Anti-Nice campaigner calls EU accession an 'economic servitude'

The anti-Nice campaigner Mr Anthony Coughlan has told a Czech journal that accession to the EU would require the Czech people to commit to "a form of economic servitude" which was not required when they were "clients of the USSR".

The assertion has led to criticism from Fianna Fáil ministers who have accused the veteran campaigner of "outrageous" comments "which he obviously expected to go unnoticed here".

Insisting that ratification of the Nice Treaty was not in the interest of the applicant countries, Mr Coughlan told the current affairs magazine Respekt, "you Czechs should be more happy if the Irish vote No again".

Mr Coughlan explained this was because the applicants were required to eventually adopt the euro, leading to "a loss of economic independence, control of interest rates and exchange rates".

It was, he maintained, not an equal partnership but a process akin to being swallowed by a shark. Mr Coughlan asserted that "abolition of a national currency ... is a form of national economic servitude. Countries that do that become economic provinces. They are no longer free nations. They have surrendered their essential capacity for economic independence."

He warned the Czech publication that a German-French axis would jointly "colonise Central and Eastern Europe in an enlarged EU. There is the integration that is a free co-operation and the integration that happens when the shark swallows the salmon!".

Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday Mr Coughlan confirmed the quotes attributed to him and clarified that he did not "necessarily" mean that applicant countries would be worse off within the EU, but that they would be "worse off under monetary union" because of the loss of economic independence. He questioned why Britain, Sweden and Denmark should be allowed to keep their currency while the applicant countries would be required to eventually adopt the euro.

Accepting that these were criticisms of the accession terms and the Union per se, Mr Coughlan later issued a statement adding a number of reasons why he felt the Nice Treaty was bad for the applicant countries. These ranged from a possible periodic lack of representation on the commission to the possibility of enhanced co-operation leading to a "club within a club". However the comments recorded in the Czech magazine have sparked a new row with the Minister for Europe Mr Dick Roche accusing Mr Coughlan of "demonstrating deep anti-European feelings which have led him to campaign against every referendum in the past 30 years".

Mr Roche said Mr Coughlan "obviously expected the interview to go unnoticed here" and insisted that the article "revealed that he believes that the EU is worse than Soviet domination and involves national servitude. Yet he is currently pretending that he is in favour of enlargement and continued membership of the EU."

Mr Roche said Mr Coughlan's remarks were "clear hypocrisy", and that "Coughlan wants to defeat Nice so that it will damage Europe". The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen described as "absolutely outrageous" Mr Coughlan's interview. He said it was typical of the No campaign to talk down to the people in the applicant countries.