WORLD VIEW: In Irish public life there is a tension between the instrumental definition of neutrality policy held by the Government and the broader, more diffuse affirmation of the term as a synonym for national identity and core political values, in much public debate. That tension has come centre stage as the Government debates how to present the Nice Treaty in a second referendum, explains Paul Gillespie
The two declarations adopted yesterday in Seville spell out the instrumental definition in some detail. Essentially it revolves around non-participation in any military alliances or in automatic mutual defence commitments. The Irish declaration affirms Ireland's attachment to the aims and principles of the UN Charter, "which confers primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security" on the UN Security Council.
It spells out the constitutional procedures that would have to be followed were the European Union to move to a common defence, as allowed for in the Maastricht Treaty, including a referendum and a unanimous decision of the member-states. And it reiterates the "triple lock" applying to any participation of Irish troops in EU military operations: UN authorisation, Government agreement and approval by Dáil Éireann. The accompanying EU declaration accepts these stipulations and notes Maastricht does not "require Ireland, or any other member-state, to participate in the establishment of a European army." All this is summarised as Ireland's "traditional policy of military neutrality". The phrase attempts to marry the official definition of the term with the popular attachment to such core values as state sovereignty, anti-militarism and positive commitments to human rights, development aid and UN peace-keeping.
The problem now facing the Government is whether to entrench this neutrality policy in the Constitution to gain support for the Nice Treaty in a second referendum this autumn. The term is not used there already, partly because it is so difficult to define. In strict international law it refers only to rights and obligations in the relationship between a state and the international community in the event of war.
But there are clear implications for peacetime neutrality, including military non-alignment and credibility - the military capacity for self-defence in the event of war. Pointing this out in the current issue of Studies, Bill McSweeney argues that the phrase "military neutrality" was borrowed from Ireland by the Swedes, Finns and Austrians to signify to their electorates that "the new policy was in some vague way linked to the past." They saw neutrality as incompatible with European political union during the Cold War.
After it, their definitions have shifted towards the more accurate term "military non-alignment". Ireland, in contrast, has officially linked non-membership of a military alliance with future developments in the EEC/EU since Lemass applied for membership in the early 1960s. The declarations adopted yesterday reaffirm that policy by clarifying the constitutional procedures necessary in Ireland before the political commitment to "the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence" was entered into by accepting the Maastricht Treaty 10 years ago. As McSweeney writes, with these steps "Ireland has eroded the basis of any credible claim to be a neutral country and joined the ranks of the great and the shabby who just happen to be non-aligned."
That explains a lot of the opposition the proposal to put neutrality into the Constitution evokes among specialists on the Department of Foreign affairs. "Just to whom, or what are we militarily neutral?" one of them asked in Mark Hennessy's report on the issue in this newspaper yesterday. A clause which potentially clawed back on Ireland's involvement in the EU's foreign and defence policies, or which could be interpreted by the Supreme Court to do so, would be counter-productive and restrictive, they argue. They also point out that the basic sovereign powers governing military and defence matters are already there in the Constitution.
Against that, there are clear political attractions in adding substance to the second referendum in such a way as to wrong-foot some of the treaty's opponents and convince others to change their minds. The art would be devise a constitutional amendment which fulfilled that opportunist political objective without restricting this State's participation in the EU's developing security regime. Successive polls show that combination accords with public opinion.
The Maastricht Treaty said this regime "shall include all questions related to the security of the Union", including defence. Patrick Keatinge, a specialist in this subject, has written that "as the fate of the Irish economy has become inextricably entwined with the economic integration of the European continent, it is the beginning of wisdom to understand that the broad security interests of the larger entity are increasingly the principal context in which Irish security interests will be framed."
Security is a broad term embracing economic, political, environmental and criminal affairs as well as military ones. It is inseparable from the development of a transnational political community, such as the EU has become. This is achieved by a multi-dimensional form of interdependence, not by imperial power projection.
Securitisation is a more accurate word to describe this process than militarisation. Dr McSweeney makes the cogent point that "European security would be more comprehensively assured by the enlargement of the EU and the expansion of its institutions to include common defence than it is by the present dominance of NATO and the interests of the US, of which NATO is a key instrument." That is the real context of the debate on neutrality. Ireland would not be true to its traditional policy if it departed from the core commitment to link its security with the EU's. The old question of who are we neutral against is especially apt after the end of the Cold war and following the growing normalisation of relations with Britain through the Belfast Agreement. But it is good to see some real politics being injected into what is often a sterile debate.