The Treaty of Amsterdam, signed in the city yesterday by European Union foreign ministers, is best understood as a step on the way to further European integration. It introduces important new changes in justice and home affairs, in the EU's common foreign and security policies and in some of its decisionmaking procedures. It addresses areas of citizen concern, such as employment, and fundamental principles of freedom and law. At the same time it is a modest document which will have to be revisited in four or five years before the EU enlarges and to take stock of developments in the meantime.
As such, the treaty is typical - all too typical - of the incremental style by which the EU has been built. Although the changes made will have a significant impact on member-states and citizens alike, it is couched in a format comprehensible only to experts who have an intimate acquaintance with the other treaty texts it amends or amplifies. Despite a praiseworthy and effective effort by the Irish EU presidency team to produce a user-friendly document in terms of language and everyday concerns, the final text is necessarily presented in the garb of the international treaty negotiation between 15 states of which it is the outcome. Indeed, a number of its shortcomings reflect the circumstances in which it was finally agreed at a very late-night session last June.
It has taken several months to agree on the precise text of the final document signed yesterday. Much will, therefore, depend on the manner in which the treaty is presented to the public and parliaments by political leaders over coming months as it is ratified in the member-states. Ireland, Denmark and Portugal are to have referendums while the others will ratify it by parliamentary agreement. One way or another, ratification must be unanimous.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Burke, has announced that a White Paper on the treaty will be published soon and that the referendum will be held next spring. The document will tax the drafting skills of his Department and deserves a large readership. The political debate on it will provide an opportunity to raise public awareness, not only of the treaty clauses, but of the wider context in which they have been negotiated. We are entering the end-game of European Monetary Union; member-states will be ratifying this treaty at roughly the same time as they will be deciding which states will join the single currency. The European Commission has published its ambitious Agenda 2000 document preparing for EU enlargement. It deals with reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, structural funds and the budget, all of them matters of crucial concern for Ireland. And at the Luxembourg Council next December it will be decided which applicant states have qualified for membership negotiations.
The Treaty of Amsterdam was intended to reform the EU's institutions in order to prepare for enlargement, but failed to do so because of fundamental last-minute disagreements. That these decisions will have to be revisited is a shortcoming in the document, but one that can be turned to advantage if political leadership is given to European public opinion.