News that Ireland is expected to pledge 800 troops to the European Union's Rapid Reaction Force later this month brings that subject squarely onto the political agenda. It has been known for some time that such a commitment would be made and the issue got an airing during discussions earlier this year on the Government's White Paper on Defence. It has likewise been known that the Rapid Reaction Force has been in active preparation since it was decided upon at the Helsinki European Council last December. But the firm commitment of troops brings home fully, to citizens and politicians alike, what is at stake.
Alarmist assertions that this is the end of Ireland's military neutrality are wide of the mark. European neutral states have been affected just as much as allied ones by the end of the Cold War. That momentous event fundamentally altered the parameters of European security and defence. In many respects it made NATO's structure of collective territorial defence redundant, since the antagonist it was directed against disappeared. NATO's long process of adaptation saw the launch in 1994 of the Partnership for Peace, sponsored by the alliance as a means of developing voluntary military co-operation between former enemies. Ireland last year became the 45th European state to join PfP, long after most others, including all the European neutral and non-aligned ones.
PfP has been an essential building block in the European Security and Defence Identity which the EU's Rapid Reaction Force is intended to express. Continuing negotiations between the EU and NATO will determine precisely how the force will draw down NATO assets for peacekeeping, peacemaking, crisis management and humanitarian tasks. While the commitment of military forces commensurate with national resources has become a hallmark of this emerging system, their use in specific military operations is entirely voluntary. In Ireland's case that would require Oireachtas approval and a United Nations mandate. Thus this is not a classical military alliance dedicated to collective defence. It does not transgress Ireland's military neutrality.
There is, of course, plenty of room for argument as to whether that policy is made redundant by the flow of events, notably by the rapid evolution of EU security policies, which calls a new form of political solidarity into play. Successive Taoisigh have pledged Ireland's participation in such a system as and when it is created. The belated recognition that Ireland was losing out on best military and peacekeeping practice contributed to the Government's decisions to become more fully involved over the last 18 months. Now that this State is participating it will be up to the Government to explain clearly and firmly what is at stake.
Its negotiators face a difficult task during the current EU Inter-Governmental Conference to amend the treaties for enlargement. A number of member-states want to see a special protocol in the treaty to allow its clauses on closer co-operation to be used in the foreign policy and security domain. That might increase the EU's legal competence sufficient to require a referendum here to ratify the treaty. Rather than prevaricate on this question, the Government would be better advised to decide it will be necessary anyway for political reasons to hold a referendum. It should campaign confidently for it to be carried, assuming it is satisfied with the treaty reforms, which have to be carried unanimously.