Most European leaders are following a "minimalist course" in relation to European Union integration, Ireland's former EU commissioner, Mr Peter Sutherland, has claimed.
He said the heads of state favoured this approach over "deepening and strengthening the common institutions of the union". Mr Sutherland, chairman of Goldman Sachs International, was speaking last night at the inauguration of the Dublin European Institute at UCD.
It brings together several UCD faculties for the study of European affairs. It will offer two MA and one PhD programme to students and hopes to build up a body of research into European institutions.
Mr Sutherland's comments follow recent remarks by the Minister for Arts and Heritage, Ms Sile de Valera, who expressed concern about further European integration. However, Mr Sutherland said: "We should celebrate its [the EU's] success rather than simply criticising its alleged deficiencies.
"There appears to be very little recognition that the old model of nation-states simply co-operating through their civil servants and politicians, in a manner that places little or no reliance on the development of interdependent common institutions, is a failed model," said Mr Sutherland.
"There has been an increasing and unfortunate tendency in some areas to bring back European policy-making to national bureaucracies and politicians.
"With 25 members, we have to further reduce any requirements for unanimity. We should remind ourselves that the EU's finest achievements were made possible only because of the supranational character of the EU's institutional framework," he said.
Responding to Mr Sutherland, Ms Brigid Laffan, Jean Monnet professor of European politics and director of the institute, said the chance of retaining an Irish commissioner at EU level was now slim. "If other small states concede on this issue, the Irish Government would find it very difficult to hold out," she said.
She said that at the recent European council meeting in Biarritz, the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, lectured the small states on their role. She said some saw it as an attempt to "bully" them.
"The message to the small states was clear: if you don't come on side, you will be blamed for the failure of enlargement," she said.