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Ireland's role in European security and defence

No issue so much dominates the horizon in European debates on the future of the European Union as that of security and defence. The dictates of civility combined with a strenuous effort to avoid opening fissures among otherwise pro-European forces have meant that this debate takes place at a subdued level. Nevertheless, it is regularly expressed in predictable line-ups at EU summits and conferences and even in debates within NATO. There are three camps - the Atlanticists, the Eurocentrics and those who want some security structure and aren't too concerned at the form it takes. 

The Eurocentrics, unsurprisingly, base their position on the much vaunted Franco-German axis and seek to expand the autonomous European control of the continent's security and defence. This faction, centring on Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg, though also including Italy and Spain, used to support the WEU as the means to a European security and defence system relatively autonomous of NATO.  

The Atlanticists - primarily Britain and Denmark, though also Holland - are vociferously pro-NATO and anti-WEU (and hence favour a weak EU) and wish primarily to keep the United States locked into the European defence system through NATO, not least to prevent the feared rise of a strong Germany at the centre of European security and defence. These former maritime powers historically have always pursued an agenda of minimising European consolidation.  

The remaining EU states are largely indifferent to which strand dominates and wish simply to get on with developing a functioning security 'architecture'. Greece, whose borders are dominated in the north by the unstable Balkans and in the south by hostile relations with its fellow NATO 'ally' of Turkey, is a particularly jittery member of this group. 

There is no lobby group of 'neutrals', since those EU states which exercise some form of military neutrality - Sweden, Finland, Austria and Ireland - each do so in a wholly separate manner and for wholly different reasons. For Finland and Austria - both on the wrong side in the Second World War - military neutrality was a condition imposed under the Cold War for their very right to exist as states. In the case of Austria, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw its occupying forces in 1955 only on a treaty condition that a re-united Austria remain militarily neutral. Finland's neutrality was part of the deal struck in the September 1944 armistice, which enabled it to extract itself from the war while - uniquely - avoiding the grim prospect of occupation by the Soviets. Sweden, which has substantial military forces and a major exporting arms industry (Bofors etc), is 'neutral' simply because for more than 200 years it has steered a course of staying out of European power politics while remaining itself a power. Ireland has its own particular reasons and these are historically linked not only to partition but also to the painful process of disentanglement from the British Empire and the major (successful) campaign to prevent the introduction of conscription in Ireland following the 1916 slaughter on the Somme. 

From a 'progressive' point of view, a European security structure ultimately subject to the EU is undoubtedly preferable to the domination of European security affairs by the militarist transatlantic alliance. The major advantage of such a security structure is that it would ultimately be subject to the democratic checks and balances of the EU Council (ie, the member states), the European Parliament, etc. 

But, for the sake of securing and maintaining European unity during the implementation of EMU and eastern enlargement, the Eurocentrics effectively - if reluctantly - agreed to abandon their position on European security following a hectic campaign of lobbying by the US. At the June 1996 NATO summit in Berlin, the WEU was effectively buried except as a rather lame duck political transmission belt between NATO and the EU. Nevertheless, a certain role was salvaged for the EU in having effectively to endorse any security activities by NATO in Europe. But the emergence of the WEU as a potential separate European structure was abandoned and NATO, whose position in Europe had been precarious since 1989, finally secured the leading role in Europe. 

The foreign policy pursued by Charles Haughey and Albert Reynolds was particularly robust and coherent, even if, at times, a high-risk business. It was based on a simple extrapolation of economic policy. An Irish industrial and economic take-off required a radical loosening of - or, at least, a disregard for - traditional economic connections with Britain and the fostering of a militantly Eurocentric approach to the EU. The cooling of relations with Britain under Thatcher facilitated this development. It was during this period that Ireland attained 'observer' status at the WEU while staying completely apart from NATO. Significantly, this period of government also saw the ushering in of social partnership in Ireland (the European 'Social State' model) and the cabinets led by these men were regarded in Europe as unequivocally aligned with the radical integrationist group (Germany/ France).  

Every year, the Irish Government published the country's trade statistics with a great fanfare, trumpeting the decline in the percentage of Irish trade with Britain relative to the massively-growing trade with other EU states. When unease spread through some European capitals at the re-unification of Germany - accompanied by outlandish and hysterical commentary in the Thatcherite press in Britain - the Irish EU presidency moved quickly to applaud re-unification and to offer the support of the Community for the integration of Eastern Germany (an event emotionally recalled by Kohl during his visit to Dublin in 1996). 

While in the last number of years Irish foreign policy has kept in step with the ups and downs of the US commitment to the Northern Ireland peace process (Irish votes at the UN on the blockade of Cuba have been a barometer of this), the major initiative for seeking a role in the NATO Partnership for Peace [PfP] came from the Labour leader, Dick Spring. This move was supported by Fine Gael but opposed by Democratic Left, in government at the time, and also vociferously by Fianna Fail, then in opposition, and was thus temporarily dropped. It remained in the Rainbow Coalition's White Paper on Foreign Policy as one of a range of options in the area of security which may still be revisited. 

But, with the debate on European enlargement in the context of the Amsterdam Treaty, it rapidly became clear in Ireland that the era of major cash transfers from Europe was nearing an end. In this context, several events contrived also to change substantially the background to the security debate. Two changes of government in Ireland, the election of Blair's New Labour in Britain and the successful conclusion of the Belfast Agreement with decisive US involvement are the principal factors. On top of this, the election of social democratic governments in France and Germany has been greeted with undisguised and almost hysterical hostility by the Irish media. It is no coincidence that Foreign Affairs Minister David Andrews' intervention on the security question came within weeks of the ceremony in Flanders, the critical speech by Tony Blair to the Oireachtas and the election of a new hard-nosed social democratic regime in Germany intent on curbing EU funding of relatively affluent areas of the Community and a redirection of resources in favour of the candidate members in the East.  

These developments in European politics, in conjunction with the progress of the peace process, are ironically seeing a re-alignment of Irish foreign policy strategy back towards a closer relationship with Britain and - more ominously - of a possible re-alignment of Ireland's position in the EU towards the Eurosceptic powers headed by Britain. 

There is thus a series of interlocking issues involved in the question of PfP membership. David Andrews has flagged a major U-turn by Fianna Fail on neutrality and security issues. This is supported enthusiastically by senior civil servants and by representatives of all ranks in the Defence Forces. From the point of view of the Irish left, which is preparing for the conflicts over the distribution of wealth and resources within Ireland which will inevitably follow the decline of EU subsidisation, neutrality and security are vital issues of perspective and policy.  

To sum up, an 'Atlanticist' foreign policy would align this state with the 'free-trading' globalist powers and against the 'Social State' model of the Eurocentrics. The choices are clear. 
 

Philip O'Connor is a historian and translator 
 

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Revised: 15/03/99