HUMBERT SUMMER SCHOOL: There was a real need to bring the ordinary people of Ireland and other member-states back into the debate on the European Union, the chairman of the National Forum on Europe, Senator Maurice Hayes, told the annual Humbert Summer School yesterday.
National parliaments had a key responsibility for this. People felt the strongest sense of identity with their own national institutions, and these should play a more active role in scrutinising EU policies and proposals.
Commenting on other themes emerging from the forum, Mr Hayes said that there was a "wide measure of common ground" with regard to the following: 1) The moral and political imperative to include the central and east European countries in the EU; 2) That close EU integration should be sustained in economic, social and environmental matters; 3) That there was no threat to Irish national or cultural identity from the EU; 4) That Europe had been good for both Ireland and Northern Ireland and "has helped greatly the resolution of the conflict on this island".
The issues of most concern could be summarised as follows: Squaring traditional Irish military neutrality with evolving EU security and defence policies and ensuring that the Dáil and Seanad were equipped to monitor and scrutinise all EU legislation effectively before final decisions were taken in Brussels. The general sense of the debate was that "significant upgrading" was required for the Dáil and Seanad to assume an effective scrutiny role. "This is under way already," Mr Hayes continued. "I believe it is fair to say that all members of the forum welcomed what is regarded as a long-overdue effort to make the process clearer, more accessible and, above all, more accountable."
The second major preoccupation was military neutrality. "We have been successful, I believe, in identifying some, if not all, of the genuine reservations which people have, and continue to hold, around the future role for a militarily-neutral Ireland in an expanding Europe."
Mr Roger Cole, of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA), said he was still opposed to the Nice Treaty, regardless of the latest Government proposal to bar Irish membership of an EU mutual defence pact without a referendum.
PANA was still seeking a protocol to the treaty in order to exclude Ireland from any involvement with the European Rapid Reaction Force. "The protocol would exclude Ireland from the offensive military plans rather than the defensive military plans of the EU, i.e. the use of EU military force to project the power of the EU elite."
Mr Cole questioned the constitutional validity of a second Nice referendum and said he had established a fund for the purpose of mounting a court challenge to any attempt to re-run the treaty.
The theme of this year's Humbert School is "How September 11th Changed the World". Lectures and seminars continue until Sunday in Ballina, Castlebar and Killala.