The Government should clarify its position on Ireland's future role in European security and tell the people what was being agreed in their name, the president of the Labour Party, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, MEP, has said.
"No public debate has been enabled by our government," he told a seminar on "The New Security Architecture" organised in Trinity College, Dublin, by the Party of European Socialists.
"When legitimate concerns are raised by a former chief of staff of our defence forces, about what military commitments are going to be made to the European Rapid Reaction Force and the impact this will have on our peacekeeping commitments to the United Nations, we are treated to a reply by the Minister for Defence which obscures the truth rather than clarifying it."
Mr De Rossa said there were further questions, in addition to the ones raised by Lieut Gen Gerry McMahon. For example, was the Government insisting that the Rapid Reaction Force to be established shortly could not act outside the European Union without a United Nations mandate?
What commitments of a military and policing nature would the Government be making in the run-up to the Nice Summit of the EU in December? What role would the Army have in the permanent military structures to be put in place after the Nice Summit?
Mr De Rossa said there were clear constitutional implications arising from these issues and he wanted to know whether the new role for the defence forces would be incorporated into Bunreacht na hEireann. Who would represent Ireland in the proposed new structures and was the Government insisting that these be accountable to the European Parliament?
"Europe cannot adopt a purely military model, such as the NATO model. Still less can Europe arrogate to itself the decision of where and when to intervene in territories beyond its borders; while, as I mentioned earlier, the UN charter needs to be reformed to make it more effective not only in its decision-making procedures, but also with regard to the situations in which it can intervene, nevertheless the UN still retains this legal prerogative.
"For the EU to flout this fact, and for it to act unilaterally outside its own territory would be an invitation to every tinpot despot to act similarly. A bland commitment to act in conformity with UN principles but without a UN mandate cannot be acceptable to this small state or any other small state," Mr De Rossa said.
A different perspective was advanced at the seminar by the former president of the European Parliament, Mr Piet Dankert, who said a European military force with as many as 60,000 soldiers, as agreed at the Helsinki Summit last year, was insufficient to cope with such problems as peacekeeping in Bosnia and Kosovo. They were just the beginning of the answer.