Sir, – The prospect of EU enlargement, to accommodate the entry of Ukraine and possibly other countries, was discussed in your editorial “The Irish Times view on the EU’s state of the union address: von der Leyen makes her pitch” (September 14th).
You rightly conclude that enlargement will require a profound reimagining of decision-making rules and budgets in the EU.
This is a reality which must be addressed if any enlargement is to take place. There will almost certainly have to be a scaling back of the veto power in certain areas. The option for replacing this might be say a “super-majority vote” where, for example, at least four countries combined can only block decision making in key and pressing areas. That will be the nature of the debate and not about keeping the veto power in all areas intact.
To accommodate the entry of Ukraine there will also have to be a major restructuring of budget allocations, with a significant increase in Ireland’s net contribution to the budget. Bear in mind, though, the fact that Ireland is now a net contributor to the EU budget is a “problem” of our success in the last decade or so. The main economic benefit for Ireland from EU membership is unhindered access to the single market, the value of which it has been estimated, in terms of addition to national output, dwarfs any direct net contribution made.
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These changes almost certainly will involve, as you state, the “feared prospect of treaty change”. This is complicated further in that the acceptance of treaty change in Ireland may have to be effected via a referendum. But does it?
How we address these issues will be the true test of the depth of our support for Ukraine, and hence the future security and stability of Europe. – Yours, etc,
JOHN O’HAGAN,
Department of Economics,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.