Original Sin In A Brave New World is the provocative title of a new book by the Department of Foreign Affairs's Bobby McDonagh. But it's not about, sin, Deep South fundamentalists or even religion. It's about the fascinating Treaty of Amsterdam and it will be launched by the Minister, David Andrews at the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin on Wednesday, and in Brussels by the EU President, Jacques Santer who, in the forward, urges all Europeans interested in their own destiny to read it on July 6th.
McDonagh, now based in Iveagh House, is obviously a true Eurocrat after seven years in Brussels in the Ray MacSharry and Pee Flynn cab- inets and five years in Luxembourg. It is not a "kiss and tell" book, he says, but as a civil servant he had to get permission to write it. Neither is it an academic tome explaining what it is all about, but an account of how the treaty was negotiated.
The title comes from McDonagh's belief that the EU is a paradox. While it is the most exciting development in relations between free democratic countries hoping for peace and prosperity, it is also about the pursuit of individual interests. The Eurosceptics see only original sin; the others see a brave new world.
There is no Euro jargon, McDonagh says, but admits to a scattering of foreign quotations. Thus one paragraph: "After the European Council, as members of the Irish delegation waited impatiently on the street for their minibus to make its way slowly through the carabinieri's security cordons. Noel Dorr commented - de minibus non curat lex. It was not a charge which in its correct Latin form (de minimis non curat lex - the law does not concern itself with trifles) could have been laid against the painstaking negotiations at the IGC." Quidnunc awaits news of a demand for the film rights.