The Government's decision to approve the terms on which Ireland will join Partnership for Peace is a decisive and welcome development in this State's security and defence policy. PfP is a NATO-sponsored organisation which enables non-members of that alliance to work with it on specific areas of military co-operation. The decision, if approved by the Dail, will enable the armed forces to participate where the best practices in peacekeeping, humanitarian operations and military co-operation are actually being implemented. PfP is not an alliance, but a voluntary and flexible arrangement for networking, in which all the other European neutral states are involved.
Ireland will join them after a prolonged but fitful and indecisive political debate since the invitation was issued by NATO in 1994. Military neutrality has been at the core of the discussion, with some saying it would be fatally compromised by such an association with NATO states - a half-way house to joining the alliance. That is not so. Of the 26 non-NATO members of PfP, less than half have indicated that they want to join. The others have opted for a more or less comprehensive programme of co-operation, depending on their own interests and skills. Indeed states such as Sweden and Finland have been able to develop their peacekeeping standards competitively within PfP, while keeping abreast of other developments in the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The paper adopted by the Government yesterday reasserts Ireland's military neutrality and says this State does not intend to join NATO. It restates Ireland's commitments to a just and peaceful international society based on the rule of law, democracy, respect for human rights and the peaceful settlement of disputes, and states that the values underlying the PfP are compatible with that. There is support also for the idea that stability and security are best achieved by co-operation. The commitment to the United Nations is reaffirmed and so is that to the EU's humanitarian, rescue, peacekeeping and crisis management tasks.
These are important restatements of Ireland's established policies, But despite this continuity, it must be recognised that joining PfP is an important change of policy. The Government says it will not hold a referendum on the issue, based on the undoubtedly sound legal advice that constitutionally this is not required since no further pooling of sovereignty is involved in joining. But politically it is on much weaker ground in refusing so to consult the people. Fianna Fail in opposition promised to have a referendum on joining PfP and then U-turned on the commitment when it came to office.
The long and unsatisfactory debate on the issue has left people very confused as to what precisely is at stake. A consultative plebiscite, as called for by the Labour Party, would allow the Government to campaign vigorously in favour of joining PfP and give it an opportunity to clarify what is at stake for Ireland in the developing debate on European security. A decisive vote in favour would give it more confidence to participate constructively in that debate. It would give voters confidence that any resulting change of policy affecting Ireland's military neutrality in coming years would also be put to the electorate in a referendum.