THE President of the European Commission, Mr Jacques Santer has appealed to the British government to "normalise" relations with the European Union. Speaking in Dublin he said he could not approve of the way Britain was obstructing the functions of European institutions which had no connection to the BSE crisis.
He told the Institute of European Affairs it was not the European Commission or other member states who had triggered the crisis. There was an objective problem if scientists said there was a danger of disease, that was a real problem for the consumer.
The Commission had scientific advice that there was no risk from certain British beef products if appropriate controls were in place but they could not get backing for their proposals from the Council of Ministers. He had urged British Prime Minister, Mr Major, on Wednesday night to give more power to the Commission.
Mr Santer said he was very concerned about anti European and even xenophobic propaganda in the British press as well as an anti British stance in the continental press.
On the EU's common foreign and security policy he said this must sooner or later lead to a common defence. He knew this was a "sensitive question" in Ireland.
"But in an enlarging Union there may be some historically held points of view which will be relatively difficult to accommodate. One of these could be the question of military neutrality.
"Let me stress immediately that no one wishes to force Ireland into a military alliance against its will or to force Irish soldiers to fight wars against the will of their own country.
"However, the political map of Europe has changed dramatically since the collapse of communism.. We should reassess the implications of this. Future security problems will be of a quite different nature.
"They will relate to political instability, ethnic or minority issues, fundamentalisms of one sort or another. Ireland has a fine tradition of service in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Would it be a violation of your respected military neutrality to envisage performing the same role in a European context, in partnership with the other countries of the Union?"