When he was about to be appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in January 2000, I wrote: "Brian Cowen is not the best-qualified person to become Minister for Foreign Affairs . . . He has had no known interest in [foreign affairs] and he has no track record. Of course, he is capable of absorbing a brief but why should that be good enough for a position that requires some specialist knowledge and at least a few thought-out opinions on major international issues?"
He has certainly absorbed the brief in the 16 months since his appointment and brought his combativeness to bear on the portfolio. How the combativeness squares with the demands of diplomacy is another matter.
His combativeness was of no avail a few Fridays ago when he was knocked down by a motor cycle on the roadway outside Iveagh House on St Stephen's Green. He thought for a few seconds he was done for as the motorbike bore down on him. He emerged with just a few broken bones in his left hand.
He was elected to the Dail in a by-election caused by the death of his father in 1984 (he was just 24 at the time, 41 now). He was appointed minister for labour by Albert Reynolds in February 1992 and minister for transport, energy and communications in January 1993. He was minister for health from 1997 until his appointment to Foreign Affairs.
The interview took place in his office at Iveagh House with a senior and distinguished official present calling him Minister throughout - what is it about Irish ministers that they have to be puffed up like this? Brian Cowen hardly needs it. His ego seems quite robust enough.
VB: What would be so bad if we voted against the Treaty of Nice?
BC: It would be detrimental to our interest because, certainly in our bilateral relationship in trade and economic relations with the applicant countries, we would be remembered as the country that said "no". It would put a brake on enlargement [of the European Union].
VB: Why does it require ratification of this Treaty for enlargement to proceed since it is possible under the Amsterdam Treaty to incorporate five further members and, in reality, not more than five states will have become members by the time of the next proposed treaty in 2004?
BC: That's another myth. The Protocol to the Amsterdam Treaty states that there is a need to deal with the question of the Commission and the re-weighting of votes before there can be further enlargement.
Quite apart from that, at the time before the Treaty of Nice was being negotiated at all, there were 12 countries seeking accession to the European Union. So my rhetorical question back to the "no" lobby is which five [applicant states] are we to take? And if we are to make a choice how would that involve treating each applicant equally as the "no" lobby insist we should?
VB: If we rejected the Treaty, there would be a renegotiation of it?
BC: Well, it is not for re-negotiation.
VB: But there would be no option if we rejected it.
BC: I think that this idea that we have the luxury to vote "no" and sure we'll go off and re-negotiate it and it does not do any harm is a view of the real political situation which is just naive to the extreme.
VB: Changes to the EU treaties are changes to the Irish Constitution, and we are being asked to approve changes that give more power to institutions that are largely democratically unaccountable and we are told that we better go along with it or else. This is hardly a satisfactory situation for the Irish people to be in?
BC: I would question the assertion that this involves a transfer of competencies; in actual fact, it does not. Denmark are having no referendum on this Treaty because precisely there is no transfer of powers from national parliaments to the centralised institutions under the Treaty of Nice. This Treaty deals with the composition of the Commission, the weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers and the size of the European Parliament; these arise from the prospect of enlargement. The Treaty of Nice specifically is about completing the institutional reforms which were negotiated in the Treaty of Amsterdam and which were signposted by the Protocol in Amsterdam.
VB: There is a transfer of power to European institutions in the removal of the veto from 30 issues. And my question is why should we approve of a further transfer of power to institutions that are not the subject of democratic accountability?
BC: The idea that loss of veto equates with loss of national interest does not always stand up to scrutiny. It did not in relation to taxation. The fact is that, depending on the issue, qualified majority voting can facilitate representativeness far greater than a veto. But, in relation to this talk then about the democratic deficit, there is no doubt that, unfortunately, European institutions, despite the fact that they have an everyday impact on lives of citizens in Europe, are not seen in the same way as national institutions or local institutions.
VB: Nor should they be seen in the same way as national institutions because they are not the same; they are not democratically accountable in the same way as national institutions are.
BC: They are not in some respects because the Commission obviously is unelected, it is nominated. But when the Council of Ministers sits down there is a democratic mandate. They are representative of governments, people democratically elected, constitutionally appointed.
VB: But they are entirely unaccountable. There is no way of holding Council meetings accountable to anybody, especially as no one knows how individual ministers vote or what they say.
BC: I'm sorry but every time a general affairs council meets there is a statement, a press conference, thereafter explaining what the decisions are and how they are made. There is transparency in that respect.
VB: But the fact is that the Council of Ministers is the most powerful institution within the European Union and is essentially accountable to nobody or to any democratic body.
BC: No. I don't accept that. It is accountable to governments.
VB: But how can ministers from various member States be accountable to anybody, to national parliaments, for instance? How can you be accountable to the Greek parliament, since you are not alone responsible for the decisions of the council and since you cannot be held accountable even for what you yourself say or how you vote since we are not permitted to know?
BC: Hold on, hold on. In relation to the common foreign security policy that I'm involved in, and my particular sector, that is of an inter-governmental character. Where countries agree to take up common positions, they take up common positions. If there are people in the national electorates who don't agree with the common positions governments take up, they have their sanction when the next election comes up and they can put in a different government, who might take a different position. The bottom line is, it works to a far better and greater extent than anything that ever produced peace and stability and democracy in Europe before.
VB: The Irish people are being asked to support a treaty, whose negotiation John Bruton described as a "bad day for Europe". Ruairi Quinn said "It was a disaster and when history is written about what happened at Nice, it would be said that that was the point at which the spirit of the founding fathers was neutered". I know Ruairi Quinn has backed off that now, but shouldn't the Irish people be sceptical of agreeing to a Treaty that was condemned in such forthright terms by leaders of the Opposition, especially as there does not seem to be any pressing need to ratify it.
BC: This is all part of the banter of adversarial politics and is no more than that. Most of the remarks you referred to, particularly Deputy Bruton's, he said under no circumstances would he have allowed a situation where the idea of one member state, one commissioner per member state would be subject to review. That is an easy position to take from the luxury of the Opposition benches. Deputy Quinn's point of view appeared to be that he felt one should have been more ambitious in broad terms about what should come out of the Treaty of Nice. But the bottom line is this, and this is my point, and it is a point that has to be taken on by the "no" lobbyists as much as anybody else: it represents the political consensus that exists for the enlargement of the European Union. That is what it is.
Now people who do desktop analysis of the negotiations can apply whatever critique they like. Opposition politicians can use the luxury of a debate coming back from the Treaty to put what they would have done although they weren't there. But the point is this: the Treaty represents the political consensus and it has a democratic basis. That is what is agreed amongst the 15 member states at this time. That is the democratic decision of the governments of Europe. The substantive question now is: "do you facilitate this enlargement or do you not?" If we vote down this referendum, there is no legal basis for the ratification of the Treaty of Nice. That is the situation. We are saying in Government and Opposition, including Deputy Bruton's party, and indeed himself, and Ruairi Quinn's party are saying okay we've had our criticisms of the way they have gone about it but this is now the position and we believe it is in our national interest to pursue it. That is where it is at.
VB: The issue of enhanced co-operation has raised controversy in that it is argued that this permits a group of say eight states to engage in closer co-operation to create an inner elite which would create a two-tier Europe.
Why should we authorise such an arrangement?
BC: Far from creating a two-tier Europe, we have negotiated safeguards to ensure that can't happen. It is not going to apply to areas of the single market, which is 80 per cent of EU activity. It will be open to all member states to join in enhanced co-operation and it won't apply to security and defence matters. It can only apply to common foreign security policy relating to implementation of existing decisions. These are clear safeguards set out in the Treaty.
VB: But then it goes on to permit it to happen in other areas.
BC: The notion of enhanced co-operation is already in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
VB: But subject to a veto by each member state.
BC: Subject to veto. It was never invoked. The reason why it was never invoked was that it was regarded as unworkable. Although, let's be clear, there are examples of enhanced co-operation in the European Union already, Schengen is one [open borders between some member states, not including Britain and Ireland], the euro is another. With the prospect of enlargement to twenty-seven, the question then arises of how to deal with enhanced co-operation without undermining the essential coherence of the Union. The way to do that is you exclude enhanced co-operation from the Single Market. The Single Market activity is 80 per cent of the Union's activities. So, that was taken out. Those who were not included originally must be allowed join. A minimum of eight was negotiated as the figure to move forward. Now when you ask me in what specific areas will this operate. It is not very clear where it will operate. But what is clear is, that when this mechanism is invoked, the principles that are outlined in the Treaty of Nice will govern it. The Government used the Nice negotiations to provide the necessary safeguards to meet the concerns of our electorate on enhanced co-operation. The difficulty in debating with the "no" lobby is that they continue to act as if the negotiations never took place at all.
VB: Moving on to the common foreign and security policy, The Nice Treaty formally sanctions the creation of a military capacity by the European Union. Your position is that involvement in any military role will be for the purpose of humanitarian or peace-making goals, that Ireland will not partake unless it is under the auspices of the United Nations. But it opens the door to all kinds of adventures, such as the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
BC: The only change being made on this issue by the Treaty of Nice is the removal of reference to the Western European Union, which was included in the Amsterdam Treaty. It was envisaged that any such involvement in Petersberg Tasks would be done under the WEU. Now it is envisaged that it would be done under the EU itself. That is the only change. The controversy that arose about the legality of the NATO strike on Yugoslavia is a matter of international law on which there are conflicting views and certainly there was not agreement at the security council on it. But in terms of how would the NATO strike on Yugoslavia affect us, it doesn't because we are not involved in NATO. If people are worried about participation, the participation which is envisaged for us in EU peace-keeping, in humanitarian and peacekeeping operations, is a case by case sovereign decision for the Government, the very same as our present participation and long-standing participation in UN peace- keeping.
VB: The reason that this thing got up and running was because of the concern over Yugoslavia. There was concern that nothing was done by the European states in relation to Bosnia and it was felt there should be some military capacity to intervene in situations like this, hence the idea of the Rapid Reaction Force. And that led on to the intervention in Yugoslavia under the auspices of NATO and in defiance of the United Nations.
BC: The European Union is not a military organisation and what arose from the situation in Yugoslavia was a feeling that there should be some capacity to get involved in a conflict-prevention role. The question now is how can the European Union be a positive force, and it is not just about military capability. How do we rebuild civil administration? What do we do for policing, that kind of thing?
VB: But we know that this would be interpreted by the military powers as a licence to intervene where it suits their interests.
BC: What legal basis would they have to have that right?
VB: They are not worried about legalities.
BC: But certainly the European Union won't be doing that because, that is the point I'm making to you, the European Union acts on the basis of the rule of law; the rule of law for the European Union as you know are the treaties. The treaties provide for the legal basis upon which policy can be implemented and what we are talking about is, how do we devise and create a capability to deal with humanitarian and peace-keeping situations?
Do the same people who are talking about a European army believe that Kofi Annan has an army? Because he has a signed-up capability submitted by sovereign governments throughout the world in 88 countries for 147,500 people to be available at the disposal of the UN. Is someone suggesting to me that he gets up some morning and gets them all together on some plain in Massachusetts and goes off to take on China? What are they talking about? These are capabilities that are available and the EU position is simply mirroring that UN standby system.
VB: Just on one other issue, the Bush administration's proposal to build an antiballistic missile system. What is Ireland's position on that?
BC: My attitude is that, from our point of view, this arms' issue has been something that we have been able to make a contribution on at UN level, particularly in the non-proliferation area, for a long time. The Bush administration and others regard the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as being a creature of the Cold War and as no longer relevant. The counter-argument put forward is that this will bring about a new arms' race.
VB: Does that mean that you are opposed to what the Bush administration is proposing?
BC: I have concerns about it. What it means is, the Bush administration made it clear that they are going to proceed with missile defence. From our point of view, as a country who are not involved in military alliances, and whose leverage is therefore not central to that argument, but in terms of us having an opinion on this, yes we do. We are concerned about the impact it will have on the arms' control situation that the ABM Treaty has been able to maintain. What we want is, we want all missiles gone.
VB: Does this mean you are opposed to what the Bush administration is about?
BC: What is their policy? They've put out a proposal, it is not . . .
VB: You know enough about it to be concerned about it. The question is, are you opposed to it?
BC: In terms of being not opposed to it, I'm simply saying, look they have made a proposal . . .
VB: You can't get around to saying you're opposed to it, can you?
BC: No. But I can get around to saying opposed to what?
VB: To what they are proposing to do?
BC: What they are proposing to do is . . .
VB: To abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
BC: We are opposed to that obviously. We want to see the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty maintained. We would put that view. We also recognise the politics of the situation here which is that the American administration have made the decision. What we need to do is to make sure that that be tempered in a way that doesn't in fact bring about the consequences that we fear it may have.
VB: Is the Bush administration as much or at all involved in Northern Ireland as the Clinton administration was?
BC: Well we have just had a change of administration. Mr Richard Haas has taken over responsibility for policy on Northern Ireland. I don't think we would ever replicate the personal commitment President Clinton had on this issue but the Bush administration says it is ready to help if requested. What is clear also is that we have got to the stage in the process where the two Governments, British and Irish governments, and the parties, have the resolution of these issues in their own hands.
VB: On Northern Ireland itself, the threat by David Trimble to resign, or his commitment to resign on July 1st in the event of IRA decommissioning not having started by then, seems to foretell the ending of the Executive or the suspension of the Executive.
BC: Well, were that to happen, certainly it would have major implications concerning the sustainability of the institutions under the Good Friday Agreement. The commitment to resolve all these issues in June remains. Obviously the imposition of an ultimatum does not assist the resolution of the outstanding issues. It doesn't make it any easier either because there are outstanding issues that are being discussed at official level. There is a commitment by both Governments immediately after the UK elections to get down to intensive negotiations with the parties because we don't have very long to resolve these issues. So your specific question, Do I agree to this statement by David Trimble? No, I don't believe it is helpful but at the same time I'm not allowing that to be a reason why we can't resolve the issues because we have been committed since March to resolve these issues and they are there. I think the more comprehensive the response to the outstanding issues, the greater clarity we'll have on the one that concerns them.
`If we vote down this referendum, there is no legal basis for the ratification of the Treaty of Nice. That is the situation'
Mr Brian Cowen has been minister for labour, minister for transport, energy and communications, minister for health, and he has been Minister for Foreign Affairs for the past 16 months. He believes acceptance of the Treat of Nice is vital
