The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said the proposed British-Irish Council could, in time, become "a loose confederation" along the lines of the Nordic Council.
Mr Ahern raised the possibility in Edinburgh last night when he delivered the prestigious Lothian European Lecture on The Western Isles Of Europe At The Millennium.
Having earlier presided at a reception to mark the opening of the new Irish Consulate in Edinburgh, Mr Ahern used his lecture to cast the Belfast Agreement and devolution in Britain as the harbingers of "a new spirit of co-operation and friendship between the different component parts of these islands".
With evident personal feeling, Mr Ahern celebrated the intensification of the long-established relationships between Ireland and Scotland - relationships manifest by the continuous pattern of migration between the two countries since time immemorial and, now, by distinctive political cultures and shared values and aspirations.
Speaking at the Royal College of Physicians, the Taoiseach said: "One of the most important developments in these islands in the past year was the conclusion of the Belfast Good Friday peace agreement coupled with the movement toward devolution across the United Kingdom." Expressing hope for that new era of co-operation and friendship, he went on: "It will be difficult in future for anyone to adopt the reductionist position that Britain equals England or London, which created all sorts of difficulties in the past. In future, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will have a political personality of their own."
Looking further ahead, Mr Ahern said: "The British-Irish Council may become, in time, a loose confederation, fully respecting sovereignty of course, like the Nordic Council. Regional governments like those in Germany will inevitably want their views and interests to be registered in Brussels. Both the North-South Council in Ireland, and the British-Irish Council, may contribute to the more effective representation of regional as well as national interests."
The Taoiseach said one point not well understood - but part of the backdrop to the Belfast Agreement - concerned the state of international law on self-determination. "The view is propagated that that right can only be fulfilled by full political independence," said Mr Ahern, "but that is not the position." The UN Declaration on the Principles of International Law in 1960 defined the different forms self-determination could take: "The establishment of a sovereign and independent state, the free association or integration with an independent State, or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by that people." In other words, said Mr Ahern, "whatever country or region one is talking about, independence, union or devolution, provided they are freely chosen, are all equally valid expressions of the national right to self-determination".
The Taoiseach continued: "In particular, we regard the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, as endorsed by the people of Ireland, North and South in concurrent referendums, as a valid expression of national self-determination." That broader understanding, said Mr Ahern, "might be helpful in resolving many international disputes".
Today, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland were all regions of the European Union. The competition for inward investment was keen, said Mr Ahern, but investors had found both countries an excellent location in Europe.
"Both Ireland and Scotland have their own distinctive cultures," the Taoiseach said: "We believe in a duty of community solidarity as well as in the rights of the individual. Our relative peripherality puts a premium on good communications. We see Europe as our partners rather than as hostile and predatory rivals. We both see the futility of an empty flag-waving chauvinism that hankers after a world of unfettered national sovereignty that has long disappeared and that may have contributed to two world wars." Welcoming that "new interdependence", Mr Ahern said: "Indeed it is perverse that, even though Eurosceptics generally claim to be strong for the Union, their impact, if anything, undermines it, by obstructing participation in the single currency, which is strongly needed for economic reasons by the more peripheral parts of the UK." Mr Ahern thanked the Scottish people and parties "with very few individual exceptions" for their "responsible attitude to divisions in Northern Ireland which might once have found an echo in Scotland".
"The non-partisan approach has served us all well," he said, promising that his Government would "reciprocate that in relation to any sensitive or divisive issues concerning Scotland's future development, which are a matter for the Scottish people alone".
A new, exciting era of Scottish history was about to unfold, said Mr Ahern, and he was confident it would work out well. "This era, I am convinced, will be about building new bridges to replace the old, not about burning them."