Madam, - In response to Proinsias de Rossa MEP (September 11th), my point (September 1st) was not to dismiss social democracy, but rather to highlight that as a political and economic project it has run its course.
However, to answer his substantive point, Sinn Féin was the only Irish political party to produce a detailed analysis of the proposed EU Constitution. The document, available at http://sinnfein.ie/policies/document/198, contains detailed arguments against the text and outlines the principles upon which we believe the future of the EU should rest.
The parameters of the debate on the future of the EU are already clear. Do we want a union that promotes conflict resolution or a phony war on terror; that combats poverty, inequality and social injustice or promotes a narrow vision of competitiveness to the exclusion of all else; that respects and protects human rights or solidifies fortress Europe and accelerates the assault on civil liberties; that protects Irish neutrality or invests time and money in the militarisation of the EU; that deepens meaningful democracy or further centralises power in the hands of political elites at a national and regional level?
The first of each of these options is the vision Sinn Féin ascribes to. The second is that of the political forces driving the EU agenda nationally regionally.
The great irony for Mr de Rossa and European social democrats generally is that in terms of values they too advocate these first options, yet they support EU directives and treaties that advance the second.
That Mr de Rossa is willing to defend such an approach on the basis of cosmetic "advances" in the text of the Reform Treaty is remarkable. - Yours, etc,
EOIN Ó BROIN, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.