Sir, - Patricia McKenna MEP writes (January 10th) that "it would be the height of folly to propose abolishing our national currency and, despite being a member of the European Parliament, professes ignorance as to the political benefits to Europe from the stability, growth and unity that a single currency would bring.
European integration is a political ideal that has prevented international war in Europe for over 50 years. It is in the nature of the process of integration, however, that it must either be consolidated or collapse.
It is distressing that Ms McKenna, who is in a position of responsibility and influence, makes no attempt to understand the political vision of European union which has led to the need for a single currency. Instead, she clings to an outdated concept of the nation-state, which belongs in the 19th, not in the 21st, century.
The European Union seeks to separate nation and state just as in earlier times we sought to separate church and state. In the much-maligned federal Europe, the concept of a state people would be as anachronistic a concept as that of a state church. That is why those of true political vision have come to believe that it is through European integration that Ireland can finally resolve the ethnic conflict in Northern Ireland.
Perhaps Ms McKenna should take heed of the words of Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the great inter-war advocate of a PanEuropean Union:
"If the science of politics fails to adapt to the science of communications, the resulting tension must surely lead to terrible catastrophes. The spatio-temporal rapprochement of neighbouring peoples must be followed by a political rapprochement, if conflicts are to be avoided" (Paneuropa, 1923.) - Yours, etc.,
Millmount Avenue, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.