European Union leaders meet in Dublin today to decide on the timetable and substance of the InterGovernmental Conference reviewing the Maastricht Treaty and to discuss current international issues. This is the first summit meeting of the current Irish EU Presidency, which has involved an extraordinarily intense engagement in European and world politics.
The basis and momentum of that engagement will be bolstered by the strong findings of the latest Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll, published in this newspaper today. They show that decisive majorities of the electorate agree this State should participate in the NATO sponsored partnership for Peace organisation and ink the NATO led peace enforcement operation in Bosnia. This is despite the equally decisive view that Irish neutrality should be maintained. A third strand of majority opinion supports the view that all member states should be committed to the defence of any one state that is attacked. The Irish public is, therefore, ready to engage in international security operations in co operation with NATO much more that might have been expected by the reluctant and tentative political debate that followed publication of the Government's White Paper on Foreign Policy last March.
These findings reveal that neutrality is regarded by the Irish public as a diffuse value, an ethical benchmark, rather than a legalistic or prescriptive set of codified policies. There is also a remarkable continuum of attitude across party affiliation and views about sovereignty and much more flexibility than political leaders have assumed about international engagement - Fianna Fail voters, for example, support PFP membership by a margin of 80 per cent to 10 per cent, despite their leaders' hostility to it. In an interview with this 5 published on Thursday, the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, said the Government is seriously considering Irish participation in the post IFOR force being assembled in Bosnia and is actively engaged in negotiations about joining the PFP.
The poll findings should reinforce the Government's readiness to participate in both. Ireland's reputation as an engaged international partner has suffered by the reluctance to become involved in these regional peacekeeping and peace enforcing bodies; so has the enormous accumulated body of expertise built up over the years in UN service, which is in danger of atrophying if it is not extended and applied in these new settings. Both neutral and allied states are struggling to find a new role after the end of the Cold War. Such engagement would allow Ireland to join other neutral states such as Sweden and Finland in determining how best to co operate in the new security environment.
This would also send an important signal to Ireland's EU partners assembled today in Dublin to consider the IGC agenda. Security and defence issues cannot be separated from other elements of the IGC agenda. In order to protect fundamental interests and the common framework from which they all benefit, it will be necessary for each one to be ready to compromise. These poll findings reveal a readiness to enter into solidarity arrangements on security, and a surprisingly degree of flexibility on the representation of small states in the EU. It is as yet unclear whether the IGC can finish its business on the timetable arranged or whether the ambitious programme of institutional development proposed is capable of being met. The Irish Presidency must take the measure of this informal European Council as it prepares to meet the mandate to have a draft treaty ready for the formal summit in December which will bring the presidency to a close.