Irish support for Blair was damaging to our interests

The Government should resist inflating the role of the president of the European Council, writes GARRET FITZGERALD 

AS HAS been widely publicised, the Lisbon Treaty proposes the replacement of the present six-monthly alternating chairmanship of the European Council of heads of state and government through the election, by a qualified majority of the council, of a person who will chair their four annual meetings for a 2½-year term, renewable for a second period.

Unfortunately, some languages such as French do not have an equivalent to the English word “chairman”. So, on the continent of Europe, every person who chairs anything is called “president”. The disadvantage of this is that anyone called “president of the European Council of heads of state and government” may be tempted to seek a role in EU foreign relations, rather than merely chairing four council meetings a year, (which is all that the treaty mentions). And that temptation may be impossible to resist if the chosen person has formerly been prime minister of a large state!

What has been largely missed is that the Lisbon Treaty also creates a much more important post of a foreign representative, who is to be assisted by a new external action service of EU diplomats. This new post will combine the political role currently played by Javier Solana with the economic role of a vice-president of the European Commission, so that, unlike Solana, the new foreign representative will have substantial financial resources. The purpose of this major reform is to increase Europe’s weight in foreign relations, and thus to create a better balance with the US in particular.

There are a number of reasons for opposition by some European governments to Tony Blair’s bid for the European presidency: his failure as prime minister to withstand treasury opposition to Britain joining the euro zone, and his ignoring of his European partners by joining former US president George Bush in invading Iraq. But these past European failures by Blair are greatly reinforced by concern that if he were appointed to the presidency of the council, he might weaken the union’s role in the world by interfering with the crucially important area of foreign policy, undercutting the key role of its new foreign representative.

That, I believe, is a major reason why smaller countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Hungary – as well, reportedly, as much larger Poland – are opposed to Blair’s appointment as president of the council.

Why, then, did the Irish Government back Blair for this post? His appointment would not serve either Irish or European interests, and the only reason so far suggested for such a strange move has been gratitude for the key role he played in securing a Northern Ireland settlement. I would yield to no one in my admiration for what Blair accomplished in that area. But, to be absolutely blunt about it, gratitude has no role in foreign policy, which should be governed by a sometimes conflicted combination of ideals and interests.

Now I don’t think anyone will accuse me of being anti-British, but I have to say that since the early 1990s I have been increasingly concerned about what seems to me a curious drift by Fianna Fáil in government towards closer association with Britain, weakening the valuable relationships we had built up with continental European states in the 1970s and 1980s. In part this drift may have been a consequence of its deep involvement with the British government in negotiations on Northern Ireland – but it is also the case that, ever since we joined the EU, that party has never seemed as comfortable as Fine Gael and Labour about engaging with continental members of the EU. During the 1970s and 1980s we had succeeded in displacing the widespread, and very damaging, continental European assumption that within the union, we would simply behave as a British satellite. Much of our remarkable European success in those earlier decades of EU membership derived from support given to us by countries like France and Germany – partly at least, because we never toed the British line.

Of course we have common EU interests with Britain on which we can usefully co-operate. We are, after all, two common law countries, in a union predominantly governed by a very different system of civil law. Moreover, we are closely linked to the less-regulated Anglo-American form of capitalism – not wholly to our advantage, as we have recently discovered. And we also share with Britain a common interest in retaining unfettered control of our taxation – albeit for somewhat different reasons.

Within the EU, in relation to all these issues we can profitably work with the British. But in relation to agriculture our interests clearly diverge fundamentally from those of the UK. In that sector our closest ally is clearly France.

On human rights and developing world issues, where our values rather than our interests come into play, our allies are the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands – although it would be ungenerous not to recognise that, away from trade issues and in particular such areas as arms trading, the UK also has a good record here.

More generally, we have a huge interest in a positive development of the union, and in reinforcing the role of the commission, through which our interests are protected against possible exploitation by larger states. And to such developments Britain appears to be viscerally opposed. What we need to avoid is feeding renewed continental suspicions that we are some kind of British satellite. No one in Europe will criticise us for pursuing common interests with Britain where these exist, but we need to guard against gratuitous actions that overidentify us with Britain on issues where no common interest exists – and where our interests in fact diverge.

That is why it was a serious mistake to advertise publicly our support for a large-country presidency of the European Council by a former British prime minister with a poor European record. It is to be hoped that if John Bruton’s candidature receives insufficient support the Government does not revert to its earlier support for Blair.

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