A Cheann Comhairle, I attended the special meeting of the European Council in Birmingham on 16 October, together with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy David Andrews. The Minister of State for European Affairs, Deputy Tom Kitt, also attended. I had the Presidency Conclusions of the meeting laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas at the beginning of this week.
The meeting was prepared in the normal way by the General Affairs Council, but in addition, I held meetings with the British and Spanish Prime Ministers on 25 September and 5 October, and Minister of State Kitt met his British and French counterparts on 12 and 13 October. We also had numerous other Ministerial and diplomatic contacts on such matters as subsidiarity, rumours of a two-speed approach to integration and the GATT talks.
This special meeting was convened in the wake of the monetary turbulence and the French referendum on the Maastricht Treaty. I was among those who urged the Presidency to convene such a meeting, so that the Heads of State or Government could, collectively, give fresh impetus to the process of European integration and thus help restore confidence and stability. My overriding objective, shared by other participants, was that the European Council should give a strong signal of momentum and of confidence in regard to European integration, that our solidarity is unimpaired by recent events, a message that we are moving forward together, as Twelve, to ratify the Maastricht Treaty on European Union. That objective was achieved. We reaffirmed the importance of concluding this process as soon as possible, without reopening the present text, on the timing foreseen in Article R of the Treaty: that Article refers to entry into force on 1 January next, but it makes provision for later entry into force if unavoidable.
The Treaty is alive and well. Some member states have already ratified, and procedures will be completed in at least ten member states by the end of the year. That said, realistically, entry into force will be some time in 1993, the earlier the better.
The indication given before the meeting by the British Prime Minister that his Government would bring the Treaty back to the House of Commons and would complete the ratification process in the present parliamentary session helped the atmosphere of the Birmingham meeting.
That leaves Denmark. We agreed in Birmingham that the Community must develop together, as Twelve, on the basis of the Maastricht Treaty, while respecting the identity and diversity of member states. I said here on 7 October, in reply to parliamentary questions:
we are indeed anxious that the whole community should move forward together, as Twelve, and we are prepared to co-operate in any steps that will help to facilitate ratification in Denmark or any other member state, so long as such steps uphold the Community achievements and do not impede the dynamic of integration.
On the same occasion, I indicated that any changes in the Treaty or in the Protocols annexed to it, which would require another constitutional referendum here, would be unacceptable to Ireland.
We want to help all our partners to ratify. We share important interests in the Community with Denmark, which, like Ireland, is a smaller member state with whom, for that reason also, we have a certain fellow-feeling. We are ready to examine the possibility of interpretative declarations or even provisions with legal effect. But, so that there may be no misunderstanding leading to wrongly based expectations on the part of any of our Danish friends, I want to reiterate that any such supplementary initiatives cannot involve any changes to the Treaty signed on 7 February last, to which reference is now made in our Constitution. Nor can they have implications for our Constitution in any other way. Naturally, we would also wish to ensure that any such additional agreements did not run counter to our interests or basic policy.
At Birmingham the European Council noted the White Paper which has been published by the Danish Government and welcomed their intention to present within the next few weeks ideas on the way forward. That is not done in the White Paper, which rather sets out eight structural options as to the possible future relations between Denmark and its Community partners and comments on four broad conceivable scenarios. The Danish Prime Minister told us that his Government were in discussion with all the political parties in Denmark with a view to reaching agreement on proposals to be put to us. The Birmingham meeting asked the Foreign Ministers to examine these ideas and to report on them to the Edinburgh European Council, with a view to agreement there on the framework for a solution. It was confirmed to us by Prime Minister Schluter that if agreement can be reached, in Denmark and with its partners, his Government will arrange for a second referendum in Denmark.
From the public discussions there it appears that the principal concerns could be met without changes in the Treaty. Let me again express the sincere hope that an acceptable way can be found to ensure that Denmark participates in the move forward provided for by the Maastricht Treaty. As was well brought out in NESC Report No. 88, it is not in Ireland's interest that European integration be stalled at the present stage. To adapt Parnell, we do not wish to lose a single European, but ultimately, every nation must pursue its own interests.
A second major objective I had for the Birmingham meeting was that it should demonstrate clearly that political leaders are taking charge of the political and monetary agenda and that the Community is addressing the matters that have an impact on people. In my main intervention I made the point that, in terms of bringing the community closer to its citizens, their concerns were not primarily with subsidiarity or transparency but with jobs, interest rates and standards of living. To a considerable degree subsidiarity is a distraction. Where people express unease or opposition to Maastricht it is not because they are concerned about the Commission peering into the nooks and crannies of national life; it is rather because their daughter or son cannot get a job, or because interest rate hikes are breaking the family budget or because of threats to their farming way of life. Their concern is not that the Community is doing too much but that it is not doing enough about these problems. I shall come back to this later.
The firm message from our meeting in regard to ratification of the Maastricht Treaty will help to steady the markets which, indeed, have settled down somewhat over the past two weeks. It was not appropriate for the European Council to consider detailed questions in regard to the operation of the exchange rate mechanism or the EMS generally. Indeed, it had been decided in advance that we should not do so for fear of fuelling speculation, but we did reiterate in our conclusions the European Council's commitment to the EMS as a key factor of economic stability and prosperity in Europe. This is in line with the Government's view that the system is basically sound and that recent developments underline the need to ensure that the economic policies followed are compatible with the exchange rates set under the system.
Both in our preparatory meetings and contacts and at the meeting itself, it was made abundantly clear that suggestions of Franco-German or Commission plans to proceed with European Monetary Union on a two-tier or two-speed basis were groundless. Chancellor Kohl said in the meeting that this should not even be mentioned. I and other leaders had also warned against such talk as calculated to damage the solidarity of the Community.
In intensive contacts with partners in the weeks before Birmingham we made clear our conviction that the way forward in monetary integration was as charted by the Maastricht Treaty; and that Ireland's sound economic fundamentals and fulfilment of the Treaty convergence criteria fully qualified us to proceed to the final stage of European Monetary Union from the outset.
Our support for the EMS and our view that the Maastricht design and timetable for European Monetary Union remain fully valid does not mean that they cannot or should not be improvements in the operation of the ERM and EMS. The European Council agreed that the recent financial turbulence calls for reflection and analysis in the light of the increasing size and sophistication of capital markets, greater capital liberalisation and of developments in the European and world monetary systems. We invited the Finance Ministers, assisted by the Monetary Committee, and the Commission, with the central bank governors to carry this work forward. We in Ireland have already made an input into this process of consideration and we will continue our active involvement.
The European Council expressed concern at lower growth and increasing unemployment. There was agreement on the need for strong co-ordination of economic policies at Community level which will hope to ensure that the economy of each member state is strengthened by success in others. Time did not allow us, in a restricted one-day special meeting with a particular background, to develop this theme much further; but the Government will continue to pursue the question of concerted action to help all our countries break out of the economic difficulties that currently prevail internationally. Even if we in Ireland have escaped the worst effects on growth, the current economic and monetary climate is extremely unfavourable, and there is insufficient international economic and monetary co-operation at a time of greater interdependence than ever. This has to be remedied in the community and in the wider world and must be tackled in the run-up to the Edinburgh meeting.
The Birmingham meeting was not an occasion for dealing with the Delors II package. The Lisbon Summit gave guidelines on a programme of work with a view to decisions at Edinburgh. Commission President Delors, in his speech to the European Parliament last week, emphasised that, as an integral part of tackling the unfavourable economic situation and boosting growth and employment, it is vital to reach agreement on the Commission's proposals for the Delors II package, particularly those on structural funding. He rightly made the essential point that, otherwise, the deflationary impact would be so great that European Union would be rejected.
Current economic difficulties have not eased the climate for the negotiations on the package, although they have increased its necessity. The Government will continue to aim for the objectives we have set and use every possible avenue and lever to achieve them. At Birmingham we secured the essential element that was attainable there: a renewed commitment to ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. Without the Maastricht Treaty major question marks would be put over the cohesion part of the Delors Package, which is in principle agreed. With the Maastricht Treaty on course, we go forward to reach decisions in Edinburgh.
The major part of the meeting was taken up with discussion of how to bring the Community closer to its citizens in order to respond to the preoccupations that had emerged in the public debates about the Maastricht Treaty in various member states. We in Ireland do not have major problems of alienation from the community stemming from any alleged lack of transparency or form any tendency for it to take over or intrude unnecessarily into areas best dealt with at national level, but there is certainly scope to improve the information flow about Community activities and to make these more readily understood.
In this spirit we were also prepared to consider how to make the Community more citizen-friendly and to address the appropriate application of what is known as the principle of subsidiarity inserted in the Maastricht Treaty. This article says that the Community shall act within the limits of the powers and the objectives set out in the Treaty, and in areas not within its exclusive competence it will act where the proposed action can be better achieved at Community level. The reference to objectives is important here: these include, of course, the objective of economic and social cohesion. The Lisbon European Council gave directions as to work to be undertaken to give effect to that Article. Certain tends and potential worries emerged in the course of the COREPER examination.
This was the background to my third major objective for the Birmingham meeting: to ensure that in any conclusion or declaration adopted there the principle of subsidiarity was not perverted so as to become a submarine torpedoing fundamental elements of the Community structure as set down in the Treaty of Rome. I had in mind here the balance between Community institutions, with particular reference to the role and prerogatives of the Commission, especially its exclusive and independent right of initiative. That objective was achieved. The European Council adopted a declaration on "A Community close to its Citizens." Our efforts at the meeting, with others, ensured that, in respect of subsidiarity, it is in line with the Treaties. The conclusions specifically note that the application of the principle is not to affect the balance between the institutions.
The Birmingham conclusions look forward to decisions at Edinburgh on the basis of reports to be submitted to that meeting. One of these is to come from Commission President Delors, who made a very comprehensive, balanced and reassuring presentation to the meeting. We shall have to remain vigilant, but there is very wide support across the member states for avoiding any steps that would unduly trammel the Commission or paralyse the decision-making machinery of the Community, which, as compared to other international organisations, has been its great and unique strength. I congratulate Deputies opposite, including Deputy Garret FitzGerald, on belatedly discovering the issue of subsidiarity. In the Intergovernmental Conferences on Political Union and on European Monetary Union, we were always particularly vigilant to ensure the right balance on this matter.