If the Republic votes against the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty "we are actually stopping Europe in its tracks", the Fine Gael leader has warned.
Speaking at the launch of his party's campaign for a Yes vote on the Amsterdam Treaty in Dublin Castle yesterday, Mr Bruton told the media and his parliamentary party that a negative vote on May 22nd would amount to the other member-states being prevented from proceeding with what they wanted to do.
"It is a very heavy responsibility for us to say to Europe that you shall not have a common foreign policy; you shall not have a common employment policy; you shall not have a common consumer protection policy; you shall not have a more efficient decision-making in the Council of Ministers because we, the Irish people, are saying no," Mr Bruton said.
Three and a half million people on their own could say No and prevent 200 million from going ahead. Ireland would not be thanked for such a decision and the implications for such a course of action would be very serious for investment in this country. Rejecting suggestions that Ireland's neutrality would be eroded by acceptance of the treaty, Mr Bruton said the Amsterdam accord contained no greater commitment on a common defence policy than the Maastricht Treaty.
Meanwhile, there was a risk the Amsterdam Treaty would not receive the attention it deserved and would be overshadowed by the campaign to have the Belfast Agreement passed on May 22nd. It was important to consider the positive merits of the treaty, including human rights elements and commitment to employment as well as "a strong foreign policy presence".
"In this decade we have had the most awful genocide, for example, in Rwanda where a million people were killed in 100 days. Even Hitler did not kill people at that rate. We have had 200,000 people killed in Bosnia in genocide and Europe was unable to do anything about it because it did not have a common analysis of either situation," he said.
However, the Amsterdam Treaty set out, for the first time, the basis for the creation of a united foreign policy to ensure Europe could play a strong role in stopping genocide.
Fine Gael, though refusing to say how much it intends to spend between now and May 22nd, will return to "old-fashioned" campaigning. Confirming that he would embark on a round of meetings outside churches at Mass and services, Mr Bruton said he believed politicians should explain "face to face", to the people, the implications of the treaty. "It is the most important and valid form of political campaigning of all. It is the way people campaigned in the 1918 elections.
"It is the way people campaigned everywhere in elections in Irish history . . . It is not a question of how much money you spend. Money is not everything in politics."