Sir, - The security and defence element of the debate on the Nice Treaty has a sadly familiar tone. Those seeking to promote a No vote by revisiting the conspiracy theories and "body-bag" scare stories which proved to be both unsuccessful and unfounded at the time of the Single European Act and of the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties once again appear incapable of recognising that we live in post-Cold War Europe and of drawing the appropriate lessons.
There is a clear, mutual interest of all European countries - particularly the present enlargement candidates - in stability and peace across the continent. The abject European failure to cope with the crisis in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s led to a tragic situation which even today is far from resolution. The security provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty - approved by referendum in 1998 - do no more than enable the EU in future to play a measured and properly co-ordinated role in the fields of peace-keeping and crisis management.
Arguments that Ireland should stand aside amount to little more than asking others to carry our share of the responsibility for building peace and security in Europe so that we can continue to tell ourselves how principled we are. The tendency of some habitual No campaigners to attribute conspiracy, bad intentions and lack of principle to our European partners remains a disagreeable aspect of these debates.
A final point. It is sometimes argued that Ireland should seek a protocol on defence-related matters similar to that for Denmark in the Amsterdam Treaty. The logic of this is unclear, since Denmark is a founder member of NATO and the protocol in question is designed to reflect its particular, pro-US, view of the Atlantic Alliance. - Yours, etc.,
Tony Brown, Bettyglen, Raheny, Dublin 5.