US: It was becoming "increasingly clear and obvious that no one country can be the world's policeman," the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said yesterday in Washington, writes Conor O'Clery in Washington
UN Security Council co-operation on Haiti - with US and French troops acting together - showed the value of multilateral action, he said. It demonstrated that the UN was not a "varsity debating society," but an important body equipped to deal with threats to world peace and security.
Mr Cowen's comments came in an interview after meeting Bush administration officials to discuss the agenda for the June EU-US summit in Ireland. Referring to US-European tensions over Iraq last year, when Washington led a coalition to invade the country without the support of the UN Security Council, Mr Cowen said "the lessons hopefully have been learned that effective multilateralism is the best way to deal with threats to peace and security."
It was important to recognise that jobs, trade and investment flows depend on a good EU-US relationship and the summit agenda would show that the US and the EU co-operated in a range of important areas, he went on. "We need international co-operation, whether it's in trade or economics or international affairs, or our response to HIV/AIDS in Africa or other parts of the world".
Mr Cowen agreed he was concerned that the US would adopt the plan of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to disengage from Gaza without taking into account EU concerns which the Irish had helped formulate. These were that a withdrawal should be in the context of the road map for peace, with no scorched earth policy or transfer of settlers to the West Bank.
Asked if he thought it was a good idea to appoint former Taoiseach John Bruton as EU representative in Washington - as has been speculated - Mr Cowen said: "If John Bruton is interested and the job becomes available good luck to him."
There was a need for a greater degree of EU political presence as well as diplomatic presence abroad, he added.
Regarding the fact that Ireland was among the EU countries with no restriction on access to emplyment by workers from new EU states from May, Mr Cowen said Ireland would fully respect the free movement of EU citizens and their right to live and work in Ireland. "Those who want to come and work in Ireland, let them come and work in Ireland," he said.
"We are an open economy. We have a requirement for employees. Forty-seven thousand came last year through the system that the Tánaiste operates through her department. We need workers. We need people."