As a result of globalisation, the concept that national sovereignty was sacrosanct was going out of date, according to the billionaire financier and investment speculator, Mr George Soros, speaking at Trinity College Dublin last night.
He told the Institute for International Integration Studies that the idea that there were no grounds for intervention in the affairs of other countries was becoming outmoded: "What do we do with the likes of Saddam?"
He opposed unilateral intervention and said the US-led invasion of Iraq was a "tremendous blunder". Mr Soros praised the new thinking among the Brussels bureaucracy about "preventive action of a co-operative nature".
"I find it exciting," he said. However, this new thinking had to get the political support of member-states.
Countries on the borders of the European Union should be given incentives for good governance, although these could not include membership at this stage. The EU was suffering from a "slight indigestion" with members.
He welcomed the democratic regime-change brought about by the "Revolution of the Roses" in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, but warned, "It urgently needs to be sustained and supported." Other countries in the Caucasus region had become nervous since the Georgian revolution but the EU should seek to persuade these countries to hold free elections.
He was "very hopeful" that Ireland's EU presidency would succeed in reaching agreement on EU constitutional reforms and that there would eventually be a European foreign minister.
As the dominant military power, the US had to be concerned with the welfare of the rest of the world. "If America wants to maintain its dominant position, then the rest of the world has to buy in." Europe lacked a unified and agreed foreign policy.
Responding, the former taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, said that since the second World War, Europe and the US had developed different value systems. "Europe needs to organise more effectively if its values are to prevail," Dr FitzGerald said.
Mr Soros was promoting his new book, The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power".