positions that others in the Parliament do not have. The assumption is that at this historic moment this Parliament does not have anything to say at all, that what is best for us historically is known in a special way to one person. Indeed, as a reflection of that, significant decision-making these days has been moved out of Government Buildings and out of the Parliament to the edge of the city in Kinsealy.
The Chair regrets that he cannot continue to enjoy the Deputy's contribution. Tá an t-am istigh.
I should like to make a number of points of my own.
The Deputy will appreciate that that there is a time factor involved. The Deputy is now on borrowed time.
In the dialogue that has surrounded the Conference, and previous Conferences, there has developed the concept of subsidiarity. That is a word that has an inglorious record from the thirties. It was associated with Quadregesimo Anno but it was reappeared in the language of Europe and it is used by those who speak in our name at the European Council and, on occasions, at more elevated councils. It is used as a screen to mask the fact that there is no agreement of a European kind on anything significant that affects the citizens of Europe. It is a mask for Mrs. Thatcher to say, “I will be able to do whatever I like in Britain”. It is a mask for Irish employers to say, “I will not give information on rights to workers; I will not do anything for part-time workers, for atypical work or in relation to issues like that”.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs in the course of his speech made a reference to Vaclav Havel. What was not quoted from Vaclav Havel in the Minister's erudite script was his most famous essay dealing with words, words that can kill, words that can aid and words that can evade. What we are witnessing in Europe, and in all the statements from the Government side today, is an abuse of language which would appal Havel, if one was to take his essay seriously. There is no reference to the question of the social dimension of Europe. Deputy Roche and others were talking about how everybody in Eastern Europe was rushing to achieve our standard of living.
The Deputy would not want to be accused of abusing my words of warning to him that he is now almost five minutes into some other Member's time.
I will conclude by contrasting what I heard in the last speech before Question Time with the words of Eduard Schevardnadze to the political committee of the European Parliament:
... let me just say that the socialist idea, which accumulates people's universal yearning for equality and justice, is a constant component of civilisation. As such it incorporates man's age old dreams of a dignified life in a society that is from the start and forever free of violence, arbitrary force and enrichment of some through plunder and the impoverishment of others ... the administrative and command system has distorted the socialist idea.
I pay a great deal more attention to the motivation behind that than I did to the statements about European leadership that I heard from the Taoiseach this morning.
I am glad that Deputy Higgins is enjoying himself as he comes to grips with the new term called Eurospeak.
The main items with which I am dealing as President of the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers during the Irish Presidency of the Council are Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), common German economic and monetary area, abolition of fiscal frontiers and various aspects of the Community budget and financial procedures and the financial services sector.
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is a priority item on our Presidency agenda. In the context of the rapidly evolving developments in Eastern Europe, it is especially important that the momentum in this area be sustained. Indeed the special European Council meeting in Dublin last Saturday called for the preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference on EMU, scheduled to open in December 1990, to be further intensified. The objective set at that meeting is for the IGC to work rapidly with a view to ratification of its results by the member states before the end of 1992.
Ireland's approach to EMU is positive and favours the pragmatic and structural framework which is outlined in the Delors report on EMU. That report recognises the need to maintain certain balances which we would regard as essential if EMU is to be sustainable. Firstly, there must be a balance between advances in the economic and monetary areas and, secondly, there must be a balance between moves to EMU and the strengthening of the economic and social cohesion of the Community. Provided these balances are maintained, we believe that EMU can bestow significant economic, social and geo-political benefits on the Community as a whole.
The Government are aware that closer integration may pose risks for the more peripheral regions of the Community. In this context, we take the view that market forces and proper domestic management, while vital to economic dynamism, cannot, by themselves, be relied upon to correct regional imbalances. Something additional is required if we are to avoid the spectre of population flight from regions deficient in capital and technology. Within federations and, indeed, even within individual nation states, there is recognition of the fact that supporting mesures are required in order to equalise regional disparities. The precise form which these measures should take will be a matter for debate as the final shape of EMU begins to emerge.
The initial concentration of the Irish Presidency was on Stage I of EMU, which is to start on 1 July next. We had to establish the procedures to be followed at ECOFIN during this stage. Agreement was reached at ECOFIN in March on two decisions designed to strengthen the co-ordination of economic policies in Stage I of EMU, particularly through more intensive multilateral surveillance. On the basis of these decisions, the Irish Presidency put forward procedural proposals for the implementation by Council of multilateral surveillance of member states' economies and agreement has been reached on these procedures. They will include regular, at least twice yearly, surveillance exercises by Ministers in very restricted session. Country examinations will be carried out by the appropriate Community bodies and the outcome of these examinations will be made available to Ministers for discussion. The results of the surveillance exercises will be reported to the European Council and the European Parliament.
Overall, it is expected that the multilateral surveillance exercises under Stage I will provide a significant intensification of the existing co-ordination of economic policies in the Community. A first trial run of this Stage I multilateral surveillance will take place under the Irish Presidency at the June ECOFIN.
The IGC which is to begin in December will be concerned with Stages II and III of EMU. The task of the Irish Presidency is to ensure that the necessary preparatory work is carried forward. The Commission had undertaken to prepare a paper setting out the costs and benefits of EMU and their proposals for the final shape of EMU. This paper was made available in March and was discussed at the informal ECOFIN held in Ashford Castle on 31 March. This meeting also had before it reports from the monetary committee on monetary union and the proposed European Central Bank system and on budgetary policy in an economic and monetary union.
It was in fact the first occasion on which Ministers, along with Central Bank Governors, had the opportunity to consider issues relating to Stages II and III of EMU in detail. The discussion revealed a considerable degree of agreement on the design of a future economic and monetary union. All delegations indicated a large measure of agreement on the ultimate objective of EMU, though one delegation, while indicating a readiness to continue to participate fully in the discussions, was unable to join in the totality of the consensus.
It was agreed that there are substantial net benefits to be obtained by the Community as a whole from EMU but that individual regions might be affected differently. Ministers and Governors confirmed that they viewed EMU in the perspective of the completion of the Internal Market and in the context of economic and social cohesion; that it should be based on the principles of parallelism, subsidiarity and diversity; and that there is a need for a single monetary policy geared towards price stability in support of the general economic policy set at Community level.
A broad agreement emerged on the overall design of a system — on the monetary side, there was support for an independent and federally structured central banking institution, which is democratically accountable; on the economic side, while the system should be more decentralised than on the monetary side, it should provide for close co-operation between member states on macro-economic and budgetary policies. To the latter end, it should contain rules and procedures designed to ensure budgetary discipline including rules proscribing the monetary or compulsory financing of budget deficits and the automatic bailing out by the Community of a single member state in difficulty. At the level of the member states and the Community, the system should also embrace policies to promote cohesion, efficiency, competitiveness and integration across the Community.
It was recognised that much work remains to be done and Ministers will continue their discussions on the design of the system and the problems of transition. The appropriate committees have been asked to provide reports on three particular aspects: the phasing of Stages II and III and the operational and institutional conditions which must be fulfilled before advancing beyond Stage I; a general stocktaking of progress made in the preparations for an IGC; and the likely regional distribution of the costs and benefits of EMU. ECOFIN will discuss these issues further in June with a view to reporting to the European Council meeting in Dublin at the end of June.
The developments in the relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic have been very rapid over the past few months. Monetary union is now set to take place at the beginning of July. Though there is no specific role for the Community to play in the discussions between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, I have ensured that the Finance Ministers are kept fully informed of developments. At each ECOFIN meeting, the German Minister has provided a full and frank outline of what is happening and a very useful discussion has taken place.
The German Minister has made it clear at all time that the events within Germany will not lessen in any way his country's commitment to the process of achieving a full economic and monetary union within the Community. He has also made it clear that the process of creating a common German economic and monetary area will be carried out in a way which does not have inflationary or other adverse consequences for the Community. I welcome these assurances and I am confident that they will be fulfilled. In fact, I expect that these developments will have positive consequences in terms of additional growth in Germany and in Europe generally, through the spill-over of increased German demand into other countries. As regards interest rates, I am glad to see that domestic analysts are increasingly tending to discount the possibility of Irish interest rates being pushed up by events in Germany, a possibility which I felt was exaggerated from the start.
The Commission proposals on indirect taxation are an integral part of the process of completing the Internal Market of the Community. To date, progress in the discussions on these proposals has been slow, but this is perfectly understandable given the extremely sensitive nature of the issues involved. Nevertheless, a number of significant advances were made in Council in the latter months of 1989.
While agreement on individual VAT rates has not been reached, some progress has been made in agreeing an outline framework for subsequent specific decisions on rate levels.
The concept of convergence has also been adopted. It has been agreed that member states whose standard rate already falls within the range 14 to 20 per cent should not move out of that range between now and 1 January 1993. Members states whose standard rate is outside the range should not diverge further. Deadlines were set for the further decisions necessary on the format and level of the proposed standard rate, on the scope and levels of the reduced rates and on the products which will continue to be zero-rated from 1 January 1993.
In line with this process of convergence, I reduced the standard rate of VAT in Ireland from 25 to 23 per cent with effect from 1 March. The Irish Presidency has concentrated the VAT discussion so far on the issue of the coverage of the reduced rates and zero rates. These issues are being examined at working group level and the discussions are proving fruitful. I presented a progress report on these discussions to the April ECOFIN meeting and there was agreement that this work should continue. Apart from the VAT rates, much work has to be done on the operational framework for the VAT system. This covers essentially the question of arrangements for the payment and receipt of VAT in intra-Community trade after 1992.
An outline agreement has been reached, which is based on continuation of the destination principle, under which VAT on exports is charged at the point of receipt rather than at the point of export. We must now build on this outline. In this regard the Council is waiting for the Commission to present the necessary proposals which will enable these arrangements to be formally incorporated into Community legislation. The first of these proposals will deal with the definition of the common VAT system and the modalities of the differential treatment of certain classes of transaction, such as new car purchases, purchases by exempt bodies and mail order purchases.
I have been stressing to the Commission the importance of receiving these proposals from the Commission as soon as possible. At this stage, it seems unlikely that there will be sufficient time after their receipt for any substantial progress to be made on them during Irish Presidency.
As regards excise duty rates, the Commission submitted revised proposals to Council last December. The preliminary examination of these new proposals has already started at working party level under our Presidency and this work is continuing. While we are committed to making progress on these proposals, we are confronted with a serious difficulty due to the absence of revised or new Commission proposals on structures and control arrangements. It is already clear that, unless such proposals emerge soon from the Commission, there is not much hope of early progress in the excise rates area at Council level.
Proposals from the Commission for a progressive increase in travellers' allowances were discussed at the April ECOFIN. There was no agreement on these proposals since a number of countries, including Ireland, consider that such increases must be linked to progress on the approximation of VAT and excise rates. To move ahead with substantial increases in travellers' allowances in advance of progress on approximation of tax rates could cause significant disruption and distortion of trade.
Ireland is strongly in favour of the completion of the Internal Market, including the tax harmonisation dimension. We wish to avoid long-term derogations, but our budgetary difficulties with the Commission proposals need to be recognised and addressed. The Commission has undertaken to study and bring forward measures to deal with our difficulties, and this work is under way. I hope it will provide the basis for Ireland's effective participation in the process of completing the Internal Market.
A major item which is being addressed by the Irish Presidency is the revision of the Financial Perspective of the Interinstitutional Agreement of June 1988. This was an agreement between the Council, Parliament and Commission on the budgetary ceilings which would apply in each year up to and including 1992.
The Commission has brought forward proposals for a revision of the financial perspective, as provided for in the agreement, to take account of new developments. A central focus of the proposed revision is developments in Central and Eastern Europe, where the Community is already showing the necessary concern and support to assist these countries to adjust to the new situation. There is agreement at ECOFIN that there should be a significant provision for assistance to Central and Eastern Europe in the Community budget over the next few years. Already, 300 million ECU have been provided in the 1990 Community budget for this purpose and it is proposed that a further 200 million ECU should now be added, bringing the 1990 total 500 million ECU.
The Commission's proposed revision also focuses on increased co-operation with Mediterranean, Latin American and Asian countries, as well as bolstering certain internal Community policies, such as environmental policy, in the context of the Single Market.
The revision of the financial perspective has to be a joint agreement between Council and the European Parliament. As might be expected, the opening positions of Council and Parliament on the issue were far apart. I have been conducting negotiations with the European Parliament over the past two months, culminating in a meeting in Dublin earlier this week with Mr. John Tomlinson, MEP, the rapporteur for the Parliament's Budget Committee. I am hopeful that this issue will be resolved in the near future.
Earlier in the Irish Presidency, I got agreement between Council and Parliament on a revised financial regulation. This regulation governs the financial procedures of the Community and the revision has been in the pipeline for a number of years. I also completed discussions at ECOFIN on the Court of Auditors report for 1988 and a Commission report on fraud against the Community budget.
In the financial services area, the Irish Presidency has been pushing forward discussion at working group level on the proposed Investment Services Directive. This is an important directive from the viewpoint of developing Ireland as a financial services centre. It is unlikely that we will be able to bring it to the point of a Council common position before the end of our Presidency but we are moving it forward as fast as possible. The Commission have just now put forward an associated proposal on the capital adequacy for investment firms, so these two proposals will now move in tandem.
The Irish Presidency has also been active in the negotiations on the establishment of a European Bank for reconstruction and development. This bank is designed to assist Eastern European countries to develop their economies and will have participation not only from European countries but also from the main non-European countries, including the US. The Presidency has co-ordinated the views of the Community members on the issues arising in the negotiations. I am glad to say that the negotiations are nearing a successful conclusion, and I expect them to be completed by the end of June.
Looking at the overall situation, I think that the Irish Presidency has made significant progress in the economic and monetary area. This applies not only to completing the normal Community business, but also to the progress being made in areas such as the preparations for the IGC on EMU and on the revision of the financial perspective. I look forward to continuing the work over the remaining two months of our Presidency.
I have mixed feelings about this debate — I am glad it is taking place but this is the kind of work this House would do very much better if it had a foreign affairs committee which could devote itself on an ongoing basis to these issues so that on occasions when we have a debate in this House on an event like last weekend's meeting, the House would be far better prepared. I intend to come back to this point later.
The Taoiseach's remarks this morning consisted of nothing more than a fairly dull rehash of the Presidency conclusions issued at the end of last weekend's meeting. His remarks did not contain one single Presidency proposal. They gave no indication of any Irish view as to where the Community should be heading. They gave no indication that this Presidency has any plans as to what the Community should achieve or what preparations should be made between now and the end of June.
It was reported last Monday — perhaps the Minister will enlighten us on this — that it is by no means clear whether the Government will table their own specific blueprint setting out in greater detail what they mean by the term "political union", at the Dublin Summit next June. Yet it seems that five other member states are expected to prepare their discussion papers which detail their vision of what political union should mean in advance of the June meeting. It seems the Presidency is content to sit idly by.
The role of the Presidency is to lead discussions of this kind, to know what the other member states have in mind and to see to what extent the views and ambitions of the other member states can be put together in the framework of a coherent plan for the whole Community. This is not being done. It seems there is a clear onus on the Taoiseach, as President of the Council, to prepare a set of guidelines before the June meeting so that some guidance and direction can be given to the member states, their Governments and the Heads of State and Government as to where they should be aiming. This House could assist in that process by having a foreign affairs committee which could have a detailed debate on the many issues that arise in this context.
It is fair to say that today has been the first occasion — I see the Minister for Finance is leaving; I was about to pay him a compliment — we were given any systematic information on what is going on in the context of the preparations for economic and monetary union. There was not a lot in the Minister's speech but I suppose within the space of 20 minutes he is not in a position to give us detailed information. He should not have to do so in that time in a debate like this. He should be in a position to come before a foreign affairs committee of the House, so that we can all know what is in his mind, what he is doing and can give him our advice, as elected representatives of the people, as to what the Government should be doing. We could do much more than that but essentially that is what should be happening. It is anti-democratic; we have a democratic deficit in here because the only information we have got officially about what is going on in the preparations for economic and monetary union are the brief series of remarks the Minister for Finance was able to deliver himself in the context of a fairly limited debate like this. That is no way to run a railroad. It is certainly not the way this House should go about preparing its participation in planning a major enterprise for the European Communtiy, one that will have the most far-reaching and, I hope, positive and beneficial effects on the lives of the people who elect us to this House.
The Council meeting last weekend was far from being the unqualified success it has been claimed to be. Major questions about political, economic and monetary union and other issues remain unanswered. In many instances cracks have been papered over rather than filled in. I suppose I would be reflecting the views of a great many people in this House if I said that there is a certain amount of wry amusement to be derived from watching the antics of the Heads of Government of various member states as they go on with their ritual series of press conferences at the end of the Council meeting. Our press, as always, served us extremely well in this. One gets the impression, from reading what was said at those press conferences, that people were talking about three or four different meetings, that they were not all talking about the same one. Certainly, from what I have read the meeting described by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mrs. Thatcher, was not the same meeting described by the Federal German Chancellor, Dr. Kohl; neither of them was the same meeting as described by the Taoiseach. That lends substance to my belief that instead of being filled in cracks were papered over.
Major questions still remain to be settled. In my view that places a further onus on our Government, the Presidency of the Council, to adopt substantive positions of their own, to have substantive proposals to put forward. If they do not do that, we will have a rerun of the same kinds of difficulties in June and, God knows, but we might have a rerun again of the same kinds of difficulties at the Intergovernmental Conference in December and at the parallel conference on political union. This Presidency is simply not doing the job it is supposed to do.
This Government, it seems, have now departed from a long-established Irish position which favours increasing the democratic input into Community decision-making. It is reported the Irish Government are opposed to any plans to give greater powers to the European Parliament. It is reported the Irish Government take the view that 15 MEPs have a marginal influence only, that the Government favour increased powers for the Council of Ministers rather than for the European Parliament. If that is the case it constitutes a major departure from what has been for many years a firmly established position of successive Irish Governments, not just of the Coalition Government from 1982 to 1987, but of successive Irish Governments. I should like to know why. Perhaps this present Government take the view that they do not like extra powers for the European Parliament because they are involved themselves, as a party, in one of the most insignificant groups of all in the European Parliament. That might colour this Government's view of what can be achieved in Parliament. However, for those of us who take a wider view, the position appears very different.
Of course, my party are involved with the Christian Democrats group, the second largest group in the European Parliament. The Labour Party are a member of the Socialist group, the largest group in the European parliament. Between them, the Christian Democrats and the Socialist groups in the European Parliament, have conducted the affairs of that parliament extremely well. They have acted in a responsible way using the extra powers the Parliament has got, in a way that has always been — I say this without any fear of contradiction — beneficial to the interests of the peripheral regions of the Community and of the smaller member states of the Community. As long as that position obtains we can be perfectly confident that extra powers for the European Parliament will be properly and responsibly used for the people of our community.
There is more to say than that because individual members of the European Parliament, individual Irish members, have indeed made their mark. The Leader of my own group in that Parliament, Joe McCartin, a former Deputy of this House, has established quite a reputation for himself in the Parliament's discussion of economic affairs. Mary Banotti, another one of my MEPs, has been named one of the top ten environmentalists in Europe during the course of the year. Pat Cooney, again one of my MEPs, has been a powerful voice in the Parliament in the examination of the proper relationship between the Parliament itself and national Parliaments. John Cushnahan has gained a substantive reputation in the Parliament by his attention to the needs of peripheral regions and of smaller member states. I could go on with this recital. I do not intend to lavish encomium on our former colleague, Barry Desmond. I am sure there is a keen appreciation in this House of the role he can play. I stress it is wrong to feel that because we have 15 MEPs only our influence is marginal; it is not; it is far from that. Christian Democrat MEPs and Socialist MEPs have a very powerful lever of influence at their disposal. They have used it wisely and sensibly. We have used that lever wisely and sensibly with our colleagues in those groups from the other member states.
I find it rather unusual to hear the Minister for Finance state, as a virtue of his plans about a European Central Bank that it will be democratically accountable and yet find that the Government are objecting to giving extra powers to the European Parliament. I recall the Minister for Finance himself has dealt with some of the functions of the European Parliament in the budgetary sphere. I had the honour of starting that whole process during our Presidency in 1984 when we made new provisions for the budgetary competence and powers of the Parliament. I am glad to say that exercise has turned out extremely well and, in my view, is a very good argument for continuing the process of giving extra powers to the European Parliament.
The reports available on last week's European Council meeting show, as I have said, that there is no evidence that the current Presidency is, in any sense, leading the debate on the future of the Community or is guiding the Community's activities. Clearly, there has been a failure of the process of close consultation on foreign policy set up under the Single European Act. That failure was most clearly marked by the recent Franco-German statement on Lithuania which was substantially at variance with the earlier, much more careful, statement made by the Twelve.
The Taoiseach takes credit for any advances made by the Community, even for the most cosmetic. On the other hand, when asked to give a lead to the Community — as he was in this House in relation to the issue of sanctions in South Africa — he says it would be wrong for him, as President, to pre-empt discussions in the European Council. Those two positions do not sit very well together. If the Taoiseach is now saying to us he cannot offer any opinion about these matters because it is wrong to pre-empt what the Council will decide, when he must accept the consequences and not try to claim any of the credit for any Council decisions. Of course, what he should do is totally different. As President of the Council, the Taoiseach should be setting out guidelines, a framework for discussion of what is happening in the Council, not taking this passive, back seat he seems to take. He is not in any sense an active President who tries to mould the work of the Council; he is a passive chairman. It was clear that was his role last week end when Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterrand made all the running but a real President of the European Council has a duty to lead, not simply be blown about by the storm created by strong-minded presidents and prime ministers of other states.
The Minister for Finance made a most extraordinary statement about the discussions between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. He said and I quote:
Though there is no specific role for the Community to play in the discussions between the FRG and the GDR, I have ensured that the Finance Ministers are kept fully informed of developments.
That is an outrageous statement. First, it bears no relation to what is said in the Presidency conclusions which refer to the plans to keep the Commission fully informed and for the Commission to come forward with proposals for the transition period and other measures to the Council. The truth of the matter is that the Community has allowed itself to be sidelined on this issue. This is very wrong and very damaging for the Community. I have discussed this with Chancellor Kohl and it is a discussion which he does not like entering into. I understand his views perfectly; Germany, after all, is his country but I do not believe the Community is following the right path in allowing itself to be sidelined by a strong-minded Chancellor.
The integration of East Germany into a new German state is very much a matter of concern for the European Community as a whole. Indeed, the integration of any new member state would be a matter for the Community as a whole and it is not acceptable or accurate to say that there is a difference in this case because we are reintegrating one part of a country with another. It is my view that the Presidency of the Community must insist that the Community get properly involved in all of the decisions required if German unification, which we all support and wish to see succeed, is to work properly.
It is important that we in this House look at what the objective of political union is in the Community. Why do we want political union? There are many reasons and I will deal only with some of them. Some of us want to see the Community in a position where it can play the real role in the world that a Community of soon to be 340 million people should, a role in the world economy to the benefit of everybody and a role in the development of the Third World in relation to which we need to totally modernise our thinking. We also want a Community like the European Community which is politically united to play a proper role in that, as we want it to do in safeguarding and, if possible, improving the world's environment. The countries of the European Community cannot do that on their own: the efforts of a politically united European Community can be far more effective than the sum total of the efforts of individual member states. Those are some of the reasons why we need political union but I do not see any indication that the European Council has been looking at the matter in that way. It is time it did and it is time the Presidency gave that focus and dimension to debates about European union.
It is reported that the Government are firmly opposed to the kind of common security policy favoured by France, West Germany and Belgium and in the period since last Saturday there has been an abundance of fairly naive and, probably, misleading comment about what all of this is going to mean for that other sacred cow which still populates our fields, neutrality. It is about time the Presidency and this House began to look at what faces us there. Let us consider for a moment what has been happening and what is going to happen. Some time ago Mikhail Gorbachev took the world's breath away by making totally unexpected proposals for conventional arms reductions. We have, gladly, a very limited — it is there nevertheless — IMF treaty. Discussions are going on on the preparation of a treaty on longer range nuclear weapons and discussions will take place later this year on conventional force reductions. The Soviet Union will also be withdrawing some or all of its troops from Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. I do not think their intentions on Bulgaria and Romania have been stated.
The European partners in NATO consider it important that there should continue to be a substantial American presence in Europe and on that they are not quite ad idem with the thinking in Washington. Therefore on all those areas substantial change seems to be possible. Substantial changes in the balance of forces of capabilities in Europe appear to be facing us not so many years down the road. This will radically alter the security position, the political position and the kind of response the countries of Western Europe or indeed the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have to make to questions of their security.
I would like to feel that this House is going to look at the realities and will not hide behind this facile repetition of an empty formula which we have inherited from a gentleman who, as Deputy Michael D. Higgins said, was wont to look into his heart for guidance on these things rather than anywhere else. The European Community, if it is to develop in the way we want, is itself going to change the balance between East and West and bring about a major change in the way the world has to look at its security. This House should be examining those issues and to do this we have to put aside these old shibboleths and perhaps if we do not shoot the sacred cow we might bring it into a different pasture where it might be fed on something more than the hot air which has been devoted to this subject for years and years.
There is one final point I want to make and this one is important. I have referred to my belief that the European Parliament should be strengthened. I would like to say in passing to my friend, Deputy Michael D. Higgins, that the principle of subsidiarity does not reside only in Quadragesimo Anno, it has been a major and serious part of the political doctrine of Christian democracy down the years and, I hope will long remain so. I am glad to see that it is now being imported into Community terminology. I also hope we will have a dose of it and that we in the reform of our Government and local government systems will apply this principle.
In conclusion, there is one gap in the preparations being made for the debates which are to take place at the end of the year and it is in relation to the involvement of the European Parliament. I approve of the Intergovernmental Conference which has already been set up on EMU. I also welcome the fact that there is to be a parallel conference on political union, and I urge the Presidency to have real consultations with the European Parliament before those two Intergovernmental conferences get down to work.
First, I think that when Deputy Dukes reaches the status of the man he talked about he might be able to make silly remarks like that.
We are now two-thirds of the way through the Irish Presidency and I am glad, a Cheann Comhairle, to have this opportunity to review the work of the Irish Presidency during what has proved to be a particularly active four months.
We were very conscious when we were preparing the Presidency that the issues of relations with Eastern and Central Europe and the unification of Germany would be dominant themes during the first six months of 1990. This has proved to be the case and 1990 has proved to be a crucial year in the development of the Community, as important in many ways as, for example, the accession in 1973 of three new member states or the approval of the Single Act in 1986.
The Taoiseach has referred to the meeting between the Commission and the Government which was the first major event of the Presidency. In the course of that meeting we agreed with the Commission that a special meeting of Foreign Ministers should be held to consider developments in Eastern and Central Europe and to review the Community response. This meeting took place on 20 January. Among the important conclusions to emerge was a reaffirmation of Community support for the liberalisation process in the countries concerned, an agreement to intensify the negotiation of trade and co-operation agreements with those countries, a reinforcement of Community assistance and a request to the Commission to report on the possibility of establishing closer relations through the eventual negotiation of association agreements.
Thus, at a very early stage of the Presidency we were able to give renewed direction to the Community's relations with Eastern Europe. This approach has had very positive consequences. For example, next week the Minister for Foreign Affairs will sign, on behalf of the Community, agreements with Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and the GDR. Thus, the network of agreements with the countries of Eastern Europe will be almost complete and the Community will give a concrete expression of its commitment to liberalisation and to the re-establishment of democracy in the region.
Additional concrete support has been evident in the establishment of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and various other schemes put in place by the Community itself or in co-operation with other democratic countries. The response has been substantial and shows the importance which countries like Ireland attach to strengthening the new democracies.
The European Council on 28 April gave a major and substantial impetus to the Community's relations with Eastern and Central Europe. The Taoiseach has already outlined the reasons he decided to call his colleagues together. I would say that the meeting has given the Community a new sense of direction in its approach to the Central and Eastern Europe. It has provided a new basis on which we can build our relationship with those countries.
Developments in East Germany have been mentioned already in the debate. Here, too, the Presidency was very conscious of the importance of German unification to the Community and the need for a clear and considered response to developments. We have been able to establish a good basis for the Community's approach to unification as is evident from the conclusions of the meeting of the Dublin European Council.
A very important aspect of the conclusions is the clear and unequivocal welcome which the European Council has given on behalf of the Community to unification and to the restoration of democracy in Eastern Europe. It is worth remembering that the democratic ideal which finds its most direct expression in the work of Parliaments such as this House was a major inspiration in bringing about change.
The Community is grounded in the democratic ideal. Its member states are united in their commitment to democracy — some have seen democracy restored from previously repressive regimes or have resisted pressure in the immediate post-war period towards the establishment of systems akin to those which have now been rejected in Eastern Europe. There can be no doubt that the success of the Community owes much to the freedoms which its citizens exercise. There can also be no doubt that the example of the Community encouraged those seeking change in Eastern Europe.
As has already been pointed out today, the developments elsewhere in Europe have encouraged the Community to consider the questions of closer economic, monetary and political integration. The Irish Presidency is carrying on the preparations for an intergovernmental conference on economic and monetary union. We have responded very swiftly to the growing demands for progress towards political union — the outcome of last week's European Council establishes the basis for work in this area. The Irish Presidency has been able to show a flexible and effective response to the rapid pace of developments in these areas and we will continue to do so between now and the end of June.
The Presidency has also concentrated on the ongoing agenda of the Community in the wide range of subjects where the Community now has a responsibility. This has involved a very high level of co-operation with the Commission and with the European Parliament.
The Commission plays a vital role in the operation of the Community. Co-operation with the Commission has been a major feature of our Presidency and this was underlined by the meeting between the Government and the full Commission in Dublin Castle on 6-7 January. This meeting which continues a recent and, we hope, a now permanent tradition enabled the Presidency and the Commission to co-ordinate their programmes. It also had the advantage of developing close personal contacts between Ministers and Commissioners from the very outset of the Presidency. It has proved its worth in the subsequent very high level of co-operation.
The European Parliament has grown in influence since it was first directly elected in 1979. The Single European Act has given the Parliament an important role in framing Community legislation. As Presidency, we have been conscious of this. Ministers have made early contact with the committees in their areas of responsibility to indicate to them the priorities of the Presidency. Ministers have taken part in plenary sessions, in debates on many major issues as well as in the traditional Council question time. The Presidency has shown its willingness to co-operate fully with the Parliament in the joint task of carrying through Community legislation and in discharging our joint responsibilities.
The role of Parliament, mentioned by Deputy Quinn, will be an important issue on the Community's agenda in the months to come. I am glad, a Cheann Comhairle, that Members of this House will participate with colleagues from throughout the Community and from the European Parliament in Strasbourg in a meeting in Cork next week to consider items of common concern. The national parliaments, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament all share a common role of responsibility to the Community's electorate and as such we all play our own particular functions in ensuring that the Community responds to the democratic will.
Earlier today, Deputy Quinn, in the course of his speech, which in the main was to the point and helpful — I ignore the political sniping and take it for what it was, party rhetoric — acknowledged the difficulties and the heavy workload the Presidency causes for a small country, and indeed paid tribute to the Taoiseach and the Government on the planning and the foresight evident in their preparations. He also mentioned EFTA and suggested that Ireland was hiding under the coat-tails of the French with whom, according to him, we share a common antiquated agricultural policy and that we should not be nice to the Germans because they have a fat cheque book and asked for a mandate for a European economic area to come from the June Summit. He should know that this Government do not need to hide under anyone's coat-tails. For his information, let me tell him that the Taoiseach stated this morning that the negotiations with EFTA countries would not and should not be overlooked and that while the establishment of the new European economic zone would undoubtedly enlarge the market and increase competition for the member states the draft mandate is practically finalised by the Commission on the basis of which negotiations will proceed. However, many difficult issues still remain to be resolved.
A Cheann Comhairle, I would now like to turn briefly to a few of the areas where progress has been made by the Irish Presidency apart from those which I have mentioned. I will in the course of my remarks give a particular prominence to development co-operation which falls within my own particular area of responsibility.
The completion of the Internal Market is the most important ongoing agenda item of the Community. The establishment of the 1992 deadline and the commitment which has been shown to that deadline provided the motor which has pulled the Community out of the stagnation of the mid 1980s. In our Presidency we have maintained the momentum established over the past three years since the Single European Act came into force and this is recognised in the conclusions of Saturday's European Council.
The agriculture sector remains of vital importance to the Irish economy and it is one to which we have devoted considerable attention. The Minister for Agriculture and Food last week negotiated a prices package for the 1990-91 marketing year which responds well to the needs of the Community's agriculture as well as to the interests of Irish farmers. In the agriculture sector the Presidency has concentrated also on measures designed to complete the internal market in that sector.
The environment is, of course, a major preoccupation for us. We have made progress in this area with the agreement on the establishment of the European Environment Agency and the Directive on Freedom of Information on Environmental Issues. We would expect to make good progress on a number of other areas before the end of June.
Other important sectors where we have been able to bring about progress include research with the adoption of the framework programme for 1990-94 and in the transport sector where we have established road freight quotas for the current year.
As is usual in every Presidency, dossiers prepared in the early months are brought to completion at the many Councils which meet in the last weeks. At this stage half of the Councils which we scheduled at the outset of our Presidency have still to meet. Preparatory work for those meetings is in full swing and the outcome of the remaining Councils will be at least as significant as that of those which have taken place so far.
Before I turn to development issues, I think it is important that I should mention briefly the Community's relations with the other developed countries. Obviously relations with the US are of major importance. The Taoiseach has outlned their significance and the important steps he has taken to put the relationship on a new and firm basis. Our relations with countries such as Japan are focused at present on the GATT round. It is very important for all of us that the GATT negotiations are successful and that the free trading system which has made such a major contribution to international prosperity in the last four decades is strengthened. In the context of the negotiations this is a major Irish objective — as is the defence of the position of our farming sector.
The Community has always attached particular importance to its relations with the developing world. In the Lomé Convention we have established a unique instrument for co-operation with developing countries. Through the aid and trade mechanisms of the Convention and through other schemes such as GSP, the Community has made a particular contribution.
This contribution will continue and will not be inhibited by the Community's new commitments in Central and Eastern Europe — it is important to emphasise that. The Dublin European Council underlined this fact when it referred specifically to the Community's special relationship with the ACP countries and to its intention to intensify its relations with the countries of Asia and Latin America.
In April, Dublin Castle was the venue for a ministerial conference on political dialogue and economic co-operation between, on the one hand, the European Community and its member states and, on the other, the states of Central America and neighbouring countries.
The conference was held at a time of positive developments in the peace process in Central America. It was therefore an important opportunity for both sides to emphasise the need to pursue to a successful conclusion the peace process begun at Esquipulas. The Community, for its part, reaffirmed its resolve to support the efforts of the Central American countries in the search for peace, the consolidation of democracy and sustained economic development in the region.
The conference succeeded in achieving a remarkable level of consensus among the participants on both political and economic aspects of the dialogue. This consensus was set out in the Joint Political Declaration and in the Joint Economic Communique which were issued after the conference.
On the margins of this conference, an agreement was signed providing Community funding for a major project to revive trade in the region. It is envisaged that funding of over IR£92 million will be provided over 30 months. The conference welcomed this project as a positive step in response to the appeal by the Central American states for support for their efforts to strengthen economic integration in the region. If its objectives are fulfilled, major economic and political benefits will accrue to Central America from the implementation of this project.
Following closely on the success of the San José Conference, our relations with the countries of Central America as well as the other developing countries of Asia and Latin America will engage our attention again on 29 of this month when the Development Council will begin what promises to be an extremely important debate on the Community's future relations with these countries.
The Irish Presidency has strongly encouraged the Commission since the Government's meeting with them on 6 January last to bring forward their work and their reflections on the future of the Community's relations with these countries. The Irish Presidency will initiate this debate in the Council and expects to make an important contribution to it.
In the meantime we have, under the Irish Presidency, negotiated, concluded and signed an entirely new and more comprehensive form of Co-operation Agreement between the Community and Argentina, which I had the honour to present to the European Parliament. This agreement, for the first time, provides safeguards for human rights and democracy in Argentina. We are now embarking on a similar exercise with the new democratic government in Chile.
Together with the ACP countries, which I will come back to in a moment, those in Asia and Latin America comprise virtually the entire developing world. In development matters, therefore, the focus of the Irish Presidency has been wide ranging. The Development Council under our Presidency will have a considerable agenda.
There will be major Council conclusions on environment and development, on the role of women in development, on the Community's future food aid policy and its management. We will point also to the importance of evaluation of development projects so that the recipients receive the maximum benefit from funds allocated.
Turning to the countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions, the Presidency has pressed forward with the necessary measures for implementation of the Fourth Lomé Convention. The transitional measures were agreed and implemented well ahead of schedule and I am confident that we will succeed in reaching agreement among our Community partners on the internal financing agreement and the financial regulation before we hand over the chair to the Italian Presidency.
As I mentioned, the Presidency has been particularly concerned to promote relations between developed and developing countries at the global level. To this end, the Community participated actively in the special session of the United Nations General Assembly which has just concluded. This session was devoted to international economic co-operation, in particular to the revitalisation of economic growth and development of the developing countries. Three broad issues were identified for consideration at the session.
(i) The main developments in the 1980s, and the challenges of the 1990s and an assessment of obstacles and ingredients to growth and development;
(ii) The reactivation of economic growth and development in developing countries;
(iii) Strengthening and enhancing international economic co-operation and multilateralism in international economic relations.
Among the specific issues discussed were the debt burden of developing countries, the flow of resources to developing countries, commodity prices, trade arrangements and the protection of the environment.
Guidelines for the Community's position at the session were prepared by the Council in Brussels and a major role was played by the Presidency, as spokesman for the Community, in negotiations in New York on the text of the final declaration of the session which was agreed by consensus.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs addressed the special session on behalf of the Community. In the course of his address he noted that the experience of the eighties for the developing countries varied widely. While for some of these countries the decade saw unprecedented growth; for the least developed countries the experience of the decade was largely negative. The Minister recalled that it was primarily the responsibility of developing countries to put in place appropriate policies to energise and steer the development effort. Developed countries, for their part, had to bring about an international economic environment which facilitated sustained and non-inflationary growth. Developed countries would also be required to continue to provide substantial concessional support to the developing countries, up to one billion of which live in absolute poverty. In view of the large development tasks ahead, the European Community and its member states reaffirmed their commitment to the accepted UN target for the level of ODA, that is 0.7 per cent of GNP including 0.15 per cent for the least developed countries. The Minister for Foreign Affairs also emphasised that effective commitment to development required the access of every member of society to adequate health, education and living facilities which are the prerequisites for the creation of the human skills necessary for sustainable development.
All in all, a Cheann Comhairle, the record of our Presidency in the development area as in other areas speaks for itself in terms of achievement.
A Cheann Comhairle, I wish to share my time with Deputy Garland.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
It is most appropriate that we should debate the rapidly changing situation in Europe, and in Eastern Europe in particular. Our Presidency of the Community has sharply accentuated our outward awareness of events on the European mainland. Apart altogether from the fact that our membership of the EC makes it an economic and political imperative that we regularly examine developments within the Community, there is the obligation on us to look at the broader stage of world affairs even when they do not immediately impinge on us as, for instance, the affairs of Eastern Europe at present.
One of the very distinctive and happy features of Irish political existence has been the general all party agreement on areas of foreign policy. Thankfully, we have managed, with rare exception, to achieve consensus. Indeed all the democratically elected parties in this House have been ad idem in relation to the fundamental areas of foreign policy. However, unfortunately we had the full-blooded opposition of the then leader of the Opposition, the present Taoiseach, when he full bloodedly and opportunistically opposed the Single European Act, but we are heartened that he now embraces it, that he pursues the Euro ideal and the concept of a united Europe with the zeal of Saul after his conversion on the road to Damascus. Of course it is a very noteworthy achievement that, as President of the European Community, he rightly basks in Euro-glory with a mere two months to go.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that there has been a relatively important and successful Presidency, listening to and wading through the scripts that have been issued from the various spokespersons today, there is not the meat and substance one would expect. One would hope that, by the time the Presidency ends in the last week in June, we will have seen more meat in terms of tangible Irish input into the developments of the Community. I do not want that to sound like begrudgery but there is a lot more protocol and PR than there is real substance.
Our participation in peace-keeping has been an area of singular success of which we can be justifiably proud. It has been an indication of Ireland's preparedness to play a role, at considerable cost to ourselves, on the broader world stage. The principle of military neutrality seems to achieve broad support in this country and it is one from which we should not deviate. It is in the light of such political unanimity and consensus that one finds it increasingly difficult to fathom the stubbornness and total resistance on the part of the Taoiseach and the Government, and reiterated in this House today by successive Ministers, to the establishment of a foreign affairs committee.
We now hold the Presidency of Europe. We are flaunting our badge as good Europeans throughout the length and breadth of the globe. We are at one in relation to a foreign affairs strategy. We have committees at party level and within the House, we even have a committee which looks after the organisation of the bar and the restaurant yet for some reason we cannot break down the psychological barrier to establishing a foreign affairs committee. It does not look good, it does not sound good, it does not make sense and there is no logic to it. It cannot even be described as an Irish solution to an Irish problem. It can best be described as nothing other than leprechaun logic and that, unfortunately, is how it is seen abroad.
I was in Russia recently as part of the first Inter-parliamentary Union and the people there were aghast that this country, which at present holds the Presidency of the EC, cannot see its way to breaking down the mythical barrier to the establishment of a foreign affairs committee.
Last year I had the pleasure of being present at the Humbert School in Ballina. One of the themes which was most vigorously debated was de Gaulle's dream of a united Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. There was a marked flavour of optimism there, and that was last August. We were optimistic about the movement towards greater EC cohesion, European monetary union and establishing a more concerted, cohesive, united front within the Community, the development again of greater political union. This was tempered to no small degree by developments in the USSR where the leadership, in terms of preparedness of inward reform and outward diplomacy, gave to this western world two new words in the vernacular: perestroika and glasnost. Nobody at that conference or indeed in the world could possibly have foreseen the rapid pace of change.
The free elections in Poland, which ended the dominant role of the Communist Party and gave the previously outlawed Solidarity the paramount role in Government, were revolutionary by their very occurrence, apart altogether from their speed. The rapid democratisation of Czechoslovakia and Hungary has been acknowledged as amazing in terms of speed and sheer occurrence. The overthrow of the corrupt régime in Romania will hopefully, in time, find full expression in a true Government based on people power. The unification of Germany, apart from its national and historical origins, is an event the rapidity of which was largely unforeseen this time last year. It is obvious, as has been acknowledged, that German unity will have consequences for the European Community. I disagree fundamentally with the statement of the Minister for Finance that it is largely a question for Germany themselves to resolve and that the Community would merely adopt the role or posture of observers. Apart from Ireland's role as President of the Community, we have a fundamental role in relation to supervising, being party to or being involved in the whole process of German unification.
The more we embrace a greater section of Europe into the Community, the more we consolidate the ideal of the United States of Europe. Of course there is a very natural apprehension, anxiety and an undercurrent of fear that peripheral regions of the community like Ireland will suffer in relation to the disbursement of funds, but collectively we take a considerable amount of solace from the very judicious remarks of German Premier Kohl that they are committed Europeans first and that German unity, while very desirable and understandable, is a secondary consideration in relation to the developments within the community as a whole. Inevitably other countries will apply for EC membership in due course and we must evaluate each application on its merits. If the accelerated pace of change in Europe continues in the next decade at anything like the pace in the past year, at the turn of the century we will have a greatly expanded, enhanced and hopefully more vigorous Europe than we have at present.
The key figure in all of this must undoubtedly be the USSR. The bold political direction taken by President Gorbachev three years ago is something that has to be acknowledged by all fair-minded people and by discerning powers in the western world. Undoubtedly, the success of this role in perestroika and glasnost, liberalisation, the breaking down of demarcations and the whole liberalisation of a process that has been hidebound and hamstrung for so long, and that has worked within particular strictures is a very difficult and dangerous task. You are talking about introducing to the Soviet Union a convertible currency because the rouble is not now convertible, and that brings all its attendant applied and implied dangers in terms of inflation and competitiveness on the open market. There is a nationality problem. While we, as Irish people, sympathetically concur with the aspirations of the different States to have autonomy, at the same time one wonders if the pace of change should not be tempered to allow the whole process of liberalisation to take place rather than reverting to a more restrictive form of central government.
Again, we are talking about removing, State by State, from the union a particular segment with the grave danger that you remove the interlocking forces that bind an economy together. We are talking about the possibility of giving independence to various States, a number of which possess nuclear weapons. We know that the proliferation of nuclear weapons is something that not alone we disavow but that, hopefully, will become part and parcel of the general scale of degeneration of nuclear weapons over a period of time.
We have the quite understandable fear of the Soviets facing the whole new world of free market economy. Of course, there is the very understandable fear that when restrictions and barriers are removed there will be a massive exodus or brain drain in terms of scientists, engineers, doctors, artists and so on, but all those things have to be understood. We should try to reduce the perceived threat from the outside in relation to the welfare of the Soviet Union.
Here, I believe, our neutrality is of vital importance. If ever any country was bequeathed the possible role of being the honest broker it is Ireland as a non-aligned military force. Over the years we have cherished our neutrality. We have managed to protect it despite various assaults and subtle inferences from the outside but, it has stood us to good stead and never more so than at present in relation to putting Ireland up front as a possible honest and trusted broker in relation to the welding together of a trust, a confidence and a friendship between the EC and the forces in Eastern Europe. As has been said, we should look at our neutrality and evaluate it, but I would not in any way favour tempering it.
Hear, hear.
Within the next decade we will see a breakdown of the military alliances. The old military blocks of NATO and the Warsaw Pact will become a historical past rather than a pertinent and relevant present. The NATO forces on one side and the Warsaw forces on the other will be political rather than military alliances.
I welcome the opportunity of participating in this debate. I urge the other side of the House and the Progressive Democrat component in that Government, which was so vocal in relation to espousing the cause of a foreign affairs committee, to make as much noise as possible because to be without such a committee does not make sense and is without rhyme or reason.
It is presumably safe to say that every Member of this House welcomes increased international co-operation. No one here would support an isolationist attitude to the rest of Europe or the world. Everyone recognises the need to safeguard human rights around the world. We all reject claims by oppressive Governments that how they treat their own citizens is an internal matter.
The Green movement throughout Europe has been at the forefront in advocating international legislation to tackle transglobal environmental problems. This is now widely accepted as being crucial to the survival of planet earth and its inhabitants.
Existing European organisations such as the EC, the Council of Europe and the CSCE have done much to safeguard human rights in their member states. They have, as yet, done relatively little in the environmental sphere. Indeed, a common declaration appended to the Single European Act stated that the EC's environmental policy could not override member states' energy policies.
The Council of Europe and the CSCE have largely been overshadowed by the EC which has made strident moves towards integration. However, developments in the EC, particularly in recent years, have been led mainly by economic interests rather than any principled desire for international co-operation.
What the EC has introduced is not economic co-operation, which would be welcomed by all, but economic centralisation which the Greens reject. This might be excused if it could be shown that everyone would be better off for it. Quite the contrary, all the indicators are that the gap between richer and poorer regions is widening all the time. The Single Market is certain to widen it still further.
The bitter pill of economic centralisation has been sweetened by claims that the EC is pursuing a united Europe of all nations, that it is setting an example of how different peoples can work together, that it is getting rid of borders: these claims have been repeated by previous speakers today.
People outside of the EC do not see it so favourably. There has been much concern about a fortress Europe. It may be eliminating its borders within but it is reinforcing its borders with the rest of the world. Recent developments, I believe, expose the fact that this latter view, which has also been the view of the Green parties in Europe, is the more accurate one.
It has been a source of great sorrow to everyone in Europe that the Continent has been partitioned for four decades. Now that the Iron Curtain is being torn down, any organisation which truly wants to embrace all of the countries of Europe should surely now be trying to find ways to facilitate the re-emerging democracies.
Instead, the EC holds an emergency Summit to accelerate integration within its borders which will undoubtedly make it far more difficult for other countries to join should they wish to do so. While the Iron Curtain comes down, the EC is pulling a new one across. So, the EC's cover is finally blown. What it is trying to achieve is an elite club of 12 which will dominate Europe and, they hope, the world. By dominating Europe they will be able to exert strong economic pressure on the countries that have so far refused to join, picking them off one by one, effectively blackmailing them into joining the Community on the EC's terms.
What we are seeing is Orwell's 1984 in the making. Granted, it is happening a few years later but then nothing moves very fast in the EC — which is something for which we should probably be grateful. Across the world trading blocks are developing, in South-East Asia, North and South America, The Gulf and North Africa. These will undoubtedly be eager to follow in the footsteps of the EC.
We will then have a world divided into continental blocks each trying to throw their economic weight around. History has shown that this is usually followed by throwing their military weight around.
What do the ordinary people of the EC countries think of all this? Well, the fact is that the Governments do not care what they think. The Single European Act was only put to a referendum in two of the Twelve member states. We need not pat ourselves on the back for being one of them as both the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition and the following Fianna Fáil Government did everything in their power to avoid it, and Deputy Barry had the nerve today to call for more public debate.
Who will get to decide the next moves? Will the Irish people be allowed to vote on it? Given that the Government are reluctant enough even to allow Members of this House to have an input, in that they still refuse us a committee on foreign policy, I very much doubt that our citizens will get much of a chance. I would fully agree with Deputy De Rossa's call for an Oireachtas committee on developments in Europe.
I have criticised the EC's reaction to current events. Now I will outline what the Green Party-An Comhaontas Glas believe should happen. Firstly, rather than accelerating integration the EC should suspend all further moves in this area until the situation in Eastern Europe stabilises. We believe that future developments must involve all countries in Europe and should be led by a genuine desire for peace, the maintenance of human rights, freedom of movement and the tackling of environmental problems. Developments in other areas, such as economics and culture, should be primarily of a co-operative rather than centralist nature.
The organisations best equipped to deal with these aims are the Council of Europe and/or the CSCE. Both have a much wider membership than the EC. The Council of Europe is very likely to welcome the eastern countries to its ranks in the near future. I was pleased to hear the Taoiseach call today for a widening of the scope of the CSCE. I welcome the Taoiseach's recent proposal that security issues should not be taken on by the EC but should be dealt with instead by the CSCE. However, the difference may well be only theoretical as long as Ireland participates in the EC group at the talks instead of with the group of neutrals and non-aligned nations. If Ireland is to make a genuine contribution to peace in Europe this can be better achieved by co-operating with the neutrals rather than NATO members.
As regards German unification, this should primarily be a question for the German people to decide for themselves. We would of course very much prefer to see a neutral, radically demilitarised Germany. But then what is good enough for the Germans should be good enough for France, the UK, the Soviet Union, the US and everyone else. Whatever happens it is entirely unacceptable for policies on German unification to be motivated by the racist idea that the Germans have some sort of natural inclination towards starting wars. This comes from an extremely selective view of recent history. It is a matter of great concern, though, that the Taoiseach made no reference today to the issue of the alignment of a united Germany.
It is decision time in Europe, but before the people of the Continent can properly determine their destiny together we must wait for the situation in individual countries to stabilise. Then we must choose if we want to take the EC's path of a centralised European union, remote from its several hundred million citizens, or a decentralised Europe of small autonomous regions which co-operate on a continental and global level and which guarantee human rights and proper representation for all their citizens. The choice is not for the people of Ireland nor the people of the EC. It is for all the people of Europe.
I listened with interest to the Leader of the Fine Gael Party, Deputy Alan Dukes, who dealt with the issue of neutrality in rather colourful terms. He painted the new map of Europe as he saw it. He talked about the American presence and the Soviet military withdrawal from Eastern Europe and he said it was time to shoot this political cow, neutrality or, if not, at least bring it into different pastures. I, for one, strongly object to putting down this political cow. Perhaps a slight change of diet will be required for this animal in the next decade, but I see no reason for a shift in our principal policy of neutrality. Indeed, I welcome the fact that Deputy Higgins, who is here in the Chamber, expressed a different view and I agree with him that our traditional position will be very significant in the years ahead. I have always felt we have had a very strong pivotal role to play, which we should continue, between East and West. I welcome the fact that there are different views in the Fine Gael Party and, no doubt, in other parties.
I congratulate the Taoiseach on initiating and arranging a special meeting of the European Council last week to discuss German unity and developments in Central and Eastern Europe. We have all been surprised at the pace of developments and I share with many previous speakers appreciation of the role played by President Gorbachev in bringing about these developments. We are faced with challenging times ahead.
The Taoiseach prepared for this European Council meeting very well. He toured all the EC capitals seeking the views of the leaders to establish priorities concerning the Dublin meeting and to find where there was agreement. It was to very important to establish where the consensus was and there was no point in bringing leaders together unless he was aware of their views. He did all that with extreme caution and put a great deal of time and energy into that course of action. The result was broad agreement on German unity and on rapid and steady progress towards political unity. President Mitterrand of France and Chancellor Kohl of the FDR in particular wished to accelerate the political construction of the Twelve. Now we will have an Intergovernmental Conference on political union to be held parallel with a conference on economic and monetary union. We were discussing these issues last year as if they were going to happen years down the line. Unlike some Deputies here today, I think we should look positively towards these developments as our Taoiseach has been doing, and we should become centrally involved in the formation of these new structures. It is important to get the economic and financial basis right and understand the consequences of German unity for the Community.
The European Council rightly welcomed the developments in Eastern Europe, the historic changes and the emergence of a united Europe. At present we are witnessing a united Europe that will be committed to democracy, full respect for human rights and the principles of a market economy. The people of Central and Eastern Europe need our assistance. Deputy Higgins quite rightly referred to what he found when he visited there, as did many other Members of this Parliament. The Taoiseach referred to the need for patiently negotiated solutions to the various problems within our states. He welcomed German unity under the umbrella, as he said, of the EC. We have a vested interest in a smooth and harmonious transition period to contribute to faster economic growth in the EC. The FDR will keep the Community fully informed of developments and the Commission will be fully involved in the discussions.
The existing commitments to peripheral regions of the European Structural Funds will be maintained, and Ireland has a vested interest in this. It is important to realise what is involved here, that 16 million extra people will be joining us and that European unity and German union can be addressed at the same time. It is the practical way to proceed. The FDR is strong. Chancellor Kohl is saying he is not looking for aid — that speaks for itself — and that unification will not take place at the expense of others. He merely wants the Community to allow for sensible transitional measures and he and the Community and the Presidency have been talking about the three phases, first economic and monetary union; secondly, political unification; and, thirdly, the process of Community law which will eventually apply to all Germany. That is a very clear, structured approach.
We will have a new market for Ireland. Trade with Germany at the moment is on the increase. The Taoiseach pointed out this morning that exports to the FDR increased by 18 per cent last year and the number of German visitors to this country increased by 37 per cent last year. They are sizeable increases in the economic and social links between our two countries. Work on the completion of the Single Market has progressed well under the Irish Presidency.
With regard to EMU, because of our economic discipline we are well placed to benefit even further from our membership of the EMS. We have below average inflation and interest rates and, to be successful in Europe, a Community of over 340 million people without barriers and restrictions, we must maintain strict budgetary discipline and proceed on the course we are adopting at present.
The issue of political union has been referred to time and time again and concerns have been expressed about it. The Irish Presidency will seek from the Foreign Ministers a range of proposals rather than one specific model of political union. The role and functions of the Community institutions will be covered. At the Dublin meeting it was confirmed and we ensured that the decisions will soon be taken on the Single Market, economic and monetary union and political union. Therefore, the Community will be strengthened and transformed.
Political union should be clearly defined. The Taoiseach refers to full respect for the principle of subsidiarity. That means those functions best carried out at national level will continue to be dealt with at that level and matters which require common action will be dealt with at Community level. The Foreign Ministers should adhere strictly to that agenda in ensuring that that principle of subsidiarity is clearly established and defined.
With regard to security, the Community partners wish the NATO alliance to continue and the US to continue its involvement in European defence, so within that forum defence and military matters will be discussed.
With regard to relations with other countries, the Community will act as a political entity. Progress towards restoration on democracy and freedom in Eastern Europe with the prospect of arms reduction, makes it necessary that we form a new framework of peace, security and co-operation throughout Europe. The CSCE will provide this framework, a useful and important forum, and obviously the Community will play a major role in discussions within the CSCE. This framework will play a significant role in the years ahead and, as has been pointed out, every country in Europe, with the exception of Albania, together with the US and Canada, are members of the 35 Nation Conference.
The primary role is to build confidence and co-operation and the reference to security means more than defence and armaments. It also embraces political and economic aspects such as human rights, the environment and cultural co-operation. Those issues need to be agreed and defined. The summit meeting of the CSCE will be held before the end of the year in Paris. Possible new institutional arrangements within the CSCE will be introduced and there is the possibility of the setting up of a small secretariat. I see this as a strong force on human rights within Europe and for dealing with countries outside Europe.
I was impressed with the speed of the Community's response to the needs of developing Eastern European economies. The Council is encouraging private investment and the Commission is studying the implementation of the most appropriate accompanying measures. Already the Council has got down to the business of assisting Eastern Europe. Association agreements will be made with each of the central East European countries. These will open up the establishment of an institutional framework for political dialogue. Basic conditions for this support are that these countries should continue to establish democracies and market orientated economies. We must not alienate or ignore the important EFTA grouping. I should like to encourage our Government to promote close co-operation with Austria, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. We can learn a good deal from those good partners, particularly in regard to human rights. Norway has a strong policy on human rights particularly in relation to Cambodia and South Africa. It is important that we should encourage good developments with those EFTA groupings.
The Taoiseach has put the emphasis on strong association with the US and has initiated regular meetings with that country. He has developed a positive and fruitful relationship with President Bush whose approach to Europe is more positive and outward-looking than that of his predecessor. He looks on Europe as an area with potential for development and with which he should increase economic contact. The Taoiseach brought an added dimension to the Presidency. Apart from the dramatic internal progress, we have established firm links with the US and have confirmed continued strong relations with Japan, Canada, Australia and other major economies. The healthy functioning of democracy depends on a proper system of checks and balances. We should look closely at the proposed changes in the institutions.
When discussing changes in institutions and political union inevitably we should examine carefully how Ireland's interest might best be served. Allowing a majority vote at Council level might be to our benefit. Our record to date at this level would suggest that. Giving more powers to the Commission may be beneficial, depending on the portfolio given to the Irish nominee. Perhaps the President should be elected. I would be very fearful of giving more power to the European Parliament as that would lead to German domination with Ireland having a mere 15 members involved. At least on the Council we have one member out of 12. The next few months will give us an opportunity to look coldly at what developments might take place in Europe in the years ahead. There is no doubt in my mind that France, with its wealth of history and culture, and Germany with its strong reputation in industry and for hard work, will have a hidden agenda. Let us not fool ourselves, we are forming a united states of Europe. One danger I see, because of large vested interests, is a tight French-German axis that will dominate the new powerful economic and political union into the next century.
Germany will dominate Eastern Europe and we must be vigilant that Spain, Britain, Italy and Ireland are not marginalised. That is why we need to clarify and define political union, the position with regard to the sovereignty of individual states and project into the future. Ireland has a very respected independent position at UN level because of our neutral policy, as referred to by Deputy Higgins and others. While attending a debate on disarmament at the UN I noted the international interest in the position adopted by the Taoiseach who was addressing a special session of that body. That independent position adopted by us as a neutral country at UN level, and the independence of other countries at UN level, should be encouraged and, indeed, institutionalised in some way when forming political unity.
There is a difference between our UN involvement and our relationship within the European Community. There must be scope for our country to stand apart from the common political approach if the need arises. In particular, that should be the position in relation to human rights. For example, Sweden has from time to time been courageous on human rights issues in Cambodia and South Africa.
Ireland should maintain its independent role in extra-European affairs. We are different from other European nations in many ways. For example, we have a reputation abroad as an independent neutral nation and we have particular links with the United States and Australia because millions of our people live in those countries. We should not weaken that link through political union. There is no doubt that integration and union will not come about without a great deal of effort. I heard little reference to the relationship between European union and our Constitution. It is a complex area as the Crotty case showed when there was a challenge to the Single European Act. We should not forget that the Supreme Court found in Mr. Crotty's favour and we were forced to have a referendum. At last we are having a proper debate on Europe. I can recall the former Taoiseach, Deputy FitzGerald, saying that if we did not sign the Single European Act we would be bad Europeans. We did not have a proper debate on that issue but now we are having a full debate on Europe.
The debate has, quite rightly, come down to defining our nationality and where it and co-operation with our partners will divide. Monetary union through the EMS has brought us considerable success. Being locked into Germany has brought us stability. The economic success of Europe has been largely due to the economic strength of Germany. Their commitment to monetary stability, low interest rates and low inflation has brought great gains to Europe. We must acknowledge that. The British have been urged time and again in recent years to join the EMS. I should like to issue a word of warning on this issue. If the British joined the EMS now and a second major variable was introduced into the EC economy it might have a destabilising effect. After all, Britain has massive balance of payments problems, higher interest rates than the rest of us and that despite the fact that she had a mature and industrial economy and a huge injection of cash from North Sea oil. That was, in fact, transferred to those already well-off. The poor are suffering and the British education system has not kept pace with developments internationally. The British should get their own house in order before they are brought into the EMS.
We should move towards monetary union in a structured way. We should allow Germany to sort out its own economic affairs under a European roof. We should not underestimate the task involved in bringing about monetary union. Let us take, for example, the question of the harmonisation of European tax. The proposals to harmonise corporation tax rates and capital allowances involve two issues: (1) the rate of tax and (2) the way one calculates taxable profits in so many different ways in different countries. This is an extremely complex issue and the more members there are the more difficult it becomes. In our discussions and deliberations we should aim for something attainable in trying to harmonise taxes rather than crying for the moon.
The dramatic changing political complexion in Eastern Europe is to be warmly applauded and I encourage and welcome the firm recognition and support for this process given by the European Council. The move from totalitarianism and democratic centralism with such relative ease and speed to genuine democracy and free elections indicates that man's spirit and sense of justice and freedom can in the end win over repression and corruption. These people deserve our continued support, morally and financially. The rapid growth and the formation of a powerful united states of Europe is an exciting and challenging prospect. We must not merely think along the lines of internal monetary and economic development although I have no doubt that will be a major economic force in the next century.
Having provided aid to Poland, Hungary and other East European countries we must also be conscious of our humanitarian obligations to those less privileged in the world outside Europe. I am thinking in particular of countries like Ethiopia and the Sudan — indeed the whole African Continent — where thousands are starving and in great need. In the North-South divide we must not renege on our responsibilities. I am thinking of our obligation to those in urgent need of development aid in Central America and Cambodia. I welcome the Minister, Deputy Calleary's reference to the co-operation agreement under the Irish Presidency between the Community and Argentina providing safeguards for human rights and democracy. I am pleased that a similar agreement is being arranged with the new democratic Government in Chile.
We must never place vested interests before human life. The day the mark, pound or franc take precedence over human life in any part of the globe will be a bad day for the Europe of the future. Let us place our commitment on human rights firmly on the record before we even contemplate any form of political or economic union.
This series of statements is on recent European developments. And what tremendous further developments there have been in our Continent and in the European Community since our last wide-ranging discussing in this House on European affairs.
Pride of place must go to the now, I believe, irreversible momentum that has developed towards the unification of Germany. As a nation itself affected by division, we in Ireland can more than most others, understand and identify with the emotions of elation among the German people in both existing states. As someone who, as a Member of this House and as a Minister of State, has been involved in the intensification of German-Irish parliamentary relations, I wish to express my own deep satisfaction that German unification is taking place and that it is taking place, in the words of the Presidency Conclusions of the recent summit, under a European roof.
As the Taoiseach rightly recalled, the Federal Republic has, since our accession, amply proved itself a friend of Ireland in the Community, a partner which has shown solidarity and understanding towards our concerns and interests. I am, therefore, very happy that it is a European Council meeting in Dublin that has expressed a warm welcome for German unification. I know that this is deeply appreciated by our German friends.
The Strasbourg Conclusions set out the views of the European Council on how developments in regard to the German Democractic Republic and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe should be handled. Those Conclusions were wise and fully deserved the support we gave them, but it would be idle to deny that the momentum towards German unification had given rise to varying degrees of anxiety in different countries. I believe that the warmer tone of the Dublin Conclusions reflects credit on the success of the diplomatic efforts of the Federal German Government and the concrete steps they have taken to ensure that the external aspects of German unification contribute positively to stability in Europe, something that is of vital importance to Ireland, no less than to other countries.
In regard to a more immediate Irish interest, the funding of Community structural policies, it has now been made crystal clear that the costs of integration of the GDR into a united Germany and into the Community will not in any way affect the agreements reached on the funding of the Structural Funds up to 1992. The position thereafter remains to be determined. The Commission's paper on German unification prepared for last Saturday's Summit refers to the absence of a reliable statistical basis for the application of Community structural policies once the current territory of the GDR becomes part of the Community. It says, however, that it can be assumed that it is beset by the same type of problems encountered by other regions of the Community and that it will therefore be eligible under one or more of the structural policy objectives.
It has, of course, always been the position of this Government that the achievement of economic and social cohesion in the Community is a Treaty objective in its own right, by no means applicable only for the period during which the Single Market is being created but rather a continuing imperative over the longer term. It will, therefore, be our position that there is a continuing and, indeed with the prospect of EMU, an increased need for structural policies and support after 1992 and any funding after 1992 for parts of what is now the GDR will require a commensurate increase in the Community resources devoted to structural policies and a consequential increase in the Community budget, a subject on which I shall have more to say later.
In public debate on the implications for Ireland of German unification and of the developments in Central and Eastern Europe, questions have been raised, going well beyond the implications for the Structural Funds as to whether there would be adverse effects for us. As far as German unification is concerned, the Commission paper already mentioned concluded that it would have a positive effect on growth in the Community as a whole. This is an important point because in discussions on this subject there is an undue tendency to look upon the situation as a zero sum game, where if others gain, we must lose.
It is, of course, far from being this. Looking beyond Germany, to the other countries of Eastern and Central Europe, it will take some years before normal business and trade opportunities on a substantial scale will open up. However, in the medium-term, there should be a tremendously positive effect on the EC economy as the pent-up demand in those countries is, if we assume a benign scenario, made effective, under the influence of economic restructuring, currency convertibility and Western assistance, in a repeat of the experience in Western Europe with Marshall Aid and the European Payments Union. The potential for economic stimulus to the Community economy, including Ireland, must be enormous.
Already, indeed, there is scope for management and other training in many parts of those economies, for language training, for consultancy advice on techniques of promoting development in market economies, all areas in which Ireland has more recent and relevant experience than many Western countries. A small investment now could pay large dividends in the future. The Government have taken a number of specific steps to bring the opportunities concerned to the attention of Irish business. On Wednesday next, we shall be welcoming, for a working visit, the Prime Minister of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, with a range of Departmental Ministers and officials, a number of whom will be having separate bilateral meetings with their counterparts here.
There is, of course, no doubt that countries in Central and Eastern Europe will now offer stiffer competition in the attraction of mobile international investment. However, recent decisions by major US and Japanese corporations indicate that the earlier enlargement of the Community towards the South has not adversely affected our capacity to attract major investment from those regions of the world and developments East of the Elbe should not change this situation which is based, primarily, on our young and highly educated population.
While I felt it important to bring out these strongly positive elements in the situation, there will undoubtedly be a closer focus in the Community, over the next few years, on Central and Eastern Europe and this is likely to be particularly true of Germany.
Closer relations with the non-Community Scandinavian countries will intensify relations to the North, and Denmark looks to benefit as does, for example, the Schleswig-Holstein region in Germany which is also, of course, well placed in relation to the German Democratic Republic. The Danes are talking about a whole series of new bridges to exploit the potential they see. For other reasons — basically, as one of my Community colleagues put it to me, to avoid boat people in the Mediterranean — the Community has opened a debate on substantially stepping up its support for the development of the countries on the southern littoral of the Mediterranean, the combined population of which is already 115 million, a figure which is projected to double by the year 2025. All of this raises the question: what of the West? And here I mean the West of the Community but with the west of Ireland very much in my mind.
Various studies, including in particular one by the French regional development body DATAR, of the relative prominence of 165 cities in the Community, Austria and Switzerland with populations above 200,000, bring out, once again, the heavy concentration of growth in a central megapole but with a second, increasingly prosperous area dubbed the North of the South, taking in Catalonia, the French Mediterranean coast, Tuscany and Emilia-Komagna with Romagna, in Italy, and parts of the Italian Adriatic. Both these poles are characterised by density of population and of economic activity forming intensely connected networks. These elements are missing in the regions along the Atlantic coast, where cities are rather spread out, isolated from each other and of moderate weight and development.
I have outlined this perspective of economic geography, first, in order to underline the extent of the challenge confronting us in Ireland in the coming decade and secondly, as a background to what I want to say about the assignment of policy competences in the context of economic and monetary union and, indeed, of the political union now opening as a prospect with which we have to get to grips.
So far as the challenge to ourselves is concerned, we in Ireland start from a much more solid base, thanks to the policies implemented since the change of Government in March 1987. We have been closing the gap with our Community partners. On the latest Commission figures for the index of relative economic performance per head of population, with the EC average as 100, Ireland is shown on 67.3 in 1990, up 7.4 points from 59.9 in 1973, whereas Spain, Greece and Portugal are all shown as having lost ground, relatively, since 1973.
The conclusions of the European Council meetings last Saturday state:
—the preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference on EMU which are already well advanced will be further intensified with a view to permitting that Conference, which will open in December 1990, to conclude its work rapidly with the objective of ratification by Member States before the end of 1992; and
—the European Council confirmed its commitment to Political Union and decided ... that Foreign Ministers will undertake a detailed examination and analysis on the need for possible treaty changes ... and prepare proposals to be discussed at the European Council in June with a view to a decision on the holding of a second intergovernmental conference to work in parallel with that on EMU with a view to ratification by Member States in the same time-frame.
Ratification of any Treaty changes would very likely call for a referendum in Ireland on necessary amendments to the Constitution.
An issue that is coming very much to the fore in both these contexts, and one that is of vital importance for Ireland, is the application of the principle of subsidiarity, according to which, as defined in the report of the Delors Committee on Economic and Monetary Union, the functions of higher levels of government should be as limited as possible and should be subsidiary to those of lower levels. That report said adherence to this principle would be an essential element in defining the appropriate balance of powers within the Community in an economic and monetary union. As specifically noted in last year's NESC report, the Delors Committee report states:
Thus, the attribution of competences to the Community would have to be confined specifically to those areas in which collective decision-making was necessary. All policy functions which could be carried out at national (and regional and local) levels without adverse repercussions on the cohesion and functioning of the economic and monetary union would remain within the competence of the member countries.
As the NESC report says, Ireland need have no difficulty with this as a principle. We certainly do not support any excessive centralisation of powers or functions in the Community. We espouse a Community in which, as President Delors said in his speech in Bruges last year, diversity and pluralism are upheld. We agree with him that integration in Europe, a Community of ancient nations, has to be a sui generis process.
The report of the Guigou Group of high-level representatives of member states on EMU drawn up last year under the French Presidency also poses, inter alia, the question, under the heading, economic and social cohesion, and I quote:
In assessing progress in convergence between Member States' economies, what criteria can be used to determine which matters in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, are appropriate for Community action.
The issue has also been raised explicitly in the context of political development and union. In an address in Brussels on 30 November last, on the theme, "Governing Europe", Commission President Delors expressed the view that subsidiarity will have a new, vital role to play in the organisation of government in the Community, so much so, indeed, that the principle and its mechanisms will need to be defined in any new Treaty. It has also been suggested in the European Parliament that the assignment of policy functions under EMU should be explicitly defined in any new Treaty or Treaty amendments. The recent memorandum of the Belgian Government on political union which was discussed at the Summit last Saturday also proposes that the principle of subisidiarity be formally written into the Treaty and that this broad provision should be supplemented by more precise details of respective powers in sensitive areas in which national traditions frequently differ.
As I have said, we in Ireland have no difficulty with the principle, but the issue is the application of the principle. It would appear from other references in President Delors's Bruges speech and, indeed, from the report of the Delors Committee, that there is a tendency to apply the principle so as unduly to restrict the areas in which the Community and its institutions would have competence and responsibility. It is to be welcomed that the President now sees a Community budget rising to 5 per cent of Community GDP but other references appear to leave to the exclusive competence and responsibility of the member states a number of policy areas where I believe, as do the NESC, that the Community should have a parallel involvement. Moreover, the paper submitted by the Commission to the informal ECOFIN, which I attended in Ashford Castle on 31 March, was less satisfactory than the Delors Committee report in its treatment of these issues.
The NESC report rightly points out that there are economies of scale, externalities and spillovers attaching to the provision of certain public activities which provide reasons these activities might be assigned to a higher level of government. Examples might be, respectively, air traffic control, environmental regulation and educational provision. They note that an additional criterion is political homogeneity or the feeling of belonging to the same political grouping and sharing the same interests and destiny. It would be foolish to suggest that the commonality of identity and interests between people from different member states is yet anywhere as strong as that which exists among the peoples of the individual member states, but I note that, again in his Bruges speech, President Delors looked to every European having the feeling of belonging to a Community which would, in some sense, be his or her second motherland, and we are now looking towards a situation to be designated a political union.
This has many implications in regard to People's Europe but if it is to happen, it will be necessary that the Community, as I have said, cherish each of its citizens equally. Certainly, the member states have, as also recognised in Article 130 B of the Treaty, their own responsibilities for their development and for the welfare of their citizens but, with increasing integration, it will also be necessary to give fuller practical expression to the Community's obligations under that Article. Here it is relevant to recall that, as NESC point out, the theory of fiscal federalism strongly suggests that the redistribution and stabilisation functions should be carried out at the highest level. They reminded us in their report, commissioned by President Delors, that the Padoa-Schioppa Group expressed the view that "greater Community involvement in stabilisation and redistribution policies is the indispensable complement of the ambitious project of completing the internal market". It might be felt that, in current circumstances, it would be unrealistic to envisage that the Community should exercise these functions. The situation should be different in an economic and monetary union, and still more so in a political union but, even there, it is scarcely realistic, or even perhaps desirable, to contemplate the Community exercising exclusive responsibility in such areas as social security or regional policy.
I mentioned fiscal federalism a moment ago. In his Bruges speech President Delors spoke of the merits of the federal approach to the further development of the Community. If we look at models such as the Federal Republic of Germany or the United States, we see that a prominent feature of such federal unions is the concurrent exercise of competences in various fields. The Padoa-Schioppa Group envisaged a greater need for policies to be shared between the Community and the member states. I am not now proposing a federal model or indeed any particular constitutional model but there is nothing against taking from the models we have the elements that are appropriate to the Community's unique circumstances. One can imagine a situation in which major parts of the responsibility for decision-making in regard to such areas as educational provision or unemployment compensation remains with the member state but where this is paralleled by an active Community role in ensuring minimum standards of provision and welfare, including, through financial support in areas such as these, going beyond the boundaries of what is covered by the Structural Funds at present. Again, there is nothing very new here — some of these were proposed in the 1974 report of the Marjolin Group.
This implies a larger Community budget. Whether 5 per cent of Community GDP is enough is perhaps a question for another day. The important point of principle is that the NESC are right that application of the Delors Committee's own criterion that the assignment of policy functions should be related to the repercussions on the cohesion and functioning of an EMU suggests that the Community will need to exercise a competence, concurrent with the continuing competence of the member states, in a wider and deeper range of policy areas than is, apparently, being contemplated in some quarters. By reference to Articles 130 A and 130 B of the Treaty, the effectiveness of the functioning of the EMU must be judged by, inter alia, the effect on economic and social cohesion; and if real convergence of the different economies is retarded rather than advanced by EMU, the cohesion and stability of the union will, sooner or later, be adversely affected. The Community must have the policy competences and financial resources required in order to effectively promote such convergence.
The report of the Delors Committee states that excessive reliance on financial assistance through regional and structural policies could cause tensions. It continues:
The principal objective of regional policies should not be to subsidize incomes and simply offset inequalities in standards of living, but to help to equalize production conditions through investment programmes in such areas as physical infrastructure, communications, transportation and education so that large-scale movements of labour do not become the major adjustment factor. The success of these policies will hinge not only on the size of the available financial resources, but to a decisive extent also on their efficient use and on the private and social return on the investment programmes.
I would not disagree with this but even with the most effective use of financial resources, it appears probable that, as in existing nation-states, federal or otherwise, it will also be necessary to have a system of financial flows linked to certain fiscal, economic and social indicators and not determined on a discretionary basis, if the emergence of unacceptably wide gaps between different parts of the union is to be avoided.
The size of the EC Budget at about 1 per cent of Community GDP is far too small to make a really significant impact in achieving economic and social cohesion. In 1992, the budget will still be no more than 1.2 per cent of Community GDP, even after the doubling of the Structural Funds. This falls, as the NESC report brings out, well short of what economic authorities consider necessary as a basis for progress towards a durable and stable EMU. The report of the McDougall Group, cited by the NESC, considered that a budget of 5-7 per cent of GDP, though much smaller than in mature federations, would be adequate if it was high powered. By "high-powered" they meant fulfilling to a high degree the redistributive and macro-economic functions that are to be expected of an economic union but, at the same time, aiming at minimum Community-level public expenditure and minimum centralisation in the supply of goods and services.
Some commentators on the NESC report last year picked up its own comments on the question of the degree of political homogeneity needed before there can be agreement to assign policy functions to the Community level and especially to expand Community budgetary support into fresh fields, extending beyond those concerned with structural development of the component economies. These commentators suggested that this degree of political homogeneity was unlikely to emerge in the Community in the near future and that consequently the NESC analysis and prescriptions on European integration provided little basis for practical policy purposes. But, as the NESC itself pointed out, the degree of political homogeneity changes and develops over time and, as experience shows, sometimes in discrete leaps. When we look forward towards political union we are surely contemplating such a leap.
One of the aims in view in connection with possible Treaty changes under political union is, according to last Saturday's Conclusions, "enabling the Community and its institutions to respond efficiently and effectively to the demands of the new situation". Various issues have been raised in this context: further strengthening of the powers of the European Parliament, further extension of qualified majority voting to new areas, progress towards common foreign and security policies. I do not wish to take anything from the importance of these areas when I say that, in my view, the objective I have quoted also requires that the work now to be done must also give a central place to the powers and competences to be exercised by the Community in the economic and social areas, whether exclusively or concurrently. It has been the consistent policy of successive Irish Governments that closer political cohesion must be firmly rooted in closer economic and social cohesion. This must remain a guiding principle as the Community faces into the tasks defined at the Madrid, Strasbourg and Dublin Summits.
Tá mé buíoch gur tugadh deis dúinn díospóireacht fad-réimeach mar seo a bheith againn i gcaitheamh an lae. Tá súil agam go gcuireann sé tús le díospóireachtaí a bheith againn go rialta ar chúrsaí Eorpacha sa Teach seo. Tá áthas agam a fheicéail go bhfuil an Seanad le díospóireacht den chineál céanna a bheith acu an tseachtain seo chugainn.
Last week-end's Summit in Dublin was one of genuine historic significance, significant because there was unanimous agreement on the desirability of achieving German unification and full membership of the European Community of the German Democratic Republic by 1993. It was historic also because the Twelve leaders agreed in principle to advancing the cause of political union within the Community. It is now the task of the Foreign Ministers to explore the detailed agenda for this highly ambitious project with a view to reporting back to the next Summit meeting due to be held in Dublin in June.
It is perhaps worth reflecting on why it is that a Summit meeting called to explore the issue of German unification should have expanded itself into the wider domain of political union. In my opinion there are at least two significant threads coming together to suggest why this is so.
In the first instance, since the Berlin Wall tumbled early in November last, the process of German unification became inevitable. The first hints of that prospect were found only weeks earlier when what was described as the "People's Revolution" in Hungary began to pull back the Iron Curtain by dismantling its land border with Germany. However, the inevitablity itself did not determine the path or pace towards unity. What emerged in Germany itself — partly under the pressure of the massive exodus from East Germany, and partly to take advantage of a benevolent climate, especially in Moscow, while the going was good — was that the Federal Republic's leading politicians, expecially Chancellor Kohl and Foreign Minister Genscher, injected enormous pace into the debate. That pace was accompanied by what at the outset appeared to many as an unfortunate ambivalence on the eastern boundaries with Poland about a United Germany. Within the European Community anxieties emerged as so much unfolded without what was seen as due consultation. That was hardly surprising since, for everyone involved, it was a leap into the unknown.
Since those early and heady days, more particularly since March 18 when the elections in East Germany produced an emphatic result, it seems to me that a more mature and reflective response has emerged. This resulted just two weeks ago in the Kohl-Mitterrand initiative which established a dynamic not just for a new Germany but also for a more coherent and, in a political sense, new Europe. That initiative ensured that the worst fears and anxieties about a possible "born again" Germany were to be replaced by a clear understanding that a united Germany genuinely would be part of a united Europe.
A second thread which converted the Summit on German unification into the wider question of European Community political union relates to the more general context which has emerged in Central and Eastern Europe since last autumn. The emerging democracies in those countries have opted for free and open elections and for democratic pluralism. They have opted to found themselves on a respect for individual liberty, a respect for human rights and for moving progressively towards the perceived benefits of the mixed economy. Their role model in many respects is the European Community.
After the Second World War two Europes emerged. The one in Western Europe, the European Community, with all its faults, found its strength in solidarity, economic substance, and pooled sovereignty which stands in stark contrast to the failed entities of Central and Eastern Europe — the second Europe which has emerged the poorer and more ravaged from its post-war experience. That second Europe looks to the Community not just for aid and technical assistance but also clearly for full participation in the fullness of time. That is what President Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia has said. It is also what the new democratically elected leaders in Hungary have said. Herein lies the historic challenge to the European Community, to so develop and order its business as, in the medium term, to sustain the fledgling and emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and, in the longer term, to embrace them fully into the European Community family.
This historic task and challenge facing the European Community cannot be met successfully without undertaking further reform of how that Community itself operates. Without reforming how itself proceeds, the European Community, as we know it, will flounder under the weight of inertia. This is so because the burden of future enlargements will inevitably add exponentially to the complexity of the European Community itself. Consequently, considering the absolute desirability of ensuring that German unification is placed firmly in a process of European unification and the parallel necessity for the Community to reform itself in a manner befitting its new historic role, it is little wonder that the central issue of last week's summit became the European Community itself.
This leads me against that background analysis to praise the Taoiseach for the tremendous personal commitment and effort he has invested in this task and equally to say, as Leader of the Progressive Democrats, that the time has now come to initiate a major national debate here at home in Ireland not to do with our Presidency but rather with ourselves and our role in this wider European challenge. At the minimum that debate will need to discuss the role, functions and powers of the various European institutions, the Commission, Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. It will need to examine the principles which will govern the determination of which jurisdiction, European or national, is best suited to handle different matters of public policy. It will need to engage in a root and branch examination of the size and functions of the Community budget and it will be obliged to confront, in all its aspects, the implications which follow from the development of common security and foreign policies in Europe. That is the primary national challenge to confront us in this House which follows from last weekend's summit.
Though not dealt with by the Council on Saturday last, it is important to highlight here again that one of the major economic objectives of the Community is to ensure a successful outcome to the Uruguay Round negotiations at the end of this year. The round will set the rules for international trade for the foreseeable future, certainly into the 21st Century. Ministers from the major industrialised and largest developing countries met in Mexico from 17 to 20 April for negotiations on the progress of the round. The meeting was crucial in preparing the ground for a successful conclusion to the negotiations in December.
Ireland was invited to attend as Presidency of the European Community — the first occasion on which the Presidency was ever involved in these events. As Presidency in office, my job was to ensure the fullest possible co-ordination between those member states present, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands, and the Commission. I suggested and oversaw procedures to ensure that the Commission would articulate the Community's position, with member states intervening in support. Cohesion was thereby maintained in all topics throughout the conference.
The meeting was significant because it was the last opportunity for ministerial discussions between developed and developing countries before the final ministerial meeting in December. Overall, there was general agreement on the importance of giving political impetus to the negotiations, with outlines of solutions in each negotiating topic to be established by the end of July.
It was quite clear, however, that a successful outcome depends effectively on agreement in the agriculture and textiles sectors. Both developed and developing countries attach importance to a substantial result on agriculture. The Community's position was maintained throughout and I took the opportunity to stress the importance of respecting European farming tradition and of maintaining a strong rural society not only in Ireland but in Europe generally in the context of any eventual outcome. As regards textiles and clothing, the Community is already committed to eventual liberalisation of textiles/clothing, but subject to the adoption by exporting countries — mainly developing — of improved GATT rules and disciplines.
Concessions in agriculture and textiles will be very difficult for Ireland because of the importance of these two sectors to the economy, accounting for approximately 30 per cent of total employment. However, a successful round should bring benefits overall, increasing access to third country markets for our exporters of goods and services.
It is particularly important, however, that negotiations on agriculture between the United States and the European Community should not become over-dramatised. For this reason, I suggested to Mrs. Hills, the United States Special Trade Representative, that regular contacts between the United States and the Community would be useful. It has since been announced that talks will now take place fortnightly at official level between the Commission and the United States to ease the existing stand-off and to see how the gap between both sides can be bridged.
I have arranged an informal meeting of Community Trade Ministers in Dublin on 19 May which will focus exclusively on the Uruguay Round on the basis of a strategic policy document from the Commission. The meeting will afford Ministers a further opportunity to give political direction to the Commission negotiators. Most of all, the Community now requires this kind of direction, as we approach the final stages of the round, so that whatever outcome is achieved, it reflects an acceptable balance of interests, even within the Community itself.
In the build-up to the European Council on Saturday last there was a disquieting and inaccurate statement made by one of the participants that the Irish Presidency had allowed the process of Single Market reform to slip from top gear. This was suggested on the basis that only a limited number of measures appeared to have been approved so far during our term. I want to take this opportunity to lay this serious misrepresentation to rest, unequivocally and finally, by reference to the facts.
To anyone remotely informed about the process, it is obviously misleading to talk nowadays about numbers only as a measure of progress towards the Single Market. At this stage, it is universally recognised that we are now at the point when all the easy Internal Market decisions have been taken. The time for chalking-up easy numbers has passed. What remains on the agenda, to be addressed by member states are, for the main part, the most difficult items, technically and politically. Increasingly, therefore, informed judgments about Presidencies are, to those who know what they are talking about, based on the quality rather than the quantity of measures successfully put through the system.
Let me, therefore, put the record straight about the work of the Irish Presidency so far, within the parameters of the Internal Market Council, for which I am responsible. At the outset, we have sought, as a matter of policy, to focus on key issues which up to now have not progressed satisfactorily, mainly because of their great sensitivity for member states. That is not to say we ignore the several technical matters still requiring attention. On the contrary, many of these continue to be cleared by us but, right now, I want to isolate matters of policy importance in terms of 1992.
In our February meeting, consequently, we put much effort into the Public Procurement Directive for excluded sectors, a file of considerable economic and symbolic importance, and international interest, in the 1992 context. Despite past difficulties, we achieved an agreed position on the measure and it has widely been reported since as a milestone in the Internal Market process.
In addition, at the same Council the Presidency arranged a full and new presentation by Commissioner Brittan in regard to the opening of insurance services throughout the Community. It then committed itself to an intensive programme of work at working group level to achieve significant results during our Presidency. This commitment will soon be realised in Councils later this month and in June next. Similarly in February, the Council revived discussion on some Company Law Directives — the fourth and seventh — in an attempt to give significant political direction in areas where serious blockage had occurred in the past.
In the Informal Council in Ireland at the end of March, as well as considering the Fifth Progress Report on the Completion of the Internal Market, Ministers had a political discussion on the most sensitive aspects of the European company statute — which everyone will know has long been a difficult subject. It was unanimously agreed among Ministers that the discussion was helpful and that thinking had advanced significantly. Furthermore, though it was an informal Council, we agreed that the Commission should explore the possibility of introducing a new export credit insurance mechanism to help smaller member states like Ireland take advantage of the new business opportunities in Eastern Europe.
In our forthcoming May and June Councils we have arranged other opportunities to make advances in some significant policy areas and these will be fully grasped. Further to our commitment last February, three insurance directives will be before the May Council. In addition, we will initiate a political discussion, in an attempt to resolve technical blockage on the subject of legal protection of computer software, which is of significant international interest. We will be aiming for a common position on this in June. Again, in May, we will have a further political discussion on the difficult aspects of the European company statute.
The probable agenda for the June Council is very extensive and will provide the basis, we confidently hope, for the adoption of many technical measures and the realisation on common positions on many aspects dealt with earlier during our Presidency. One particularly important political issue in our June Council will be the subject of the right of residence of economically non-active persons, e.g. students, pensioners, etc. Adoption of the directives involved will be widely recognised as an important political achievement.
Generally I should like to add that it is a well recognised tradition among Presidencies that towards the end of the period of office work volumes tend to balloon. This is because it naturally takes the best part of the duration of the Presidency for the bulk of priority work addressed throughout at working group level to reach Council. I make no apologies that this is the case also with the Irish Presidency, as it was with the French Presidency before it and the Spanish Presidency before that. The important thing is that Ireland continues to be committed fully to the realisation of the Single Market as a matter of policy priority. From the viewpoint of the Internal Market Council itself, for which I am directly responsible, I propose to maintain the rate of work so far undertaken and to translate that work into positive results by our last Council in June.
There are, of course, other Councils involved, in a vital way, in ensuring that progress towards the Single Market is fully maintained. For example, of the 139 proposals on the Council table 50 are in the veterinary and phytosanitary sector and 18 concern the harmonisation of indirect taxation. In the transport area also, some crucial decisions must be taken. As I say, the Councils involved in these areas are the responsibility of other Ministers but the House may take it that all Ministers are fully aware of the importance of making every effort during our Presidency to advance Internal Market proposals which fall within their area of responsibility.
I would now like to touch on our commercial relationships with those countries which, not so long ago, were known as the Communist Bloc, and in particular with our economic and trade relationships.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe were traditionally a backwater in terms of Irish trade. However, the upheavals there in the last year changed all this dramatically. It became clear, fairly quickly, that the welcome new democracies needed to be underpinned by substantial and real economic development. This created a major political impetus in the EC to respond to the economic needs of these countries. The EC response was dramatic. The EC Commission now co-ordinates all the programmes of assistance of the G24 — the group of 24 developed countries — to Poland and Hungary. This aid programme is now being extended to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania and Yugoslavia. The massive aid flows to these countries, coupled with internally generated wealth, will have the effect of bringing these countries to the international marketplace both as buyers and sellers.
In January of this year, the Community set itself the task of completing, under the Irish Presidency, a network of agreements on trade liberalisation and commercial and economic co-operation with all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. These agreements represent an important stage in the development of contractual relationships between the Community and these countries. They are a tangible proof of the Community's commitment to enhanced co-operation across what was once a divide. I am pleased to say that such agreements in relation to the USSR, Poland and Hungary are in place and operational, those in respect of East Germany, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia will be signed in Brussels next week and the negotiating mandate in respect of the proposed agreement with Romania is being prepared. Therefore, we are well on the target in terms of the task set last January.
We tend to refer to the rapid pace of developments in Eastern Europe. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Community is also moving very rapidly in this area. The agreements referred to above are now being called "first generation" agreements and work is in hands, at Community level, on a new form of "association" agreements which will broaden and deepen the commitments between the EC and CEE countries.
In so far as Ireland's bilateral trade with these countries is concerned, the base from which we work is small. However, the prospects for long-term increasing trade are now brighter than at any time in the past. This is not to say that it will be easy for our exporters to trade there, particularly in the immediate future. I have been particularly concerned to monitor trade possibilities in Eastern Europe. My Department organised a briefing in March for the major semi-State and private sector companies trading in Eastern Europe aimed at pooling our knowledge of developments in that region with a view to identifying areas of opportunity. My Department and CTT are now engaged in developing a strategy aimed at maximising such opportunities.
A major economic conference on the subject of East-West trade was held under the auspices of the 35 nation CSCE in Bonn at the end of March/beginning of April. In addition to the normal CSCE process of developing a framework at governmental level to encourage trade and economic co-operation, this conference brought together for the first time, large numbers of businessmen from Europe, the US, Canada and from the Soviet Union and other Central and Eastern European countries.
I addressed this conference both on behalf of the Community and on behalf of Ireland and while there, I took the opportunity of having a series of bilateral meetings with my opposite numbers from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. We discussed various ways of increasing trade flows between our countries. It was clear to me from these discussions that while all of these countries know exactly where they want to go in terms of economic development, the various methods of achieving this ambition were not always clear. I took the opportunity of suggesting that they consider the economic developments which had taken place in Ireland in the last 30 years or so as a blueprint of how an economy can be transformed. We have the expertise to help them achieve their economic aims, an expertise which above all, I stressed, is independent and neutral. Such bilateral trade contacts are continuing. Next week I will again meet the Czechoslovak Minister for Foreign Trade. The following week CTT have a trade mission in Hungary. I am planning to visit Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia before the end of June.
I am suggesting that Irish companies trading with Central and East European countries will have it easy but it is important not to overlook the potential. It is important to gain a foothold in markets which can develop and become very profitable. Nationally, it is important to help develop economic stability in those countries in Central and Eastern Europe when they need it most. Neither am I suggesting that all countries in Eastern Europe, nor all of the USSR, will be profitable markets. Irish companies must be selective in their marketing approach, as they are in the rest of Europe. They might profitably concentrate in regions of Eastern Europe and not necessarily those around the capitals.