The concept of small nation-states is dying and the only way forward is for us to participate wholeheartedly in a federal European state, writes Justin Keating
When Dana Rosemary Scallan says (Irish Times, November 1st) that the people have not been engaged in a truthful debate on the implications of the new European Constitution, and that the building of the new European state has been carried on by deceit, I totally agree with her.
But with the rest of her article I disagree profoundly. It may help forward the debate for which she rightly calls if I, having been an MEP and a member of the Council of Ministers, say why.
Over the last 30 years I have slowly become convinced that the nation-state in Europe is gravely ill to the point of death.
When the passion for a free, independent and sovereign state took such powerful root in the minds of the Irish people in the middle of the 19th century, it was indeed almost the sole model for the exercise of political power, and a credible structure by which to attain autonomy, dignity and the international respect that we so craved. But that was then. It is not true anymore. It can deliver nothing now.
What are the problems which beset small nation-states in this era of power blocs and globalisation? I will only list five which seem to me to be among the most important, though there are many more: the need to maintain the Earth as a place where humans can live, the need to secure peace and security in a world filled with weapons of mass destruction, the need to regulate taxation, the need to protect the countryside, and the need to ensure that working people are guaranteed a good, and rising income and work situation.
My conclusion, though in some ways I regret it, is that no serious worthwhile decisions about any of these can be made at the level of a nation-state of four million people.
We have functioned effectively, even brilliantly, at European Union level in tacit recognition and acceptance of this - even though people as diverse as Dana Rosemary Scallan and Sinn Féin/IRA have not noticed that in the last third of a century, world evolution has made their dream of small independent sovereign states impossible, and that to persist in it is harmful, and diverts us from the real issues listed above.
Regarding the environment, due to our own actions, the ability of the earth to sustain human life is under grave threat, but if we list the various aspects and remedies, none of these is effective when confined within our national boundaries. We can solve the problem at global level or not at all.
Second, we live in a world where weapons of mass destruction have far outgrown the structures for their control. It is a new world since the Atom Bomb. We can now destroy our entire species. Secure peace ultimately rests on removing grievances. Suicide bombers are not causes but symptoms.
And no national policy offers us protection. Do we think that "neutrality" which was respected by Britain in the last war will be respected by the United States pursuing current policies of pre-emptive strike, or that we possess the armed forces to offer the feeblest deterrence to such an invader? Peace, security and the safety of our people can only be effectively sought within the protection of a major power bloc. Tiny individual nation-states are both impotent and irrelevant.
With regard to the countryside, which is withering as we watch, since 1973, one third of a century ago, have people not noticed that no significant decision about Ireland's lands or seas has been made in Ireland? The horse is long gone.
The present conflict in Volkswagen is evidence that globalisation and outsourcing (moving the jobs to somewhere cheaper) provide the basis for a sharp attack on workers' living standards. If we try to fight this on the basis of a small nation-state, capital and jobs will just evaporate - free movement of goods, capital and labour.
No independent state with a population of four million can have sovereign "people-power", which is what "democracy" means, in a world of superpowers, coalescing around the three centres of the US, Europe and China
Dana Rosemary Scallan believes that the nation is what binds the people of a country together. But "nation" is a weasel word, used in the past in a totally different sense. Nations in the modern sense are only a little over one and a half centuries old.
Do I belong to the Irish Nation? Yes, partially, but to other things too. I am an east Kildareman, a Leinsterman, importantly a citizen of the British Isles, participating in an immense shared historical experience with Great Britain, and sharing a language.
I am, passionately, a citizen of Europe, and finally, most important of all, "my neighbour is all mankind". We have multiple identities and allegiances, and the national experience in Ireland, though intense, was short and is passing. The only way to face effectively the problems I have listed is as wholehearted participants in a Federal European State. The fault that I find with the new constitution is that it does too little and not too much.
My fear is that Europe will get stuck, between feeble little entities wittering on about "sovereignty" and the unified democratic federation we need.
Justin Keating is a former Labour Minister for Industry and Commerce