THE current attempts of the European Union to prepare itself for the next century show no vision, two of the key speakers at the conference on Ireland's forth coming EU Presidency said yesterday.
Referring to the current Intergovernmental Conference, effectively the constitutional convention of the EU, Mr Peter Brennan of IBEC said: "Anyone in Brussels at senior level will tell you there is no vision" behind its deliberations. He was speaking at the conference in Dublin Castle organised by the Institute of European Affairs and the TransEuropean Policy Studies Association.
"Understandably, the issues are complex - institutional issues and foreign affairs issues are of limited interest to the average voter", he said.
There would have to be referendums in several member states on the outcome of the IGC: "If public support is sought for a treaty which lacks vision, fudges issues and is unreadable" it will not succeed.
According to Prof Wolfgang Wessels, the chairman of TEPSA "We do not yet have a vision similar to that of the single market or the single currency. Those visions focused debate, created pressure and led to a process - so far we don't have it now."
However, the Professor of European Studies at UCD, Ms Brigid Laffan, said the assumption that there was no vision driving the EU was untrue. She said the vision was that the EU was a free market that crossed frontiers, a common European space for its citizens which needed to become a democratic political space.
"There is a bottom up European civil society in the making," she said. "It is a glimmer, it is threatening to domestic politicians but anything that can nurture that civil society and make a genuine transnational politics should be encouraged."
The day when European executives could make the decisions about Europe was over. A genuine politics was now required. "It was easy to introduce qualified majority voting for pedal cycles, for forklift trucks. Now the issues are much more political."
The EU needed a fundamental acceptance by all political parties and governments "that they no longer govern on their own".
Mr Brennan outlined IBEC's strong objections to the inclusion of the social charter in the European treaties, and to the Union's approach to the unemployment issue.
"If there are treaty changes on unemployment they will not achieve much, and should be accompanied by a chapter on addressing Europe's competitive deficit," said Mr Brennan, the director of the Irish Business Bureau in Brussels. In addition, IBEC was opposed to the inclusion of the social charter.