Ireland's military neutrality has become a central theme in the Nice referendum debate. Supporters of the treaty say it protects that policy. It will be reinforced, they argue, by the insertion of a new clause in the Constitution ensuring any European Union move to a common defence could be approved by Ireland only after a further referendum.
Opponents say such guarantees have no legal standing and that by voting Yes, Ireland will endorse the "creeping militarisation" of the EU.
Clarity and care are called for in dealing with these issues and coming to a decision about how to vote on them. There is much scope for confusion and deliberate misrepresentation. The very term neutrality is ambiguous and ill-defined in the Irish and international context after the end of the Cold War. Unfortunately Ireland's debate on the subject has not been rooted in the real world of our actual international relations with our European neighbours. Neutrality is a potent symbol of Ireland's sovereignty and independence. This makes it more necessary to renew it when sovereignty is pooled or shared within the EU's system of political and security interdependence.
Neutrality is best defined in contrast to military alliances which involve an obligation to collective defence. That is not at stake in the EU. But Ireland is committed to the growing system of security and military cooperation within the EU - "humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking." This has been agreed in previous treaties - and previous referendums. The Nice Treaty ensures it will operate under full political control.
Ireland can only become involved with such tasks if the Government and Oireachtas approve and they have a United Nations mandate. They were drawn up after Europe was humiliated during the Balkan wars and humanitarian crises of the 1990s. The EU could not prevent millions of people being killed or displaced because it did not have the capacity. Instead it had to rely on the United States. This is increasingly less advisable in the current and emerging international circumstances. The EU's new Rapid Reaction Force is designed to carry out such tasks on a voluntary and cooperative basis, not as an alliance for collective defence. In their declaration at Seville last June, the other member-states solemnly recognised Ireland's own declaration of its neutrality, in what has convincingly been argued to have sound legal as well as political standing.
Those declarations are reinforced by the constitutional amendment attached to the Nice referendum. It will ensure any move to a common defence in the EU can be agreed by Ireland only after a referendum is held. In all these circumstances it makes much more sense to vote Yes to Nice on Saturday, to ensure Ireland's participation in European security takes place on agreed terms which protect its values and interests.