If the nations here on the mainland of the Continent consider that they cannot wait for us, perhaps they should consider going on without us by an agreement among themselves for a closer union . . . de Valera, speaking to the Council of Europe in 1949
How times have changed for Irish diplomacy.
A new and fascinating history of Ireland's role in the Council of Europe by Michael Kennedy and Eunan O'Halpin* contains a wealth of previously unexplored material and not a few real gems.
Perhaps most extraordinary and heretical of all is the revelation that Frank Aiken in 1951 as minister for foreign affairs "at a secret meeting of ministers in Strasbourg . . . indicated his approval in principle of the concept of a European army".
His reasoning is a matter for another day. But the study also illustrates in several other ways how Irish perspectives on Europe have been transformed.
Pace de Valera, but today a diplomat who suggested that Ireland did not feel the need to be part of European integration's vanguard would find himself consigned quickly to the Irish diplomatic equivalent of Siberia.
Today the problem is how to present ourselves as quintessential inner-core team players while cautioning against what many of our partners see as the next essential step in the EU integration process, the simplification of the treaty's "flexibility" provisions. Introduced as a constitutional novelty by Amsterdam, these allow groups of states to pursue projects within the framework of the EU but without the participation of all the partners.
Today, at Feira, EU leaders will agree to incorporate the simplification of these procedures on the agenda of the Inter-Governmental Conference. But the argument about how far to go will continue, and Ireland's diplomats, it is understood, have been torn between embracing the new reality or fighting a rearguard action in defence of what some see as crucial elements of the EU structure, specifically the equal treatment of member-states.
Provisions for increased flexibility, better known as "reinforced co-operation", are seen as crucial means to circumvent the inevitable veto logjams in decision-making that will arise under enlargement even if the IGC, as expected, substantially extends majority voting.
But many fear that the emergence of new but optional policy areas will see the gradual emergence of two tiers of member-states, with an inner core of countries signed up to most projects, and the outer playing catch-up.
That prospect has been explicitly canvassed by the likes of the former French president, Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and the former Commission president, Mr Jacques Delors, who have argued for the creation of a "treaty within a treaty" to bring together the most committed integrationists. It is almost a Leninist, vanguardist view, which sees progress in the EU inspired and driven largely by a small group of the most committed and most pure of heart.
Not so, says the French Minister for European Affairs, Mr Pierre Moscovici, who sees the emergence of, not one, but multiple advance guards, depending on the issue.
And the President of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, argues that the emergence of such vanguard groups pushing forward policy should be welcomed as providing dynamism to the EU. After all, it has worked for the euro. But, he warns, such groups must be open to all to join and must respect the institutional balance that is so important to defending the rights of small member-states.
Responding in Le Monde last week to the recent speech by the German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, his French counterpart, Mr Hubert Vedrine, asks the question "How will we pick the members of the (my italics) eventual hard core?" One option, he says, is the euro-11. "But," he adds, "these eleven will one day be 12, 14, or more, which is too many for a core group."
Such talk does not suggest the sort of permeability of the inner core that Mr Prodi insists we need as a guarantee of equality. "The solution might be," says Mr Vedrine, "freedom for those willing to join an open inner core. But if all want to join, is it still an inner core, and in what way would it be able to reach ahead of the rest?"
Mr Moscovici has spoken of the need for the simplification of working methods and decision-making within groups involved in reinforced co-operation. Small states will be curious to know if that means sidelining the Commission, the "friend" of the small states, and working largely in an inter-governmental way.
In the end there is little doubt that an economically buoyant Ireland will qualify to be seen as part of any inner core group that emerges, but that will be little consolation if what we value in the EU is undermined in the process. Not an easy one to call.
* Ireland And The Council of Europe - From Isolation Towards Integration, by Michael Kennedy and Eunan O'Halpin. Council of Europe Publishing
psmyth@irish-times.ie
