Garret FitzGerald, who served as minister for foreign affairs between 1973 and 1977, was a committed Europhile. His tenure as minister coincided with Ireland’s first presidency of the Council of the European Union, then the nine-member European Economic Community (EEC). FitzGerald’s parents were involved in the 1916 Rising, but he did not see Ireland’s embrace of the EEC as a betrayal of their fight; as early as 1962, after Ireland first sought to join the EEC, he insisted: “The voice of Ireland will be heard in Europe in the decades ahead. But for the sacrifices of those who won our freedom, none of this could have been.”
EEC membership would lead, he hoped, to a discarding of economic dependence on Britain, for which some diminution of sovereignty was an acceptable price. But that same year, secretary of the Department of Finance, TK Whitaker, in correspondence with Fianna Fáil minister James Ryan, referred to the need for a realistic acceptance of Ireland’s status: “Nobody so loves us as to want us in the EEC on our own terms.” Taoiseach Seán Lemass also doused Irish piety about neutrality with cold water that year, telling the Dáil Ireland would be prepared to yield “even the technical label of neutrality ... we are prepared to go into this integrated Europe without any reservation as to how far this will take us in the field of foreign policy and defence”.
Ten years later, with Ireland on the cusp of membership, it was stated explicitly by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) that the Republic was “a small country with little capacity at present to influence events abroad that affect our interests”. In 1976, an internal memorandum in the DFA noted “Ireland’s commitment to European integration springs from a combination of idealism and enlightened self-interest”. Historian John A Murphy suggested the same year that in Ireland “there was little feeling of being European”. Irish economist David O’Mahony said: “It is deplorable that the subject of defence is not discussed openly.”
Twenty years later Ireland’s first White Paper on foreign policy was published and it included the dubious declaration “we see ourselves, increasingly, as European”. Minister for foreign affairs at that time, Dick Spring, speaking about the White Paper, insisted “a foreign policy that is not based on a sense of values would be sterile and amoral”.
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It is worth considering these historic assertions at the outset of Ireland’s current presidency of the Council of the EU. The Government is making much of the broad themes it has chosen for its presidency: competitiveness, security and values, amounting to, we are told, “respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights ... and they underpin our competitiveness and our security”.
It is a grab-bag of ideals, but raises various questions: Is Ireland in favour of more security and defence integration and spending? What would that mean for us? What does neutrality mean now? Where does Ireland stand on how the EU approaches relations with Israel, Russia, the US; on climate change and migration?
Is it true, in the words of former president Michael D Higgins, that the EU has witnessed a “massively increased realm of the unaccountable” alongside a “hegemonic theory of the market” causing displacement, hostility to regulation and “degradation of the environment”, amounting to a display of “hubris, of uncritical pursuit of ever-accelerating growth”?
National Archive files relating to the first presidency in 1975 underline concern about being seen “as an efficient, businesslike administration and country”. Other priorities then were to influence regional and social funding to, in the words of one civil servant, “get us up to the starting line”. There was also worry about enlargement as it “would be directly detrimental to the economic and financial interest of Ireland”. Another concern was to “avoid, if possible, a commitment to co-operation in arms production and to be hesitant about regular exchanges of views on defence/security matters”.
Preoccupation with the economics of membership persisted for decades. Ireland’s net receipts from the EU, in absolute terms, peaked at €2.5 billion in 1997. Ireland remained a net beneficiary of the EU budget until 2006 and first became a net contributor in 2013.
But much else has happened in parallel, including expansion and migration – in 2007, about 85,000 people came to Ireland from the new EU member states – multiple referendums, further integration, economic meltdown, Brexit, Trumpism and the wars on Ukraine and Gaza.
Ireland supports further enlargement, yet generally sticks to vacuous scripts about underpinning the EU’s “shared values”, with little debate. Is there any real Irish capacity to influence? What does “being European” mean? What is the “voice of Ireland” and how is it morally framed?
It would be refreshing if the presidency were accompanied by some interrogation of these questions instead of a preoccupation with external validation.
