There was no guarantee that Irish neutrality would be protected by declarations signed in Seville earlier this summer, Sinn Féin claimed yesterday.
The declarations said that the State would take its own decision on whether Irish troops should participate in crisis-management tasks mounted by the EU, but they had no legal basis and were nothing more than a political intention, said Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh, the party's TD for Dublin South-Central.
He noted that previous political promises, such as one to allow the people to decide on joining NATO's Partnership for Peace, had been abandoned, and there was no reason to believe that the same would not happen with the Seville declarations.
Addressing a press conference in Dublin, Mr Ó Snodaigh called for the State's neutrality to be guaranteed in the Constitution. "We are also seeking assurances from the Government that, on rejection of the Nice Treaty, Ireland will not be involved in the European Rapid Reaction Force. So far, those assurances have not been received, and therefore we are calling for a strong No vote."
Mr Arthur Morgan, Sinn Féin TD for Louth, said that the Seville declarations were a "trick" designed to give the impression that they protected the State's neutrality when they did not. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs claimed that the declarations would protect Irish neutrality. However, this amounted to "misinformation and blackmail to get the treaty passed".
At the same time, Mr Morgan said, US warplanes were refuelling at Shannon Airport on an almost daily basis. "This not only makes a mockery of our present position of so-called neutrality. It makes Bertie Ahern's Seville declarations all the more meaningless and nonsensical."
He emphasised, however, that Sinn Féin favoured EU enlargement and said that the party believed that enlargement could proceed if Nice was rejected.