NICE TREATY AND EU ENLARGEMENT

Sir, - The compromise achieved at Nice on the future size of the EU Commission and its capping, when the number of member States…

Sir, - The compromise achieved at Nice on the future size of the EU Commission and its capping, when the number of member States reaches 27, is far closer to the Irish desire for ideally one Commissioner per member-state than a smaller and tighter 12-15 member Commission preferred by many of our partners. There is a limit to the infinite expansion of a body without impairing its effectiveness, which in the case of the Commission is also an important interest of ours. The larger such a body becomes, the greater the danger that it will in practice be bypassed by smaller and more powerful committees, as already appears to have happened with the larger cabinets of some member States.

The hypothetical loss of influence for a very occasional absence, on the same basis as everyone else and some time in the future, from membership of the Commission (Patricia McKenna MEP, June 7th), which it will not be beyond our ingenuity to make up for, is as nothing to the immediate and comprehensive loss of influence that we will suffer, if the Nice Treaty were to be definitely rejected by the people. This would reverse without adequate, comprehensible or proportionate cause Ireland's very successful policy of full participation in the EU over 30 years. We are being blindly urged to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. We would have no allies and little influence or goodwill across Europe among the Governments of the Fifteen, or of the 10 applicant member States, with enlargement temporarily thrown into confusion. These are or will be the Council members with whom we take EU decisions week in week out in areas that affect our interests.

The opponents of Ireland's present EU engagement do not grasp how ineffective and futile is the gesture of a veto by any one member State. If confirmed, it will be treated, no matter what our protests, as a vote by the Irish people for self-exclusion and opting out of further EU development. In practice, we can stop the bus only to get off, and ways will be found of moving on without us.

Enlargement is about making room for others. It is dismaying to see the same paranoid and discredited Eurosceptic arguments of Mrs Thatcher and the British right-wing Tory press alleging loss of sovereignty, a European superstate and a European army, being given such a level of credence by elements of the left here in Ireland, or worse even, a subliminal appeal being made to stir exclusionary instincts that characterise the populism of Haider and Le Pen.

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Instead of becoming anti-French and Anti-German, countries with which we should enjoy great reciprocal friendship and goodwill, we should appreciate that large and small countries need each other, as our own experience shows. Our political alliance with France has helped preserve the CAP. Former French Commission President Jacques Delors, with German understanding and Spanish clout, ensured that we have benefited greatly from increased structural and cohesion funds. As members of the euro-zone, built round the former Deutschmark, we are happily part of a de facto existing exercise in enhanced co-operation. We have a common purpose with Britain in resisting tax harmonisation.

We are in fact a model of a small country well able to hold its own in Europe, and the very last thing we should do is walk away now, in the grandiose delusion that the rest of Europe will have to follow. - Yours, etc.,

Dr MARTIN MANSERGH,

Friarsfield House,

Tipperary.