IRELAND'S fifth European Community Presidency starts in eight weeks.
It is through successful handling of the heavy responsibilities involved in Community presidencies that small countries can make their most significant contributions to the European Union.
And, in Ireland's case this is particularly important, because we are one of the major beneficiaries of Community budget transfers while contributing nothing to its defence and security. In this situation we _ need, if we are to maintain the goodwill of our partners, to make the best possible use of our recurring presidential role.
Our EU presidential record to date has been an excellent one. Given the quality of dour diplomats, together with the European commitment of successive Irish governments this is, perhaps, not particularly surprising. But luck as well as skill is involved in a successful presidency, and a not that has the bad luck to face into a presidency that has a nondescript agenda may simply have no chance to show its paces.
In the past we have been fortunate in this respect and once again in 1996 we are faced with a heavy agenda this time involving the running of a major InterGovernmental Conference on possible amendments to the Community treaties. True, this conference has already been opened in Turin by the Italian presidency, and three further meetings of the conference at foreign minister level will have taken place by the time we take over in July.
Moreover, whatever may have been the intentions of those who originally called this conference, no one now expects us to bring it to a successful conclusion by the end of this year. For there is tacit agreement that there can be no hope of a successful outcome to this IGC until after the British election, and no assurance of such an outcome even then.
But, partly because of our greater experience and, it is thought, understanding of Britain, we are expected to make good progress with the agenda, while at the same time minimising conflict between Britain and the rest surely a severe test of any country's diplomatic skills.
We should not be surprised at these expectations of our capacity to understand and get on with the British. The manner in which successive Irish governments have dealt with Britain over Northern Ireland during the past quarter of a century commands considerable respect on the Continent.
We are accordingly expected, while keeping Britain constructively engaged in negotiations, to hand over the IGC next January to our successors in the presidency, the Netherlands, with the agenda well advanced.
THE issues before the IGC fall into three categories. The first comprises matters broadly related to European citizenship.
One of these concerns the promotion of European values, possibly by incorporating into European law the European Convention of Human Rights as well, perhaps, as provisions against discrimination and racism and in favour of gender equality and the rights of the disabled. In addition there is a proposal for a European Peace Corps.
Another citizen oriented area could be the strengthening of European environmental action by introducing qualified majority voting on environmental issues. And action has also been proposed to make the work of the Union more transparent for example, along the lines of the freedom of information legislation currently being introduced here.
Measures to give employment creation a higher European priority have also been proposed the work of the Community's Monetary Committee, directed largely against inflation, might, for example, use fully be parallelled by the creation of an equally powerful Employment Committee.
Finally, there are proposals to remedy the evident failure of the "third pillar" of the European Union which was created by the Maastricht Treaty to deal with justice and home affairs issues such as international crime including drug trafficking, terrorism, border controls, immigration and asylum.
This third pillar the first pillar is the Community itself and the second covers foreign and security policy issues is outside the Community framework and is inter governmental in character.
Decisions in this area are accordingly taken only by unanimity and are then subject to formal ratification by all member states, a process which often takes years. If Europe's citizens are to be protected effectively against international crime and if our borders are really to disappear, part at least of this third pillar's activities will need to be brought within the Community's qualified majority decision making system.
AS in the case of almost all continental EU states, Irish attitudes towards most of these proposals are positive. The problem for the Irish presidency will be to secure progress on these matters in a manner that does not unduly exacerbate relations between Britain and her continental EU partners.
A second set of issues before the IGC concerns the institutions of the Community. Designed originally for a Community of six, these institutions clearly need some adjustments in order to be capable of handling efficiently the affairs of what is likely at some point in the early part of the next century to become a Community of at least 27 countries.
There are currently 12 more countries interested in joining the 15 member European Union the four "Visegrad" states the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary and Poland the three Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania Slovenia Romania and Bulgaria and Cyprus and Malta.
Decision making in a much larger Community could become virtually impossible unless the great majority of decisions are taken, not by unanimity but by qualified majority voting, as was the case, for example, with decisions creating the Single Market.
On the other hand the fact that in a Community of 27, only six members would be big states with 40 million plus populations, whereas three of the original six were large states, has given rise to a proposal to change the voting weighting in favour of under represented large countries. (At present the largest four states, with almost 68 per cent of the population, have only 46 per cent of the votes in the Council.)
In relation to the European Commission there are proposals resisted by our Government and those of other smaller states to limit its size in a way that, with enlargement, would remove the right of every member state to have a Commissioner.
But there is also a proposal which I hope we might support to strengthen the independence of the Commission having its president appointed by the European Parliament, and letting him choose his team of commissioners from lists of three names submitted by each government.
There is also strong support for limiting to 700 the size of the Parliament even after enlargement and for extending Parliament's power of co decision with the Council, and simplifying the present absurd proliferation of Council/Parliament decision making procedures.
Finally, there are proposals in relation to common foreign policy and security which, however and this would be a relief for Ireland now seem unlikely to extend to mutual defence commitments.
Some interim clarification of the relations between the Community and the Western European Union may, however, be attempted, and the issue of foreign policy decision making may also be tackled because the Community will remain ineffective in this area unless the present unanimity rule is modified somewhat even if only to the extent of permitting decisions on foreign policy to be taken despite one dissentient voice.
This brief summary of only some of the issues to be addressed by the Community's foreign ministers, and at the December Dublin European Council by the heads of government, will also give some indication of the complexity of the task now facing the Tanaiste and his Foreign Affairs team in the second half of this year.