Two valuable studies of Ireland’s relationship with the EU

Circle of Stars, A History of the EU and the People Who Made It

Author: Dermot Hodson

ISBN-13: 978-0300267693

Publisher: Yale University Press

Guideline Price: £25

Nationalism in Internationalism: Ireland’s Relationship with the EU

Author: Michael Holmes and Kathryn Simpson

ISBN-13: 978-3031092886

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Guideline Price: £34.99

In his final Dáil speech as taoiseach on April 9th, Leo Varadkar offered reflections on his time in the office. Ireland is a great country of which we should be proud, he began, having had a “stable and continuous democracy for 100 years, one of only a handful in the world”.

Varadkar’s second point was that “most, if not all, of the problems we have faced in the past 15 years are international in origin or have a strong international dimension to them – the banking and financial crash, Brexit, the pandemic, inflation, the energy crisis, climate change, migration were all problems of global origin”.

He went on to say the “only workable solutions involve multilateralism tackling these challenges with other countries through international bodies like the EU, the UN system and OECD and international agreements. We must not lose sight of this.” On national security, he said: “Our geography and neutrality does not protect us in the way it did in the past and the nature of security threats has changed utterly. We have to be prepared for the consequences of an attack on an EU country and how we would respond.”

What is striking here is how prominently international trends and events figured in Varadkar’s reflections, with most of them mediated through the European Union. His successor, Simon Harris, spent his second full day in office travelling on EU business, having been busy on his first day taking international calls.

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Their books address political problems posed by Ireland’s EU membership by examining how leaders and citizens adapted to successive challenges

This is all the more reason why Irish citizens should have a good understanding of these international and European contexts as they hold political leaders to account in forthcoming European and domestic elections. That is best provided by Irish authors with experience and expertise who are able to communicate them to a general audience.

These two books meet such credentials. Michael Holmes and Kathryn Simpson are Irish political scientists teaching in France and the UK, while Dermot Hodson grew up and studied here and then worked as an economist in the European Commission before teaching in the College of Europe in Bruges and now at Loughborough University in London. Their books address political problems posed by Ireland’s EU membership by examining how leaders and citizens adapted to successive challenges.

[ As the EU prepares for war, Ireland sticks its head in the sand ]

In the European Parliament on June 8th, 2022, to mark Ireland’s 50 years of EU membership, Varadkar’s predecessor as taoiseach, Micheál Martin, recalled the centenary of Irish independence in 1922 and spoke of how Ireland’s revolutionary leaders “did not see Europe as a threat to our sovereignty, but as an enabler of our sovereignty. They rejected the idea of nationalism as a narrow and defensive concept – instead they believed nationalism could be outward and forward-looking.”

Holmes and Simpson regard the assertion as a little excessive, given that “the form of nationalism that took hold in Ireland was for a long time quite insular in tone”. But they agree it captures the later capacity of Irish nationalism to develop a broader, more inclusive outlook. The puzzle addressed by their book is how Ireland’s nationalism could develop into an internationalism as it embraced European integration and new transnationalisms. They deny that these values are contradictory and trace how Irish nationalism evolved from abstract concerns with sovereignty and statehood towards a more outcome-based concentration on economics, social progress and welfare as integration kicked in.

They trace an underlying pattern of adaptation and accommodation between them during the 50 years of membership, which they divide into three phases.

First came a period of economic adjustment in the 1970s and 1980s as agriculture gained, manufacturing lost jobs and social change began to feed into the picture when trade unions, women’s movements and political parties found they could turn membership to advantage. The second phase in the 1990s and 2000s, saw Ireland catching up and forging ahead economically in a spirit of growth and greed. Globalisation was embraced enthusiastically as US investors came here to avail of the EU single market.

[ Make no mistake, this will be a more eastern, more Balkan EU. What will that mean for Ireland? ]

In the third period, successive crises struck the EU and Ireland – the financial crash requiring EU and IMF bailouts, severe austerity, rapid recovery migrations and then Brexit in 2016. Deeper co-operation and solidarity characterised this third phase, leading to a stronger EU commitment among leaders and citizens alike. They ask how resilient that will be as the EU faces new challenges of climate action, security and defence and post-Brexit adaptation.

... much of the Irish story in the EU – for nationalism North and South of the border – has to do with diluting economic interdependence with the UK and the liberating experience for elites and citizens alike of overcoming the power, scale and wealth asymmetries of empire

The approach is historical and analytic through six short chapters, a valuable combination allowing them bring civil society actors properly into the state narrative. Imperialism and colonialism are forms of international aggression, and the authors add, “given that Ireland was itself colonised, this is particularly useful when considering Irish attitudes to internationalism”.

The authors could have made more of this insight by distinguishing more sharply between the aggressive, dominating nationalism of British imperialism in Ireland and the anti-imperial Irish nationalism in response. A co-operative internationalism is much more characteristic of the latter than the former. That explains why so much of the Irish story in the EU – for nationalism north and south of the border – has to do with diluting economic interdependence with the UK and the liberating experience for elites and citizens alike of overcoming the power, scale and wealth asymmetries of empire.

Ireland was a pioneer of such values in the 1970s EEC dominated by old imperial powers. That is recognised by newer members from central and eastern Europe and is clearly visible in response to Russia’s Ukraine invasion and the Gaza war.

[ Ireland doesn't have the right people in the right places in the European Parliament ]

Holmes and Simpson say Ireland has not had a clear vision of its preferred future for the EU, but they also note there is no need for a single vision. It should be contested and competed (including in academic studies) to enrich public debate. The importance of EU membership is better understood, even if it remains highly uneven and often neglected – as in language study, university courses, media and foreign policy debates.

Such issues are central concerns in Dermot Hodson’s history of European integration since what we knew as the European Economic Community until the 1980s was refashioned as the European Union by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. The big players and forces portrayed in his original and lively history of the EU aimed at general readers are national governments, European officialdoms, federalists, populists, citizens, globalisation, the Third Way and global crises over the last 30 years.

The treaty created pillars of action on the euro single currency, justice and home affairs, foreign and security policy and gave the European Parliament legislative co-decision. Hodson concentrates on how the EU has handled these new powers by relating them to national, European and global events – and to the political leaders and officials who drove the EU’s response to them, including the Irish ones.

... Wim Kok, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder embraced globalisation, supported by Commission presidents... Hodson believes their naive embrace of globalisation as a force for good opened the door to right-wing populists

His intention is to humanise what is often described by critics as a remote, faceless institution. His central thesis is that “national leaders stuck to the EU not because they shared an ideological commitment to ever closer union but because they believed that their countries could manage global crises more effectively by working together”. In the EU “power flows from national governments, who co-operated when it was in their interests to do so”, and EU officials have to understand this.

The book brings us through these 30 years of subsequent amendments, ideological conflicts and global crises, during which time the EU became much the most important and powerful transnational organisation. The powers conferred by Maastricht were used cautiously and selectively by national leaders alert to their domestic interests.

Much of their work dealt with the rapid globalisation of economic relations in these decades. That left a strong imprint of Third Way neoliberal policies on the EU as Wim Kok, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder embraced globalisation, supported by Commission presidents such as Jacques Santer, Romano Prodi and José Manuel Barroso. Hodson believes their naive embrace of globalisation as a force for good opened the door to right-wing populists who portrayed the EU as a threat to national sovereignty, identity and standards of living.

Illuminating chapters on how Maastricht powers were used to bolster competition in EU film-making industries and television co-operation against US dominance, to liberalise air travel and introduce free roaming highlight the role of forceful officials such as Ripa di Meana, Vivienne Reding and Karel Van Miert. That contrasts with disastrous efforts to liberalise services, notably by Fritz Bolkenstein.

Dealing with enlargement, the euro crisis, climate change, Brexit and Covid, Hodson shows how effective the EU can be when it provides an arena for common action to national leaders. Strong chapters on borders, terror and Ukraine show how they could agree more powers when necessary.

Looking ahead, Hodson sees a need for much more citizen engagement in EU policymaking at national and European levels. Having proved its resilience at leadership level, the EU now needs to take on that enduring challenge more seriously.

Further reading

Michael Holmes and Kathryn Simpson eds, Ireland and the European Union: Economic, Political and Social Crises, Manchester University Press, 2021

The Nationalism in Internationalism book arose and flows from this earlier edited volume, which brings together a broad range of Irish specialists on EU affairs. It examines crises in economics, taxation, migration and asylum policies; how political parties are adapting to membership; changes in public opinion; and many facets of British-Irish relations, including Brexit, Northern Ireland’s peace process and constitutional issues.

Mary C Murphy and Jonathan Evershed, A Troubled Constitutional Future, Northern Ireland After Brexit, Agenda Publishing, 2022

This study explores how Brexit disrupted the devolution settlement in Northern Ireland and opened up debates there and elsewhere on what its political and constitutional pathways are to be. Deeply informed by an understanding of how European integration plays into these futures and affects the Irish and British government roles.

Desmond Dinan, Ever Closer Union: An Introduction to European Integration, 4th edition, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010

A well established textbook history by an Irish author based at George Mason University, Washington. This story of integration based on history, institutions and policies is accessible and gives due attention to Ireland’s role in the past 50 years.

Dr Paul Gillespie directs the Constitutional Futures after Brexit project in the School of Politics and International Relations, UCD.