GOVERNMENT policy would require a major rethink if the "green" EU presidency of 1990 was to be repeated, Ms Patricia McKenna MEP told her party's annual convention in Westport.
Environmental policies were playing "second fiddle" to industrial competitiveness, and free trade remained the main motivating factor behind EU policies, Ms McKenna said, in a supplied text. The arms trade was assuming a more central role in the EU defence debate, developing countries were being exploited by EU trade policies, and women were still being treated as second class Europeans.
Ethical concerns should be placed before free trade during Ireland's EU presidency, she said.
Unelected bodies like the European Commission were caught in a "serious muddle", she said. Both the Commission President, Mr Jacques Santer, and the Commissioner for Social Affairs, Mr Padraig Flynn, had claimed that beating unemployment was the community's central objective.
Yet the Commission Vice President, Sir Leon Brittan, had identified the EU trade policy's central purpose as "the continued pursuit of assured, effective market access - worldwide - for traders, investors and inventors".
Reiterating the party's opposition to affiliation to the Nato sponsored Partnership for Peace organisation, or closer EU links with the Western European Union, Ms McKenna said the Organisation for Security and Co operation in Europe should be given greater responsibility for Europe's security.
The Green MEP, Ms Nuala Ahern, said the Government should use the presidency to begin a non nuclear alliance with neutral and non nuclear states of the EU, such as Austria, Portugal and Sweden.
Ireland was participating in the "official denial" surrounding the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 10 years ago, through the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII), Ms Ahern said.
Referring to the RPII's conference on Chernobyl last week, she asked: " How can we have confidence that they will monitor the effects of radiation in Ireland from any source, including Sellafield, if the experts they present to us on the anniversary of Chernobyl are unrepresentative?"