MacGILL SUMMER SCHOOL: The leader of Fine Gael, Mr Enda Kenny, has called for a "sea-change in the way the EU does its business". He said "it must also stop hiding behind a wall of bureaucracy and offer its services to every citizen of every country in a way he or she can understand and take advantage of".
Advocating a Yes vote in the forthcoming Nice Treaty referendum, he called for an EU charter to "kill red tape" and stressed that the EU is an instrument for positive change.
Speaking at the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal, last night, he said: "Such a sea-change will also bring to an end the mythical bogeyman figure that the European Union is in danger of becoming. Because once Europe has changed, so too must we alter our behaviour. No longer can we 'blame Brussels' for everything we do not like about the Union. For it will become clear that the greatest failure in Europe lies closer to home, in the way we implement what has been collectively decided at the European table." He said it was vital to learn from the careless mistakes of the last referendum, and to explain adequately, the contents and implications of Nice.
Pointing out that Fine Gael will be holding a series of 16 major public information meetings on the Nice referendum, he said: "If Europe is to be a true power why then is it silent on the most important global political issues? Why is it that when plans to extend the war on terror to Iraq are the subject of so much international speculation, is the issue not even raised at the heads of government meeting in Seville, despite the potentially cataclysmic consequences for the Middle East and for Europe?"
Senator Mary O'Rourke echoed the view that Europe had become removed from citizens' everyday concerns and felt the Seanad should also become "a chamber for EU scrutiny".
Fine Gael MEP Mr John Cushnahan maintained that Ireland is neither politically neutral nor militarily neutral, and if the Treaty of Nice is ratified then the Government should have the courage to initiate a full-scale debate on whether or not Ireland should fully participate in a European defence structure.
Stating we were at a key moment in our relationship with our EU partners, he asked: "Are we 'chequebook Europeans' with our policy approach having been influenced more by the monies we could obtain from Europe but which is now likely to change because of our economic success? Or do we want to join our next-door neighbours in the UK in their policy approach of seeing Europe more as a large free trade area rather than a political project?" He hoped Ireland would "subscribe to full European integration recognising that a European defence policy is as much a fundamental component part of political union as the single currency."
Mr Ben Tonra, deputy director of the Dublin European Institute, contended that Ireland has responsibilities for international peace and security and that they can be more responsibly exercised within the EU than in relative isolation.
Rejecting comments by Minister of State Mr Tom Parlon in Tuesday's Irish Times, Green Party MEP Ms Patricia McKenna said No campaigners have not got it wrong.
The Green Party is the "most outward looking and global in its thinking and concerns", she said. Opposing Irish involvement in a European Rapid Reaction Force, she said that Ireland is being steadily brought into a militarised EU "which will obliterate our independence, neutrality and non-nuclear status".