IRELAND: The European Union should be "a world actor", former Italian prime minister Mr Guiliano Amato, one of the key figures in the Convention on the Future of Europe, has declared.
Speaking in Dublin, Senator Amato said the European Union would have no role on the world stage if it could do no more than simply "agree or disagree" with the actions of others.
International military powers have the power "to do whatever they want", he told the National Forum on Europe: "In the world arena they have weight, and we do not.
"I do not want to have an EU foreign policy the horizons of which are limited to agreeing or disagreeing with those who have the power to ignore us," he told the forum.
Mr Amato said he wanted a European Union of "450 million people to have an equally powerful voice, not militarily, but politically.
"This is my ambition as a European," he said.
The European Union must "speak with one voice" on the international stage, if it wants to have influence on the major crises of the age.
European Union member-states, regardless of their opinions on other issues, could agree on the need "for a more balanced approach" on the Israeli/Palestinian issue.
"A more balanced position (on that issue) might allow us to involve more Arab countries in a partial solution in Iraq. Nobody is in a position to join now," he said.
"Of course we have to reach agreement amongst ourselves. But agreement is possible. Playing our separate games makes us powerless.
"These are only words," said Mr Amato, who was the vice-president of the Convention on the Future of Europe that drew up the draft constitutional treaty.
However, Mr Roger Cole, of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA), questioned the need for a single European Union foreign policy voice. "It might be important for you, but it isn't for me," he told Mr Amato.
The Italians are involved in the "war of imperial conquest with the United States in Iraq," said Mr Cole, who emphasised that PANA supports an EU made up of independent states.
Former minister for justice Ms Nora Owen said the European Union agreed to create an arrest warrant usable in any member-state days after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11th, 2001.
"Two and a half years later only nine of the 15 EU members have implemented it. The 10 new member-states will be more compliant that some of the existing member-states," Ms Owen told Mr Amato.
Acknowledging that some European Union states have been quite poor about putting legislation into their own laws, Mr Amato cautioned against change.
National governments could be forced to do better by "a larger administrative machine operating from Brussels", he said. "You have to preserve national implementation as much as possible, but to make it as precise as possible."
Mr Amato rejected charges that the draft constitutional treaty extends the powers of the European Union over member-states.
"My answer is 'No'. It doesn't change the balance."
The European Union has been given "many tasks, many missions" by member-states over the years.
So many that the public and, sometimes, the governments in many states no longer know what they have given away.
"It was astonishing to me and other members of the convention when we realised that several member-states were unaware of the competencies that they had already given to the EU.
This "incremental approach" has seen the EU getting responsibility for hundreds of tasks. "We did not add new competencies," he said, though they had proposed that the EU's role in energy issues should be explicit, rather than implicit.
The constitutional treaty has codified all of the powers already granted to the EU by the member-states, rather than granting others, said Mr Amato in an opening presentation to the forum chaired by Senator Maurice Hayes.