Identity begins at home but it can't end there

A constant theme running through the arguments about the European Union during the referendum campaign concerns its very nature. Is it, as most opponents of the Amsterdam Treaty aver, on the way to becoming a "federal superstate" if the treaty is ratified? Or is this a misconception, based on a false polarity between the nation-state and supranational institutions and a mistaken extrapolation of as yet unresolved arguments, as many of those critically in favour of the treaty argue?

Although the campaign did not allow for much rational debate on the subtleties of these competing positions, the issues raised go to the core of contemporary discussions about the nature of European integration. For all the shortcomings of the campaign it performed the very useful function of allowing them to be brought into the open.

Although the Treaty of Amsterdam is in substance relatively modest it is part of an ambitious and continuing legal and quasiconstitutional process. Ratification is sought just as economic and monetary union is introduced and negotiations open with 11 states to enlarge the EU over the next five to 15 years to perhaps double its present size.

There is likely to be another Inter-Governmental Conference in about four years to consider institutional changes needed to cater for these major developments and elaborate further.

Although Ireland is no longer a poor state it remains a small one with an interest in an integration process shaped by the EU institutions, governed by law and accompanied by common policies.

Whether it will be possible to retain such a balance remains an open question, and further consideration of the issues involved will roughly coincide with Ireland's transition from netreceiver to net-contributor status within the EU.

The Netherlands provides one example of a state which underwent significant changes of attitude towards integration as it went through a similar transition.

The issues are both political and theoretical and profoundly important for citizenship and democracy. They revolve around answers to the following questions:

* can the nation-state survive intact during an era of globalisation and closer regional interdependence?

* Can the nation-state still act as the primary provider of welfare, democracy and identity?

* Is integration a zero-sum exercise, in which competences are transferred at the expense of national democracy, so that sovereignty pooled is sovereignty lost?

* Must European integration be conceived as a continuation of the state and nation-building exercises that built up the existing system, necessitating therefore a European state, a European nation and one European people?

* Would a supranational federalism necessarily replicate nation-building ones such as that in the United States?

Most of the campaigners against ratification answer Yes to these questions. This becomes clear from an examination of campaign literature by the National Platform, whose subtitle says it stands for Democracy, Employment, Neutrality, for a Europe of the Nations, not a Federal EC Superpower.

Its leading figure, Anthony Coughlan, has written a study of the treaty's constitutional implications entitled Amsterdam - The Outline Constitution of the New EU State. It argues that the treaty is part of an incremental "constitutional-revolution-by-instalments" directed towards establishing a supranational federal European state.

The alternative, he says, is to reopen the question of the direction European integration is taking, to preserve the nation-state as the site of welfare, democracy and identity and to create a looser and less bureaucratic framework of inter-governmental co-operation in Europe. Many of the groups he works with internationally are inspired by the British debate on sovereignty and EU integration, particularly by its Eurosceptic wing.

THIS seems ironic, given Mr Coughlan's longstanding work for Irish sovereignty, going back over four decades, which has been resisted precisely by Conservative proponents of British territorial sovereignty.

But it is in fact quite compatible, on the assumption that sovereignty conceived in this curiously 19th-century fashion is indeed a zero-sum phenomenon.

Mr Coughlan raises the question of whether the Belfast Agreement is compatible with Ireland's decision to enter EMU without Britain and with the kind of supranational integration promised by Amsterdam.

A similar approach to sovereignty questions pervades much of the Green Party's literature and that produced by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance. In the pamphlet written by Patricia McKenna MEP, entitled Amsterdam Treaty - The Road to an Un- democratic and Military Superstate, she says the Green Party "would like to see a more democratic Europe, a Europe which cherishes diversity and human rights, a Europe committed to disarmament and a Europe which is genuine in tackling unemployment and social exclusion.

"We would like to see a Europe involving healthy co-operation between all its states - east and west - rather than the further development of a dominant European Union federal superstate".

Although her study is sponsored by the Green group in the European Parliament not all its constituent parties agree with her analysis of integration. Many of them support sovereignty-pooling, including EMU and this treaty, precisely to achieve the objectives she identifies more effectively than inter-governmental co-operation is capable of doing.

Alongside these sceptical attitudes towards sovereignty-pooling one must put more critical ones which would tend to answer No to the set of questions posed in this article.

These more positive attitudes underpin the majority party and popular profile in Ireland, but they should not be taken for granted.

In summary, such people might answer as follows:

* the nation-state can survive best by pooling sovereignty to extend its influence and control over these international trends.

* Welfare, democracy and identity will still begin at home, but they can no longer end there. Multiple identities and diverse allegiances break down national boundaries.

* European integration does not - and should not - replace national government with large federal structures, but it imbeds the national in the European, the European in the national. Democracy must be deepened within the EU and extended internationally.

* The integration project does not and should not base itself on a singular state, nation or people but on multiple identities and diverse allegiances. A federal superstate conceived on national models would betray not express the original post-imperial ideas on which the EC/EU is based.

These Yes/No options are different from those posed in the referendum on Amsterdam. There will be some No voters who would also accept these four propositions but believe the treaty does not measure up to them.