Sir, - Your edition of June 2nd contained two attacks on an article I had written about the Nice Treaty. Garret FitzGerald included me on a list of "unscrupulous opponents" of the treaty who had "remorselessly propounded" untruths. Dr FitzGerald said it was "simply false" of me to have alleged that the treaty was concerned with the militarisation of the EU.
A letter from Declan Kelly of the Department of Foreign Affairs said I was responsible for "the provision of misleading information" about the treaty. There is nothing unscrupulous or misleading about AfrI's position. The Treaty of Nice does two key things concerning militarisation of the EU. First, it gives formal legal status to the EU's Political and Security Committee - the management committee for new EU military structures, including the Rapid Reaction Force. Second, it abolishes earlier treaty references to the Western European Union, the subset of EU members previously charged with undertaking military actions on behalf of the EU. Taken together, these two developments mean that the EU is itself, for the first time, taking on responsibility for military affairs.
Whether one regards that as a good or a bad thing, it is definitely an integral part of the treaty. - Yours, etc.,
Andy Storey, AfrI, Grand Canal House, Dublin 6.