The importance of the European Commission document, Agenda 2000, published yesterday, can hardly be overstated. The impact of the document - which outlines Commission plans for structural and cohesion funds as well as the next phase of CAP reform - will be felt in every corner of this State. And the Commission's plans for enlargement of the Union with the possible accession of six new states - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus - by 2006 signals a fundamental realignment between East and West in the new Europe. Agenda 2000 confirms that Ireland is entering a most challenging period of our membership of the Europe Union. This State's very generous share of structural and cohesion funding - now worth about £1 billion annually to the economy - is set to decline sharply when the current structural funds package expires in 1999. Ireland is set to become a victim of its own economic success; with living standards rapidly approaching the EU average, structural support for the economy could be half its current level within a decade.
To compound the problem, the scaling down of structural funds support will coincide with the next phase of CAP reform, which will see renewed efforts to liberalise EU farm markets and to trim back excess production. The MacSharry CAP reform managed to achieve these objectives while protecting farm incomes. But the pressure on the EU to agree a tougher reform package will intensify with the next round of the world trade talks and the pressures that the entry of Poland, with its huge farm sector, will place on the already creaking CAP.
All of these prospective changes pose immense challenges for Irish policy-makers. To its credit, the Government has already established a special subcommittee of senior ministers to work out a coherent strategy. Clearly, Irish ministers can no longer travel to Brussels with the begging bowl outstretched. But there is no reason why the Government cannot present a strong case for a very soft landing. With the help of EU funds, Ireland has managed to achieve a very impressive record of economic growth in a very short period, but it should not be unduly penalised for this. The reality is that Ireland has only now achieved a level of income which most other EU States have enjoyed for a generation; it still lacks the kind of transport and social infrastructure that many other EU citizens take for granted. And it still needs EU support for the kind of training programmes that will assist industry and help reduce unemployment. The EU itself, meanwhile, faces the more fundamental task of smoothing the path for enlargement by streamlining its process of decision-making and by extending its capacity to act more coherently on the world stage. Last month's Amsterdam summit failed to agree on new voting rules and other changes but another round of constitutional reform seems inevitable if the EU is to operate effectively as a union of up to 21 States.