Patrick Keatinge responds to John Rogers' arguments about the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.
For more than 30 years I have been a student of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy, and its predecessor, European Political Co-operation.
While welcoming a new recruit to this field, I do not think the account of the Common Foreign and Security Policy by John Rogers SC, published in The Irish Times on October 12th, would be recognised either by scholars or those directly involved.
For all its length and lawyerly tone, Mr Rogers' analysis of the treaty provisions is incomplete and misleading. More seriously, it lacks a full appreciation of the political context in which EU member governments move to action - or indeed inaction - on the basis of the legal text.
Thus the conclusion that development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy over the last decade demonstrates that "the union has come more to resemble a federation than an international community" seems to be particularly wrong-headed. There is a strong case to be made that it is precisely in this area that the converse is true.
Mr Rogers makes much of the proposition that the Common Foreign and Security Policy has been brought within the remit of the institutions of the community. In fact, it was because the member-states wished to avoid the "community method" of decision-making that the system of separate "pillars" was introduced in the Treaty of Maastricht.
Those community institutions which, in some respects, can be characterised as quasi-federal, are actually kept at arm's length. The European Parliamentis not a major player; the Court of Justice is out of the loop. The commission is more than matched by the office of High Representative, introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam. The intergovernmental council, composed of foreign ministers, is the institution that matters.
Mr Rogers points out that the Amsterdam Treaty introduced the possibility of a limited application of qualified majority voting. This provision concerns secondary decisions which implement more important decisions already agreed by unanimity. In practice, it has served neither as a neccessary device to bring greater coherence to the union's foreign policy positions nor as the thin end of some federalist wedge, as Mr Rogers implies.
In fact, this provision, which has been in force for nearly four years, has never been used.
Another surprising and important omission in his analysis of qualified majority voting is that Mr Rogers fails to point out that there is no question whatsoever of it being applied to the common defence policy. In short, we simply do not have the legal base of a federal foreign policy, and the Treaty of Nice does not alter that fact.
What we do have in practice might be more accurately described as a standing diplomatic coalition of legally sovereign states. Within that context, what is the position of the individual member state?
Mr Rogers claims that "strictly and properly speaking Ireland cannot have an independent foreign policy which runs counter to the decisions adopted by the union".
Strictly speaking that applies to all member-states, large and small. In practice, things cannot be understood in such a black and white way. The formal and rather rhetorical benchmark of "an independent foreign policy" begs many questions . Since 1945, the less than glorious heyday of independent foreign policies has given ground to an increasing web of multilateral commitments, undertaken by most states.
This is not a perfect world, but it is generally regarded as an advance on its predecessor. In practice, Ireland pursues its interests in a diplomatic coalition, which has values consistent with ours (because we helped frame them) and which acts in ways with which we agree. Nor have we found ourselves in a position where the political pressures to agree have proved to be intolerable.
Most of our partners in this collaboration are small states (as are nine of the 10 applicant countries), with common views on most issues. Three of them (Austria, Finland, Sweden), like us, are not members of NATO. If there were no European Union, we would in any case have to devote much of our foreign policy to our relations with the other states in Europe, for the simple reason that they are our nearest neighbours.
Inside the union, we have the advantage of being able to do this in a structured way, alongside our friends and with every expectation of an acceptable outcome.
As a member of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Ireland has not lost its distinctive voice in international affairs.
This can be seen in the UN General Assembly speeches by our foreign ministers over the past 10 years, including those of Mr Dick Spring, who was Mr Rogers' colleague in government. Our influence in the UN during this period culminated in our election to the Security Council. All in all, Mr Rogers fails to convince in his analysis of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. He lurches ponderously from misconception to omission in an attempt to sustain a narrow, archaic legal theory without credible evidence.
Patrick Keatinge is an emeritus fellow of Trinity College Dublin. A book of essays in his honour, Ireland in International Affairs: Interests, Institutions, and Identity (Eds. Ben Tonra and Eilis Ward) was published by the Institute of Public Administration last week.