ALTHOUGH now firm enthusiasts of European integration, Ireland's representatives in Brussels have been blowing hot and cold on proposals from Germany and France to allow flexible integration of the Union. Could it fundamentally change the character of the Union by creating in reality two or more classes of membership?
At the core of the EU's unique decision making system is an institutional balance whose preservation has become the mantra of virtually all participants in the Inter Governmental Conference. It is one of considerable complexity in terms of the rights and duties of the key players in the Union. In essence it consists of a balance between the equality of individual member states and the system of sharing sovereignty based on the different economic and social weights of member states.
So, while all member states are equal when it comes to nominating Commissioners or being seated at a ministerial table, some are more equal than others when it comes to voting in the Council of Ministers. That enhanced voting right is balanced, however, in the first pillar of the Union (broadly the area covering the single market) by reserving to the Commission the sole right to initiate proposals.
This is what is known as the "Community method", and its extension to the other pillars of decision making (foreign and security policy, and justice and home affairs) is seen by many as the key task of the IGC.
This seemingly paradoxical construction is in reality the rock on which the Union is founded. Unless smaller member states can be assured that their rights are guaranteed against the larger, any pooling of sovereignty would inevitably become a swamping of the small by the interests of the large.
The Commission is thus more than a civil service it is the political guarantor of the small states and the guardian of the treaty.
It is against this yardstick that any proposed treaty change must be measured and the proposals for creating flexible mechanisms are causing some alarm. These would allow groups of states to forge ahead together on particular issues using the structures of the Union.
Ironically, it is precisely those most in favour of the community method who are frustrated by unanimity voting and are pressing for flexibility, but are they in danger of throwing the baby out of the bath water?
A country like Ireland will not necessarily want or be able to join some of the projects that are being mooted. There is a real fear that excluded from a number of decision making areas, we will come to be seen as part of an outer core, not altogether equal.
The problem is by no means theoretical. A number of specific policy areas is being actively canvassed for flexible integration by groups of states - most notably defence co operation, armaments co ordination, passport free travel and tax harmonisation.
Despite the fact that Ireland will almost certainly be at the core of the first group to move to monetary union, on each of these other issues it is likely to have severe reservations - on defence and armaments because of our traditional neutrality on passport free travel because of the threat to our common travel area with Britain.
This week's outbursts by Germany, France and Belgium against countries which compete "unfairly through the tax system was targeted in part at Ireland.
Some argue that it is not just a question of a fear of being left behind. If 11 member states decide they want to involve the Union's institutions in common defence projects, for example, does that change the character of the Union? Is that not a fundamental issue on which Ireland should press to retain its veto?
Although many mechanisms will formally guarantee the right of non participants to join later, there is real concern that, because participants may move ahead of the rest, the hurdle for accession will effectively be raised.
The single currency is a case in point. In theory a successful single currency could make accession after day one progressively more difficult as the gap increases between the "ins" and "outs". What would happen to new members? They negotiate accession based on the current acquis communautaire (the body of pre existing common policies and laws) but with flexibility will there be multiple acquis depending on bow much they want to sign up to?
There is also a danger which the Irish Commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn, points to of combining this approach with long drawn out derogations to aspects of the acquis on, say, social standards. The experience with the social protocol was not good, he says.
The result could be that member states come under competitive pressure to dilute their own social standards and thus turn the clock back on the acquis. Flexibility would thus end up as an engine of reversing the integration process, precisely the opposite of the desired effect.
The Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, has also argued that the availability of the "easy" option of flexible integration may cut across the ultimately more desirable ability of the Union to strike deals at 15.
Some of these many concerns can be met by limiting flexibility to areas where unanimity now applies, building in a high vote threshold and by preserving intact in the first pillar the Commission's sole right of initiative.
British sources, once enthusiastic advocates but now distinctly lukewarm, and others are increasingly wondering aloud whether the Commission would in reality be willing to place itself on the side of one against 13 or 14 member states. That would be very different from its current role or standing up against one or per haps two large members in defence of a small one.
What is clear is that flexibility the vehicle sought to break the decision making impasse, is no panacea. Its effects may well be the opposite of those desired, particularly for those not in the fast track It should not be seen as an alternative to the extension of majority voting.
