Article by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dick Spring, TD, on the IGC for The Examiner

Published 8 April 1997

The current Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) to review the EU Treaty opened in Turin a year ago. It is on course to conclude in Amsterdam in a little over two months from now. The main purpose of these negotiations is to equip the European Union to serve the interests of its citizens more effectively in the years ahead. The EU cannot afford to stand still in a Europe that continues to change. It must maintain its own evolution if it is to meet the challenges ahead. The most crucial of these challenges stems from the fact that there are now eleven countries that have applied to join the Union. The prospect of a greatly enlarged membership poses fundamental questions for the future. The IGC is part of the process of preparing for that future.

The keynote of the current IGC negotiations is the need to deal with the direct concerns of EU citizens, and to ensure that the Union of the future possesses the vitality and the range of policies relevant to the demands of the 21st century. In order to be responsive to the evolving needs of European society, the EU needs to become more accessible to its citizens. In many respects, openness is the key to a successful IGC. I would like to explain what I mean by openness. It could be seen as having four dimensions.

First and foremost, the IGC must be open to the citizens whose interests it is serving. The need for the EU to address the priorities of the people is the driving motivation behind the Irish Government's approach to the IGC. In our conduct of the negotiations, we have given priority to such issues as employment and the fight against crime.

Indeed the very first words in the outline draft Treaty which the Irish Presidency presented to the European Council in December are: "The European Union belongs to its citizens". Of course, the proceedings of what is in effect an intergovernmental negotiation cannot be held in public session. However, the very real determination to avoid the mistakes of Maastricht is evident, not just in the insistence on discussing relevant issues at the IGC, but also in the openness of the proceedings. Conference documents have been made readily available and regular press briefings have been given by the Presidency on the progress of the IGC. Great importance is being attached by the negotiators to ensuring that the outcome of the Conference will be clear and comprehensible.

For my part, I attach particular priority to encouraging greater debate on the IGC and to explaining the issues to the public. The outline draft Treaty presented by the Irish Presidency set out to explain the IGC issues clearly and comprehensibly to the public throughout the European Union. That document, which has been widely praised for its clarity and readability, is available on the worldwide web site of the Department of Foreign Affairs..

The media have a crucial role to play in encouraging and informing public debate. If the basic objectives of the Conference are simple, the issues are not. A proper understanding of the issues undoubtedly lies, like the devil, in the detail. The issues can be explained clearly but they cannot be boiled down to a simple sound-bite or summarized in a single headline.

A second aspect of openness is that a successful outcome to the Conference requires an openness on the part of each delegation to the concerns of the other delegations. The success of the IGC and of the European Union more generally requires Member States, while rightly pressing their own interests, to seek to accommodate the interests of others. That is the unique ethos of the European Union and must remain so. For example, there are a number of sensitive issues under consideration at the IGC in the institutional area. These will require trade-offs at a later stage of the Conference.

One of our national concerns will be to preserve the broad balances between Member States in the Union. These have served the Union well and we have benefitted from EU membership under these arrangements. Against that background we have an interest in trying to accommodate the concerns of others to the extent that they are willing to accommodate ours, for example our insistence that all Member States should continue to nominate a full Member of the European Commission.

There is a third dimension to openness. One of the many issues being examined by the IGC is whether the EU Treaties should themselves be amended to ensure in the future that there will be greater openness and transparency in the functioning of EU institutions. It seems likely that the Conference will agree to the proposals contained in the Irish Presidency's outline draft Treaty to the effect that the Treaty should specify that decisions be taken as openly as possible; that a right of access to EU documents be established; and that the results of votes and explanations of votes in the Council would always be made public. This would have the effect making the EU's future activities more accessible to the public.

A fourth type of openness required by the Conference is an openness to ideas, a willingness to think and to negotiate creatively with a view to equipping the Union internally and externally to address the challenges ahead. In our Presidency we proposed that the IGC should aim for "the upper end of realism". While seeking to take account as it must of all national concerns, the IGC must not lose sight of its real purpose which is to accomplish a further necessary step in the EU's development. This involves a number of things:- to strengthen the Union; to ensure its continued smooth functioning with an enlarged membership; to give it a greater ability to curb crime within its borders and increase the security and well-being of its citizens. The outcome of the IGC must facilitate the EU in developing appropriate policies in areas of particular concern, for example on jobs, the environment, and consumer protection.

On the external front, there is a need for the EU to be able to shoulder, in a way commensurate with its potential, the responsibilities it faces on the wider European continent. In considering giving the EU a greater role in relation to the so-called Petersberg tasks, the EU is set to recognise the importance of having the capacity to respond to urgent humanitarian and peacekeeping needs that may arise in the years ahead. This kind of role for the Union is consistent with the proud record of peacekeeping that Ireland has built up since we joined the United Nations in 1955. There is, I believe, a strong desire that we should preserve and develop our tradition of peacekeeping in the changed circumstances of the 1990's and beyond.

It is not a platitude to say that we are at a historic moment in the development of Europe. The decisions which will be taken in the coming years, including at the IGC, are not about obscure bureaucracy in another place. They are about the peace and prosperity, the security and identity of future generations on this continent.

That is why detailed ongoing informed public discussion about Europe, including the IGC, is essential.Top