Michael McDowell's speech at the Institute of European Affairs argues against what he calls a "European State" and in favour of what he calls a "Partnership of Member-States". The Attorney General does not define what he means by a "European State" to which he objects so much, nor the concept of "partnership" which he favours.

He avoids this by permitting himself the escape of saying that "like an elephant, we know a federal state when we see it". I would have thought that in a carefully considered speech on which he has been working for several weeks, an Attorney General would have come up with something clearer than this.

Among the attributes of a "European State" which he singles out for opposition, he mentions: a constitution, citizenship, defence capacity, a Union government, and a directly elected president.

Let me take these in turn. First, Mr McDowell ignores the fact that the European Union already has a constitution in the sense that it has a fundamental law in the treaties that is superior to ordinary laws enacted by member-states or the European institutions in the area to which it applies. In that sense, Ireland has been subject to a European constitution from the moment we joined the Common Market in 1973.

Second, he takes little account of the fact that the Irish people, in accepting the Maastricht Treaty, have already accepted the concept of European citizenship.

Third, in objecting to the Union having defence capacity, he is going back on a policy decision the people took when they ratified the Amsterdam Treaty.

Fourth, in objecting to what he calls a Union government, he is averting his eyes from the fact that the European Commission already has many of the attributes of a government. It makes executive decisions, within the framework of its laws, in the same way the Irish Government makes executive decisions in its sphere.

He glides past the fact that, since the euro has been adopted in Ireland, we have accepted that the Union, which manages that currency, must have many attributes of a state. It would be impossible to manage centrally a currency without centrally managing the money supply. A mere "partnership" could not manage a single money supply.

Fifth, he objects to the idea of a directly elected president of the Union. If, as many believe, the Commission is insufficiently accountable, why should the election of its president by the people be ruled out? Members of the European Parliament are directly elected by the people. Is that wrong?

Given that we have accepted, under the Treaty of Rome, that the European Commission should have the exclusive right to propose new laws in areas defined for it on the treaties, it would make a lot of sense to introduce more direct democracy into the method of selection of its president.

A directly elected Commission president would create a personal link with the people. Europe would no longer be "faceless". In democratically choosing a Commission president, the people would first learn about, and then legitimate the policies the president would later follow. That would be much more transparent than the backdoor negotiations of a "partnership of states".

Mr McDowell is on much firmer ground when he argues that Irish Ministers agreeing to new laws at EU Council of Minister meetings are much less accountable than the same Ministers are when they make laws at home. His proposal for Danish-style scrutiny of what Irish Ministers propose to do in Europe is worthwhile.

But the "European State" is not preventing Ireland from doing this and it never has. We have been free to introduce such a system at any time in the past 30 years, and there is no proposal on the EU agenda that would prevent us doing so.

Mr McDowell's proposal would be a very useful accompaniment to a re-examination of the Nice Treaty to the Irish people. There are democratic arguments for giving the Irish people a chance to have a second look at that treaty.

MANY Irish people voted against the Nice Treaty, or failed to come out to vote for it, because they felt they did not have enough information. No campaigners who claimed, at the time, that there was a lack of information, could logically object to the question being looked at again, once the required information is provided.

It is up to those who favour ratification of the Nice Treaty to come up with new information, new arguments, new considerations, and new assurances. This is a responsibility of the Government. It is also a responsibility of the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament.

I believe, that the following five problems must be tackled.

1. The sense that people have little say in what is done by the European Union.

2. The fear that the further development of the Union weakens our control over our future.

3. The sense that Europe is more bureaucratic than democratic.

4. The fear that we will drift into military commitments over which we will have no control.

5. The worry that, by enlarging the EU from 15 to 28 members, we will change its very nature as well as just enlarging it.

These five problems worry the citizens of every EU member-state, not just the Irish. The necessity to provide an answer to them to reassure the Irish people is also an opportunity to reassure all the people of Europe on the same concerns.

Abraham Lincoln, in his 1863 Gettysburg address to the American people, provided a philosophy for the subsequent reconstruction and expansion of the American Union. A similarly short and inspirational statement of the goals of the European Union is now needed.

I believe that such an address to the people of Europe should set reassuring and honest limits, both geographical and legal, to the EU's ambitions. But it should also say that we need a strong and expanded European Union to do three vital things for our people: provide an economic framework for peace on our historically warlike continent; provide a large space for socially responsible free enterprise, within rules that guarantee environmental sustainability, and give each of us some political control, through our Union, over global forces in the areas of disease, crime and pollution that individual member-states are not able to tackle on their own.

I do not believe that a large and loose "partnership" of individual states would be able to master these tasks. Without a strong European Union, we will be victims of global forces. Within such a Union, we can begin to master these forces.

By setting clear goals for Europe, and by electing a president of the Commission in the same way that we in Ireland either elect our President or our Taoiseach, we would create a healthy European identity that could grow up alongside our individual national identities.

John Bruton, a Fine Gael TD for Meath, is a former Taoiseach and leader of his party