THE European Union has the world's largest single market, by far the largest aid budget, an unparalleled web of historic and cultural ties with other parts of the world and access to more than 600,000 professional soldiers.
It is, therefore, well placed to fulfil, in conjunction with or under the auspices of the United Nations, a role of conflict prevention in and outside Europe, even if it lacks some of the specialised capacity available to the United States, e.g. air transport for major troops movements.
It has the capacity to identify potential conflicts before they break out, and to prepare the kind of action that might help to limit and resolve them. And its political, diplomatic, economic and financial, as well as military, capacity adds up to a formidable range of resources that can be deployed for this purpose.
But there is a fly in this ointment. A number of EU states are major arms exporters, with important sectors of their industrial employment depending on this activity. These include small countries such as Belgium as well as large ones like France and Britain; and neutral countries like Sweden as well as NATO members such as Germany and Italy.
That we are not a country exporting arms as a final product - as distinct from contributing a certain amount of equipment such as electronic products to firms engaged in arms production - is an accident of history rather than a sign of peculiar Irish virtue.
To pretend otherwise and to present ourselves as morally superior to many of our EU partners in this respect would merely be to invite ridicule and to weaken our capacity to influence constructively the policy of other states.
Happily, our governments have been careful to avoid this danger, thus preserving our capacity for effective action, even if at times this has exposed Irish governments to captious criticism from certain ill informed, if well meaning, sections of domestic opinion.
AS an example of what we have been able to do as a result of avoiding this particular trap, in 1992 Ireland suggested to the UN General Assembly the adoption of a code of conduct for sales of conventional arms, calling upon states to voluntarily exercise particular responsibility in their exports and imports of conventional weapons, and to agree to exercise special restraint in the transfer of advance technology weapons to countries and areas of tension.
The Irish delegation also proposed undertakings by states to exercise moderation in their military expenditure and to ensure that neither their own purchases, arms transfers to other states, would stability or security.
This proposal was, however, opposed by the non aligned movement, some of whose member states are major arms importers in sensitive areas of the world.
Nevertheless, the Irish delegation continued to press the case for restrictions on arms exports, and on our initiative a proposal to develop a code of conduct for conventional arms transfers was, in fact, tabled at the 1994 General Assembly on behalf of the EU and a number of eastern European countries. However, the objections of some non aligned states to these proposals have yet to be overcome.
This resolution was based on the June 1991 EU set of common criteria for the determination of arms sales policy, which include the internal situation in the country of final destination gas a function of the existence of tensions of internal armed conflicts", and "the respect of human rights" in the country in question, as well as the preservation of regional peace and security.
Another consideration to be taken into account is the behaviour of the buyer country with regard to the international community, particularly in terms of its attitude to international terrorism, the nature of its alliances, and its respect for international law. And yet another criterion is the existence of a risk that the equipment will be diverted within the buyer country or re exported under undesirable conditions.
The trouble with these EU criteria is that at present they are non binding, and member states have interpreted them in widely different ways. For example, while Italy and Portugal operate an arms embargo on Indonesia because of its human rights record, Germany and Britain have had no scruples about exporting arms to it.
THAT is why we, with other likeminded member states, must continue to work to have these criteria made more specific, and above all made mandatory.
In the meantime it would be a mistake to dismiss these EU non binding criteria as valueless. Experience has shown that many of what are now binding elements of international law began as pious resolutions that later developed into non binding commitments, which eventually became accepted as mandatory.
Rather than taking the easy, but futile, path of self righteously denouncing states with whose arms trade policies we disagree, our governments have generally; chosen to keep pressing behind the scenes for progress towards effective arms control.
There has been public pressure here for Ireland to use its EU presidency role to take a high profile stance on some of these issues. In its Foreign Policy White Paper, the Government committed itself to giving appropriate priority to disarmament tissues during this presidency.
But in pursuing this issue the Government must assess the extent to which progress on certain aspects may be best achieved by quietly preparing the way now for future initiatives by other member states which may carry greater weight within the EU on this issue.
In the meantime, there is a particular role we can play, and are in fact playing: seeking to convince the non aligned countries that they are mistaken in fearing that acceptance of the EU principles would interfere with their right of legitimate self defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
In this area we have more credibility than many other EU member states, for we cannot be suspected of any post colonial or great power interest in weakening the capacity of these countries to maintain their independence.
Another Irish objective has been to secure membership of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, where we could certainly play a useful part.
There is a danger that the quiet but constructive work our Department of Foreign Affairs has been undertaking in relation to disarmament issues may be underestimated by public opinion because of the lack of debate and discussion on this subject.
The other side of this coin, however, is that in the absence of such debate and discussion there may be, despite what has been said earlier, a danger of undue caution by foreign affairs in some sections of this activity. Thus these issues deserve more public airing than they have hitherto received.