Madam, - Michael Lillis's cri de coeur of August 14th has a particular poignancy for those of us who had the good fortune occasionally to bump into him in the corridors of power.
As he points out, there were thousands at all levels of Irish society, in diverse contexts and with various levels of intensity, who, often unconsciously and unsung, seized the opportunity provided by the European project to try to complete the revolution left unfinished in 1921/22.
To me, the Irish EU Presidency of 2004 was a moment of almost unbearable pride. We had taken our place among the nations of the world and surely Robert Emmet himself would have called for his epitaph to be written.
In joining the EEC, we did not "give up" our sovereignty. On the contrary, after a political paralysis of 40 years and a de facto refusal to undo the apron strings of Britannia, we resumed our pursuit of that sovereignty. We stepped out into an "adult" world where we could be, and were, recognised as a nation in our own right.
Michael Lillis sets out a scenario of a return to thraldom under William Hague and his irregular allies, none of whose political antecedents have ever had anything but contempt for "poor, ignorant Paddy". This is far from being an extreme possibility. In the real world, it is the logical road onwards from June 12th.
The decision made, in the most democratic and constitutional manner (by an actual margin of only 60,000 Irish voters) was - in the real world — to review and effectively to abandon the national strategy within which we have operated for 50 years. Namely: to be involved in a European project where simultaneously our tiny nation would be recognised as a politically valid entity (a "player"), and where we would participate, (as full partners) in the tedious and laborious business of painstakingly building a new world order based on respect, on participation, on the rule of law - and on certain fundamental values held in common.
The extent of the "disconnect" between Irish opinion at all levels and the political realities on the European mainland is such that only a few grasp that our EU partners will go ahead with the proposals (my italics) contained in Lisbon, no matter what happens to the treaty. And they actually do respect our right not to be on the bus, if we do not want to be.
As a veteran of not a few campaigns on various issues, I know that waiting for "the elite" to come up with some handy technical fudge will not necessarily deliver the goods. Nor will individual voices squeaking from the wilderness be enough.
It is time now for the foot-soldiers, the hundreds of Irish Euro-peasants who love their country (and love it "in Europe") to come together to start the fightback from June 12th - which was not a day of infamy, but a day of accidental, well-intended, sleep-walking idiocy. - Yours, etc,
MAURICE O'CONNELL,
Fenit,
Tralee,
Co Kerry.
Madam, - Could the European Movement, and/or those political leaders, commentators, business and union figures, who advocate a "European project", kindly let us know their clear answers to these six questions.
1. What is the ultimate goal of this project, as they now conceive it?
2. At this point in European history, is there any need or benefit to have "ever closer union", or "greater cohesion", or "fuller integration", or "a deeper and not merely wider Europe" - and if so, what exactly is that need or benefit?
3. Is there now an urgent need to return to the principle of subsidiarity, so often invoked by former EU Commission president Delors, and now embody, and in binding Treaty form, an over-riding requirement to divest the EU of any existing powers, and abjure any future powers, which do not fully meet that fundamental criterion?
4. Should all future powers and competencies taken by the EU be specifically time-limited, with a provision for explicit review and debate if any extension is mooted?
5. When the Belfast Agreement has now been fully accepted, across the entire constitutional political spectrum, precisely on the basis that it really is what it appears to be, and is not some institutional Trojan Horse, either slowly trundling Ulster into Dublin hegemony, or the Republic back to Her Majesty's dominion, should this lesson, of workable, open but limited practical co-operation, among good but eternally distinct and independent neighbours, not be the central basis of re-framing the aims and role of any future EU Treaty ?
6. Should the role of the EU Court itself, and an open selection criteria and procedures for its individual members, be specified as involving a strict commitment to a definite strict construction of the terms and scope of all treaty provisions, and of all provisions enacted under the treaties, and specifically to exclude creeping federalisation or regulation ?
Perhaps certainty and clarity on such basic questions might enable a rational, honest and constructive debate on Lisbon, and might defuse the suspicion of many that the ultimate EU agenda is more hidden than transparent. - Yours, etc,
TOM CAREW,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.