Táim buíoch don Seanad as ucht an díospóireacht a bhí againn anseo agus is furasta a aithint ón méid Seanadóirí a thóg páirt san díospóireacht go bhfuil suim mhór ag gach éinne acu i gcúrsaí na hEorpa agus an páirt atá againne i gcúrsaí na hEorpa ansan. Bhí mórán rudaí á phlé ag na Seanadóirí sa díospóireacht seo agus ní féidir liomsa freagra a thabhairt do gach aon rud a bhí ar siúl. Tá nóta agam i dtaobh na rudaí is tábhachtaí, más féidir liom é sin a rá i dtaobh na ceisteanna a chuireadh san díospóireacht. Tá súil agam go mbeidh seans agam freagra a thabhairt ar an chuid is mó de na ceisteanna sin.
The Seanad will be aware that we are now debating the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth reports on progress in the European Community which take us up to July last year. It is self-evident that we did not debate the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Reports when we should have done. As I mentioned in the Dáil when producing these reports, it is my firm intention that henceforth we will not see a repeat of what happened over the last number of years.
Under the terms of the European Communities Act these reports are to be presented to both Houses twice yearly but sometimes they have to wait as long as two years before they are debated. If the purpose of that Act is to be implemented, then obviously the House must have the opportunity of debating these reports as near to the appropriate dates as possible. For that reason I hope we will be able to correct that pattern and can be reasonably up to date. It is fairly evident from the information I have of the matters that have been raised in the course of this debate by the various Senators—as I said, I am very pleased that so many have taken part— that they are very much up to date as one would expect they should be on current issues in the European Economic Community.
While I appreciate that we are debating matters up to July 1977, I hope I can put these matters in their proper context and that my reply will not be too severely disciplined if I bring matters a little up to date, as most Senators did, although I will not deal at any great length with precise matters that have arisen since. The Eleventh Report, I am glad to say, is due for publication very shortly, so I hope that when time allows in the Seanad and in the Dáil we will be able to come back here within six months at the latest and have another debate on progress in the period covered by that report—up to the end of 1977.
Some Members of both Houses are constantly in contact and wish to be kept informed of developments in the Community. I understand some questions were raised on the briefing of members of the European Parliament. I want to assure the House and Members of the Oireachtas generally that I have instructed our permanent mission in Brussels, from the earliest date in July, to ensure that every available facility is given to all Members of both Houses of the Oireachtas in connection with their interest and obligations within Europe. I have advised them to notify the secretariats of the European parliamentary groups and I trust this also has been brought to the attention of the individual parliamentary parties so that our representatives in Brussels will be able to inform Deputies, Senators and the members of the European Parliament as fully as possible on matters of our common national interest.
Briefing is also available to Members of both Houses through the Joint Committee on Secondary Legislation. I have no doubt the excellent staff of that committee will deal with all queries in an expeditious manner as they always have done. On the last occasion I was in this House we were discussing the re-establishment of the Joint Committee. The only thing that has happened since then is that I have agreed to accept in toto the recommendations of the outgoing committee in order to ensure the more effective functioning of that committee which in return will guarantee the more effective functioning of both Houses in relation to our obligations and opportunities as members of the European Community.
At the request of the committee, and assuming that the business of either House allowed it, I would be quite ready to have a special debate at special notice on particular matters of urgent importance which that committee would refer to the Houses and on which they would request a special debate.
Putting all that in context it is obvious that we are very concerned to ensure that both Houses and the committee and the members of the European Parliament will have every opportunity of being fully briefed, fully informed and completely up to date with what is happening and will have an opportunity as simultaneously as possible of expressing their views and offering their advice to the Government and, indeed, to anyone else who is concerned about our membership of the European Economic Community. I want to make the point for those who would have the experience of previous years that it is a very significant change. I hope it is a very welcome change. I feel it is a very fundamental responsibility of the Minister for Foreign Affairs to ensure, while much of his time will be spent abroad, that those at home who serve the national interest are kept fully briefed and are allowed the opportunity at all times— as a priority, I would say—to express their views directly to the Government, which in turn would guide the Government in the presentation of our foreign policy, either in the European Community or elsewhere.
I will take the points in the order in which they were brought up. This is perhaps the best way when one is dealing with such a wide canvas as the European Economic Community. Obviously it brings up a whole range of issues, many of which will not be a matter of immediate responsibility for me but rather for other colleagues in their separate responsibilities. There are some areas that obviously are matters of special responsibility for me and one is that to which Senator Donnelly was referring towards the close of the debate. I gather that this was referred to earlier on in the debate. I am speaking of the process of European political co-operation. I want to say in the first instance that this process of European political co-operation is not envisaged as part of the framework or obligation of the Treaty of Rome. The Nine meet as a group of nine Foreign Ministers. The purpose of the meetings is simply to consult and, to the extent that it is possible, to coordinate their positions on foreign policy. Note I say to the extent that this is possible. There is no binding obligation, as Senator Donnelly has rightly pointed out. There is no binding commitment for the very simple reason that there is no binding treaty, no binding contractual obligation on which this understanding operates. For that reason it affords the Nine Ministers, and through them their Governments, an opportunity of consulting together on matters that are of course of vital interest to all of us. Senator Donnelly's point is well made.
There is one thing that the members of the European Economic Community have in common, though this is not to claim any special virtue for them. They are all, as he has said, democracies in the strictest sense of the word with all the imperfections a democracy has, but nonetheless democracies in the very essential expression or understanding of that term. For that reason it is appropriate that they should consult together with a view not only to strengthening democracy within the Community but also, if possible, promoting if not democracy without the Community at least the standards that do after all bind us within the stated aims of the European Community, that is, the standards of justice, reasonably equal opportunity to the extent that it can be achieved and also opportunity to improve the lot of those parts of the world which certainly are, by standards of the European Economic Community, deprived. For that reason the co-operation is generally based on the consensus that emerges from these processes of consultation.
Let me be the first to acknowledge that obviously there will be different interests, different inherited attitudes, different priorities expressed by various Ministers in that process of political consultation. Sometimes it will be that positions taken up whether on South Africa, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe or the Middle East will be somewhat behind what we as one nation could afford to say on our own and which we will still continue to say on our own to the extent that the opportunity will arise for us to do so. Nothing in this process of political consultation in any way inhibits us or prevents us from doing just that, but the significant thing is that we now have an opportunity of having our views expressed and understood and we hope, to the extent that it is possible, implemented by a group of nations working together who, by virtue of being a group of nations— many of them more powerful economically and politically than ourselves, if not perhaps more powerful from the point of view of their particular moral conviction—can have a much bigger impact on the international affairs that concern us all.
Without going into detail on this, I think it is true to say for that reason that the position taken up by the Nine in relation to the Middle East and the resolutions adopted by them have been certainly helpful in setting the principles which the Nine believe and which are generally acceptable now as being the basis on which the resolution of that problem should be approached. That is not to say that the Nine have the answer—far from it. That is a matter for those who are most directly concerned, but it is a position that I think should be expressed and has been expressed. I do not wish to repeat it because otherwise I think we could get into a debate on the Middle East, but it has been recognised as being a very positive and helpful position.
It is similarly true to say that in relation to South Africa. I think this comes within the period which we are discussing. While I do not believe it is enough and I do not believe that anyone here would say it is enough, the code of conduct which has been drawn up as a first stage within the member states of the European Community for firms from the Community operating in South Africa is beginning to have some impact. What is the test of impact? Sometimes it may well be the manner in which some of the firms who have been operating there respond with impatience or irritation to the fact that this now imposes restrictions or disciplines on them to which they were not previously subjected. We have every reason to believe and to know that that is in fact the position. No one can suggest that we have all the answers to the problems of South Africa. No nine countries, no 29 countries for that matter outside of that region of the world can have the problems, but they can help at least to bring to bear on South Africa and the regime there a very deep conviction on our part that in the interests of not just black South Africans but of all South Africans this problem should be resolved peacefully and that the dignity of all South Africans should be respected. Frankly I think it is now quite clear from the actions now being taken by the Community that that is far from being the position at the moment.
I want to reiterate particularly that this is not making a comfortable judgment from afar; it is always too easy to make that judgment. It is setting for ourselves standards that may, at least for some members of the Community more than for us, involve some cost. That in itself is the guarantee that there is now a degree of consistency under way. There is no question of our losing sight of our national interest and in regard to South Africa and other questions of that sort we have pursued consistent positions. I am not one to claim that I have been able to bring the eight around to my position. I do not think I would ever claim that in any area, but I would like to think that I have played a significant part in the consensus. In relation to attitudes and policies towards South Africa and even in the attitude towards Zimbabwe and the Middle East and many other areas it can be said that Ireland, not just during this administration but previously, played a very consistent role and one which is respected.
Senator Murphy said that perhaps we have a very self-interested concern for political stability in South Africa. I do not know if self-interest, by definition, is something culpable but it is self-interest which is based on the recognition that the community about which we are concerned have a right that we are prepared to support. There may be, if you like, more selfish self-interest but that should not exclude the Community from offering their recommendations and from bringing effective political pressures to bear on regional areas which can, potentially —let us look at it from this point of view—be areas of universal military involvement.
I want to say particularly that the Community have always resisted and opposed any direct political intervention, much less military intervention, in any direct confrontation such as we have seen in Somalia and Ethiopia. I wish that other major States, one in particular, would take note of this, bearing in mind recent experience in Africa. I do not want to make any further comment now that there seems to be an end to belligerence in that area, but I hope that when peace is restored we will see the real impact of Community interest, in, for instance, that area. Yesterday, at a joint meeting of the Council of Ministers and the Lomé countries, comprising 53 of the latter and nine of the Community, we had—this is a measure of how strong Community persuasion can be —the foreign ministers of both Ethiopia and Somalia. It is significant that a request came to the Commission and to the Council for support in re-establishing normality in Somalia, now that the belligerence has ended, hopefully, to bring about a return to normal communications, normal industrial and agricultural activity. That is the role which we all see the European Community playing not a role of intervention in war but on the contrary, a role of guaranteeing the peace and supporting it. I am quite sure that if a request came from Ethiopia, which was represented at that Council meeting, it, too, would receive the same ready and generous response as a request from Somalia.
There is obviously this process of political consultation and there will be opportunities within the treaty and within the Lomé Convention, which is a contractual obligation on behalf of the treaty countries, the European Community, to prove their consistency. Lomé is a contractual obligation even though the balance of the contribution, or the majority of it, comes from the Community side. It must be that way because of the inherited obligations of most European countries to the African, Pacific and Caribbean states. That is one of the very significant areas where our membership of the European Community has given us a new responsibility and a new role, one which I believe is greatly respected.
Let me stress particularly that if we have an inherited goodwill in Africa, Asia or anywhere else, it does not derive from anything the present generation have done; it derives from the common sufferings of past generations. It is an obligation for that reason on the present generation to co-operate with these countries who are more than willing to co-operate with us. They know we do not have any colonial or imperial pretensions; neither do we have the capacity nor the will for such. The development of our partnership with these countries through the Community and through the operation of our own development policies, which are really policies of co-operation, will over the next decade be an area in which Ireland's role, not a dominant, political role but that of persuasive force based on consistent attitudes, will be greatly developed. I am quite sure, even from responses which were given to us yesterday for the contributions which were made from time to time and yesterday also, that we have a real opportunity not just of winning further goodwill for ourselves but, somehow, bringing these countries closer to the Community to which we belong. Geographically, democratically, economically and politically that is the Community to which we are committed.
Over the next few weeks it will be evident from visits to this country by Ministers from the least developed of the poorer countries of the world that they are aware of Ireland's special position, perhaps in a sense because of our common history but also because we are closer in terms of time and experience to the problems they now have. Our success, relative though it may be, is a matter of hope and, perhaps, confidence for them. That is where we and our State agencies, who, I am glad to say, have been doing this very effectively, can and will play a very significant role over the next number of years.
With regard to defence commitments I want to say something which I seem to be saying all the time but I do so because people suggest otherwise all the time, although I do not know the source of these suggestions. It is not for me to speculate why it is often being suggested that we are being pressurised to do this or do that in relation to NATO. I have no control over what may be contributed in newspaper reports; I have no control over the people who may motivate some of the contributors to these newspaper reports but I can have control over the facts. I want to state quite categorically that there is no defence commitment involved in our membership of the European Economic Community. That is the first point. There has been no request to us at any time, unless something that happened over the last four years has been concealed to the extent that I cannot find out, at any Council meeting in any way to accept or take on any military or defence commitment within the European Economic Community.
Before we joined the Community, after we had signed the Treaty of Accession, I was present in Paris when the former Foreign Minister, Maurice Schumann, stated, perhaps because of the occasion, that Ireland's membership of the Community proved beyond any doubt, because we were a nonaligned country, that it was not a group bound by a common military pact, much less a common defence pact of any sort. He welcomed Ireland's membership for this reason.
There is no great credit due to us for that, but it proves that the Community, as it stands, is not bound by any defence commitment. If Greece joins, for instance, she is not within the integrated military command— France is not either—and it will again mean that another member of the Community is not what I might call a fully integrated member of NATO.
Having said all that, this is a matter for ourselves. It is not being posed to us by anybody. We have said it ourselves. The former Minister, now President Hillery, said it on the occasion of accession, as the late Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, said it before we ever joined. This is not a response to any pressure. It is a statement of our own obligation and of our own commitment. Should it happen at any time that the Community of which we are a member are under attack—hopefully we will not see that day—then, obviously, we as a member will help and contribute towards the defence of that Community. That is not a statement in response to any pressure. It was not such when Seán Lemass said it or when President Hillery said it, and it is not now when I say it. I want to have it clear on that basis. I cannot imagine that anything could be clearer than that position. I hope we will not get any further queries from either east or west or north or south as to whether or not we are at present contemplating membership of a military bloc within the European Community or are being forced or pressurised to do so.
A number of matters were raised relating to fisheries. It is not at all related to the topic that I have been discussing, but I will take the topics as they were raised. It is not for me to take on the role of the Minister for Fisheries, but I will make one comment, if I may. Perhaps I will be forgiven for this. The Minister for Fisheries and I are in very close consultation at all stages as to our mutual responsibilities in order to ensure that there will be a coincidence of views and a parallel discharge of our obligations. It can be said fairly that this contrasts a little with the position that arose in the last six months of the previous administration and it is in our own interest that this consultation and co-ordination should take place.
In that connection, as the Minister has quite consistently expressed, regional policy operates through many agencies—the positive agencies of contributions from the Community. It also operates in another way in simply allowing each area of the Community, and particularly the peripheral areas, the opportunity to fully exploit and develop the resources that they have. We suffer—if "suffer" is the word— from certain natural disadvantages by being an island. One is that we are further from the centre of the marketplace: it costs us more to transport to and from that marketplace and we must transport to and from because we are an open economy. The extra costs are very considerable. Those who are at the centre of the marketplace by definition are not surrounded by water but by people and they take the benefit by being at the centre of that marketplace. That being so for them, we are determined that we will take the natural benefit that accrues to us from being surrounded by water instead of people.
That has been the consistent approach that we have been following and we have cast our position, in so far as my responsibility is concerned, mostly in the area of regional policy and, in consultation with the Minister for Fisheries, we have presented it consistently on that basis. We are asking the Community on the terms of their own stated aims to acknowledge in their recommendations and to guarantee in their proposals that we will be allowed to develop to the maximum extent our own resources to compensate us, if no more, for the disadvantages that we suffer in some other way. The fact that that recognition has been given and has been acknowledged is the first step. It is fair to say that the previous administration were also pursuing the same case.
Both of us to that extent were pursuing the first stage, a formal recognition of our special rights and this has been given. Secondly, without getting into detail, we are seeking the right to ensure that, to the maximum of our capacity, we can exploit the waters within the 200-mile limit, which some Members of this House will recall were brought into the Community by order made by the previous administration here about 18 months ago. Once it was then within the Community, by virtue of the order made here consequent on a decision of the Council of Ministers, then we had to take it as it was. I can only assure the House that I believe what we will get in the final analysis and what our Minister will succeed in negotiating— and he has obviously a very difficult task in all of this—will be such as will guarantee within the waters contiguous to us, whether it be 30, 40, 50, or 200 miles, the maximum opportunity to be protected against the efforts of others and to be guaranteed the opportunity of exploiting our own resources.
Obviously fishing plans, licensing arrangements and exclusive waters all very much come into this. I have no doubt that the consistent and courageous position which the Minister has taken up is respected in the Community. Equally, I have no doubt that the Commission and the Council are sympathetic to our position. It is not just sympathy alone; they recognise that we have a strong position that they ignore at their peril—not alone their peril but the peril of the European Community. I am quite sure that even if the maximum capacity of our fishermen were doubled they would not be able, at least in the first instance and perhaps somewhat later, to exploit the new opportunity and the new harvest that will be available to them.
The contributions towards our petroleum costs and many other things will also be very significant in terms of the development of our shipbuilding and other ancillary activities. One would hope to see the development of a fish processing industry of a kind that we do not have now. I have said enough on an area that is not my immediate responsibility but one which, by virtue of the national concern, is a matter of concern for all of us.
The House might forgive me if I did not go into the area of common agricultural policy. That would warrant, it is fair to say, a special debate here. We recognise that the applications of some of the regulations of that policy are obviously not tailor-made for the Irish agricultural structure any more than they will be for any enlarged Community—and I will deal with that later. For that reason, one of the priorities of the Minister for Agriculture— and I am quite sure of Members of the House and Members of the European Parliament—is to guarantee a re-classification of the category and qualification of development farmers and also to ensure that the farm retirement scheme and schemes such as that will be applicable to the maximum extent to our needs and opportunities and not just such as will fit into a grand European canvas which does not necessarily meet the needs or opportunities of the individual areas.
I should like to make a general point. We joined the Community for many reasons, but there was one cogent reason among those many reasons. It was to give to the people on our land a proper standard of living and an opportunity, in accordance with our commitment and our Constitution, to live in comfort and with economic security on their own farms. Before we joined the Community we were faced with the reality that we were having to subsidise to a very considerable extent our produce on the British market. This meant inevitably that agriculture was underdeveloped and undercapitalised and also that the resources of the State were being directed towards simply subsidising agriculture to stay where it was at the expense of other activities and industries, social programmes and many other things. We can recall the application by the last administration in social benefits in their first budget of the £30 million plus that was spared in agricultural subsidies in the first year. All of us were happy to see the social welfare classes benefit from what had otherwise been demanded of the Government to subsidise our agricultural produce in Britain to give a further guarantee of preferential treatment to the British consumer, who was also supported by imports from New Zealand and elsewhere around the world under the Commonwealth preference arrangement. That day is over. Now, instead of subsidising others to eat our food, we are happily supporting our own farmers in developing their own industry.
This year, had we still been doing as we were then, our contribution, taking account of inflation, if the subsidies were maintained only at the level they were, perhaps would be of the order of £130 million to £140 million. Then we could all begin to say whether membership of the European Community had been a welcome development or otherwise. They now have the opportunity, the level of incomes has increased considerably, and that is very significant. In line with that a Government would obviously guarantee that agriculture as a very basic element in our national economic development will be promoted and encouraged further and the Minister for Finance and other Ministers concerned will take account of this in their approach to our fiscal policies, taxation policies and other social policies. It is only reasonable and just that it should be so. The first job is to create equal opportunity which was not there beforehand, and having done that to expect from each element in the community for whom this new opportunity has been created, an equal contribution towards national well-being and development.
There was some concern expressed towards industrial policy in the European Community and I welcome the fact that this concern was expressed because it is a concern we, too, have expressed on many occasions. There are obviously certain structural problems in the European Community of an acute kind for the areas to which they apply, acute by comparison with the previous security that these areas had from their industrial activity. I am thinking of steel, shipbuilding and in many areas textiles, areas that hitherto enjoyed and knew only full employment. In Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, not to speak, of course, of Italy—it has never had full employment but the north of Italy had —now know what it is to experience unemployment because of the very serious position of the steel industry and shipbuilding generally.
Our concern at this point is to ensure that whatever arrangements will be made within the Community by any section or any commissioner will not be such that will not take account—I think this point was rightly made by a number of Senators, Senator Keating among them—of the special position of Ireland. If the Community are to apply rules across the board in the absence of recognition of the special problems or special position of certain areas, Ireland among them, then it is not even being a fair market, much less a community of nations which it is supposed to be. Let me say particularly that we did not join a common market: we joined the European Economic Community, and according to the rules of a market the strong get stronger and the weak suffer on. That is not why we joined, so we are not about to accept the application of regulations across the board for steel, textiles, shipbuilding or anything else in any other area, or even selected aids for industry, the same universal application, if it is that, particularly where there is no clear evidence—and this has been mentioned by Senator Donnelly in my own hearing—or regional policy to offset the application of these universal regulations. It should be much more than that. It should be aimed at eliminating the regional imbalances that we hear so much about.
For that reason the Government have consistently and very recently brought this point home very clearly to the Commission at every level and to the Council whenever it was appropriate. We are not going to have our hand out as mendicants. We are not stretching the begging bowl for alms. We are simply reminding the Community what it is, reminding them of a protocol we have, Protocol 30, which recognises the special problems of Ireland in unemployment. It also binds the Community to work with us and to apply the agencies and the instruments of the Community to help us to achieve our targets. Sometimes it seems that individual commissioners or elements within the Commission are totally unaware of the fact that this protocol was negotiated after a lot of very tough bargaining at the time, and if it was worth bargaining for over a long period then it is worth respecting when it has been put into effect.
As recently as last week or the week before the Tánaiste, the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy, the Minister for Economic Planning and Development and myself brought home the point very forcibly to the President of the European Commission that we would expect each Commissioner in the Community, if not to have a copy of that protocol in front of him at least to be mindful of it. It appears to us in some of their proposals and in some of their responses to our position that they have not been mindful. We would expect the President of the Commission, as the pater familias of the European Community, to make sure that the individual commissioners are mindful of it and to ensure particularly that we will see an application of these regulations which are necessary, let us acknowledge, in certain structural areas to rationalise the industrial structure of the Community but nonetheless to ensure that areas such as Ireland, that have no real impact on the problems of Europe in any event, will not suffer simply because other areas have now to face problems that they have never experienced before.
They have opportunities to turn to new technologies; they have opportunities to re-adapt to new industrial activities. That is the kind of thing that the Community should look to. I am glad to say that as a result of the last European Council meeting I believe that is the direction the Community are now facing, to ensure, not just for the sake of the Community but also for the sake of what is sometimes called the low cost countries, the people who work for starvation wages, let it be in India, Sri Lanka, Lesotho, Somalia or whatever, that those people will not be expected to starve or suffer simply because they are offering goods on Community markets at a price much lower than the Community can put them on sale, for the simple reason that we demand more for our time and labour than those could ever expect.
For that reason we have an obligation in the Community to fulfil a parallel role in regional policy within the Community and also one might say in global regional policy outside the Community. That is the position that Ireland has been taking up consistently, at least from my experience, since we joined the Community and it is one that we have been reiterating very firmly in the last few months.
Senator Keating expressed the fear that the Community would be seeking sovereignty over the oil and gas of our continental shelf. It would not surprise me that some members might look with a jealous eye at the resources we have in our continental shelf. As Senators probably know, the 200-mile economic zone is a concept which emerged after we joined the European Community. I used to have this debate regularly with my predecessor, he implying that it happened before we joined and that we should have known about it even though it had not emerged at the time, but the facts speak for themselves. That concept has now been accepted all but in the single negotiating text of the International Law of the Sea. That simply means that coastal states, and we certainly are one, can generate their own economic zone stretching out to 200 miles. The land-locked states have certain other advantages such as the ones in Europe to which I have already referred. The coastal states of the World, South America, South Africa and many others, saw this was an opportunity for them to compensate for other disadvantages. That concept applied, speaking generally, to fisheries, to a 200-mile economic zone, to exploration, to environmental control and to some other pollution control. Strangely enough, the Community, and we know this as a reality, got in on the act on fisheries by rushing through the Common Fisheries Policy in 1972. It was, one might say, a bit of sharp practice that we had to face at the time. It had happened before the concept of the economic zone emerged but because they introduced a common fisheries policy they were able to argue and insist, as the previous Government will know when they responded to the direction of the Council to extend our to 200 miles for fisheries, that there was an obligation on us as a member of the Community to do just that and to extend out to 200 miles and then to share in our fisheries.
But they did not have a common policy on exploration of our mineral rights. They did not manage to rush that through beforehand. It is not there. I think Senator Keating is right in saying that there are some who look at us with a jealous eye there hoping to find that there is no basis in the treaty and that they can share these resources we have. I am quite sure that our friends in the United Kingdom who are fairly jealous of their particular interests will ensure if the occasion should ever arise, which it cannot, that no one outside will have any share in North Sea oil.
I want to talk generally on the Government's economic position and our economic programme within the European Community. Far from reacting to any disciplines being imposed on us by the European Community, and far from complaining about demands being made on us for lack of national development programmes by the European Community, we are the ones who are pressing the European Economic Community to set guidelines first of all for themselves and secondly for each member state within which we can pursue our national development plans. The former Minister for Finance asked in the House how can you plan in the middle of a tempest. Even if there was a tempest we would still be planning to make sure we got out of that tempest. For that reason, in the recent White Paper, we have presented to the European Community our general guidelines. This will be followed by another discussion Green Paper to be followed finally by a more detailed White Paper.
That is where we are going. Before that was published, by agreement of the Government, the Minister for Economic Planning and Development attended with me at the Commission on at least two or three occasions to notify the Commission of where we were going in our national development programme and to ask them, now that they know where we are going, could they please tell us where they are going because we cannot plan in a sea that knows no limit. We should like to know at least where are the bounds of opportunity and where exactly can we aim to go within the context of European Economic Community planning. We should like to know the European framework within which our national framework can be constructed. We invited the Community to state the discipline for themselves and for us. This was reiterated by the Taoiseach at the European Council. Once again he simply urged on the Community—as I am quite sure he will repeat at the next Council meeting in April in Copenhagen—to set these guidelines, not just to have a broad general debate which one has from time to time in the European Council, making high sounding statements, but to look to the last Council meeting, see what disciplines that suggested, see what programmes that suggested, and see what progress we have made at this one towards implementation of the last one.
Economic and monetary union may well be a long-term ambition. It may be so distant that we can hardly quite identify it, much less recognise it. But, as Senator Donnelly or Senator Mulcahy said, even if we were not talking of economic and monetary union we are still talking of regional policy. At the last Council of Ministers meeting, when they were drawing up the agenda for the general discussion on the economic condition of the Community, I was amazed, appalled, to find that there was no reference to regional policy or absence of it in that general discussion. At my instigation it will now be included on the agenda. At least the Community will have to face up to reality. Either they have not a regional policy and have no intention of having one, or else they have, and, if they have, let us see it.
We had a statement at the last European Council meeting, when we were arguing for a stronger regional fund, from one head of Government, who has to be nameless because the proceedings were confidential, asking how we could talk about a regional fund when we have no regional policy. People who could put that argument forward could forever delay the implementation of a regional fund because they could themselves ensure that the Community had no regional policy. So we are pressing towards the regional policy. We are also trying to ensure that the Commission, who have stated guidelines in this direction, will be strengthened in their resolve, and prodded where necessary, and pushed if necessary on other occasions to follow a consistent pattern.
I think frankly that the Commission are at least aware of this need. They are presenting to the Council a paper which I hope very soon will give details of current regional policy. They are presenting discussions and policy decisions on economic and monetary union. They must have determination to argue consistently in support of those positions. That debate will be going on within the European Community in the next 12 months. I feel fairly confident that our position in that, not just in terms of our national needs but of our potential to contribute to Community development, will be very significant and will be respected.
On the regional fund, I agree entirely with what Senator Donnelly said. It is a contradiction in terms to have national quotas for a Community regional fund. That is what we have inherited: there are national quotas for a Community regional fund. There may well be very soon a non-quota section, not significant, up to 5 per cent of the total fund, which will not be based on national quotas, which will be capable of dealing with particularly chronic problems, among other things frontier regions. We will probably see a special interest here in cross-Border areas, certain infrastructural developments and communications which will be capable of application by the Commission without reference to national quotas. We supported that proposal for a non-quota section.
For that very reason, in a sense in trust with the Commission, and on the other hand with the determination that if it is adopted—the next two weeks will say whether it will or not—we will be able consistently to press for the implementation of policies which will be consonant with the idea of having such a non-quota section. It will be at least the first step on the way towards a real regional fund. The fund we have at the moment is not adequate. Let there be no doubt about that. It is a lot better than it might have been, a lot worse than it should be. I suppose, both in real terms and in monetary terms, it is more than was available in the last three years. It is a step and I feel that the real test of Community commitment will come in the next 12 months.
The House will understand if I do not deal with the special areas of transport and tourism. There were some references to the development of proper transport services from the south-east and various parts to Europe. I expect that the Minister for Transport and Tourism will soon be dealing at great length with that and will guarantee that the necessary port developments in the south-east and south coast of Ireland, and elsewhere for that matter, will be developed to ensure the greatest facilities for both passenger and freight traffic at our ports. The potential is great. Our tourism programme is developing considerably, and as a matter of interest the number of heads of state of the European Community who have visited Ireland for holidays is very considerable. Some of them have spent unpublished holidays here within the last six months, and I think that is as it should be; they do not wish to breach the privacy we guarantee to them by making any announcements. Many of them are acting as very effective agents for our tourism promotion programme.
It is significant that the increased tourism from Europe last year was very considerable and I have no reason to believe that it should be anything less than considerable this year. That is, of course, unless as in some areas we ourselves or some sectoral interests for one reason or another prove that we are determined not to allow the potential of this country to be exploited. In relation to these areas, the interest in Ireland throughout Europe at the moment, by industrialists and others, is very considerable. Our growth prospects are higher than anywhere else in Europe. The degree of confidence in this country is higher than anywhere else in Europe. All this is in our favour by any objective criteria, and what is apparently the ability of some sections in our community to understand that we have a common interest somewhere along the line. Some sectoral interests sometimes attempt to show their own muscles without any regard to the cost to national development, and that affects people, and particularly the poor because it is always the poorer people who suffer most in any actions of this sort. The comfortable ones and the rich will not suffer personally and it is well that people would recognise that the ones who will suffer, because they have no way out of it, are those who have no options but to suffer. That applies to almost any action that is taken by a sectoral interest. It is time that we faced up to the opportunities we now have and to the reality that it is only sections at home who can damage us and prevent us from realising these opportunities.
There was some reference to our aid programmes through the European Community. I do not think it is appropriate that I should deal with that here in detail. I will make a reference to yesterday's meeting of the Lomé Convention and acknowledge that the role played by my predecessor at the last Lomé Convention was very considerable and was generously acknowledged to me yesterday. I would only hope that it would fall to our Presidency at the end of 1979 again to have the Presidency at the conclusion of the negotiations on Lomé II. From the responses that have been evident to us, particularly in regard to our personnel involvement, which is a real area which we must focus on because of the experience and expertise, there is a great opportunity for us to help those who are very much in dire need of help.
The Council of Ministers have unanimously and enthusiastically supported the applications of Spain, Portugal and Greece for membership of the European Community on a political basis. Forgive me if I refer to Senator Donnelly so much. I heard what he had to say because he spoke today, and most of it seemed to me to be sound. To guarantee the development of democracy in these countries, the next stage is to follow through that political commitment to an economic commitment. The political commitment that is not prepared to support itself by economic activity is no political commitment and for that reason we have thought it appropriate not only to reiterate at council meetings, which I have done consistently, but also to submit an attitude to the commission, which was done by our permanent representative, on my instruction on Monday of this week.
The Commission are now in the final stages of drafting an overall proposal on enlargement which they will present to the Council. We thought it appropriate at this time to contribute our thinking in this connection to the Commission, we have taken a very positive position. Basically, we are saying to the European Community there are significant and obvious regional imbalances within the existing European Economic Community. If that Community is to be capable of accommodating three new countries, nearly each one of which has even more severe problems than the obvious ones throughout the Community as a whole, the first step for the Community must be to look to the existing imbalances as a preparation for enlargement and as an earnest of their commitment to a regional policy in an enlarged Community. There is no point in talking in terms of an enlarged Community which will have no effect or benefit for the Greeks or the Spaniards or Portuguese. We have asked the Commission to propose that there would be a qualified assessment of the cost within the existing Community, and in line with that of the cost within an enlarged Community. That is an essential operation.
We recognise that there are areas in the existing Community that have particular problems, in agriculture especially, that will in some sense be in competition with some of the produce of the new Community when one or all of the three applicant countries accede to membership. That must be looked at. We cannot recognise that that would be done at the cost of existing areas with regional problems within the existing Community. There is sometimes an assumption which I have heard expressed at the Council that the difference between the position now with this enlargement and the last enlargement is that the last three applicants had generally the same standard of living, the same mixed developed economies, as the existing community of Six but these three together are very different indeed.
If one talks globally that may be more or less true but in the last three —this is what we have been very anxious to remind them of—there was one area that was underdeveloped, and I mean underdeveloped in the real sense of the word, not poverty stricken but underdeveloped in the sense that there was a capacity which could be developed and which we are determined to develop. It should not be assumed that because we happened to join with Britain and Denmark all was fine within all regions of those three and that we now have to look at the other three.
We are determined that the cost of accommodating any one or all of the new members must not be at the expense of the peripheral regions of the existing Community. We are very committed members, committed supporters of enlargement. We were outside long enough ourselves and we would never attempt to say that now that we have gone in that is the end of Europe, that there are nine of us there now and it is nice and comfortable and the other three would be a bit of a drain on the Community, that if it comes to another three after that it would even be more of a drain. We have no right to say that. For that reason we welcome the applications in the spirit of the Community. We welcome them for a lot of historical reasons as well as for the reason that they have so much to contribute to the culture, not just now but for hundreds of thousands of years and that the Community will be richer for their membership. I think the Greeks, the Spaniards and the Portuguese know our position there. If there are preconditions in this regarding adequate resources, they are not preconditions for Greece, Spain or Portugal. If there is a slight change of emphasis between the position we have presented and that which may have been presented by my predecessor, perhaps what he said may have been misunderstood. It appears that he was understood as saying that these were preconditions for the Spaniards or the Greeks or the Portuguese, and there was a reaction in those countries on that basis. We have certainly made it very clear that there are preconditions for the European Community, not for the applicant countries.
I do not think there is anything more I can say at this stage. I want to welcome the opportunity of perhaps dwelling at greater length on developments in the European Communities than I have been able to do frankly at any stage since I became Minister either in this House or elsewhere. It is a time when, because of our own confidence and our own determination, we can now very consistently show our priorities and demand of Europe that it shows its priorities too.
I want to say finally that in anything I have said we want it to be clearly understood that we are very committed members of the European Economic Community. What we are saying is not by way of criticism—far from it. We are committed to that Community in a sense that is very well recognised. I shall not comment on the position of other countries, but it can be said that Ireland's position within the Community is very well respected. Sometimes we tend to applaud ourselves too freely, but that statement is true. I am sure Senator Keating, as a former member of the Council of Ministers and anyone else in close contact will agree. We are determined to promote that position to show our commitment and to recognise that we have had benefits. Let us face that. We have had considerable benefits, such as those I referred to under the application of FEOGA grants and the common agricultural policy. We have had also the opportunities for the diversification of our industrial outlets which perhaps has exceeded our expectations. In all of this we have had considerable benefits.
However, we are also committed members of a Community for a different reason. We are pressing particularly for moves towards political cohesion in Europe. The reason is that we cannot see any other effective way of guaranteeing regional policy, or any other consistent policy, unless it is on the basis of political commitment. That can only be done as we move towards political cohesion. Otherwise, the rules of the "common market" that we did not join would apply. We are not interested in a loosening of the Community and we will not look to enlargement as an opportunity to loosen that Community. We look to it rather as an opportunity to strengthen it and, in doing so, strengthen ourselves and the contribution we can make towards the development of the Community.
I should like to thank the House and I hope that I will be able to come back here, let us hope within four months, to debate the report due to be published very shortly. Hopefully, that will be a consistent pattern for the future.
