BELGIUM:Former European commissioner Peter Sutherland has warned the Government not to adopt a semi-detached relationship with Europe by opting out of key EU policies.
He has also predicted that a referendum on the EU "reform treaty" would pass easily in the Republic as politicians had learnt their lesson from the failed vote on the Nice treaty.
"We'll walk through a referendum unless we have a certifiable death wish. I think we've learnt our bloody lesson," Mr Sutherland told The Irish Times yesterday.
But he warned the Government not to follow Britain's lead by opting out of key policy areas outlined in the treaty, particularly in the justice and home affairs area.
"We must avoid going down the same road . . . I think to find ourselves in a situation where we are not part of the core policies of the EU would not be a good thing," said Mr Sutherland, who admits to being frustrated at Britain's relationship with Europe.
"I think that Britain is becoming more and more semi-detached from Europe. It is not in Schengen, it is not in the euro, it is opted out of a significant new element of the [ reform] treaty," said Mr Sutherland, who recognises Ireland's close political and geographical relationship with Britain but would prefer Dublin to engage with the EU.
London has already negotiated opt-outs from several areas of the new reform treaty, including the sensitive area of justice and home affairs policy and from elements of the charter of fundamental rights. In recent negotiations in Brussels the Government reserved its opinion on these two area, enabling it to seek an opt-out when the final text of the new EU treaty is agreed by diplomats and legal experts in the autumn.
The Government has already said it will not seek an opt-out from the charter of fundamental rights, which is a document guaranteeing a range of citizens' rights, such as the right to life, the presumption of innocence and the right to take strike action.
But it is still pondering whether it should follow Britain and assert its ability to opt out of common EU legislative proposals in the field of justice and home affairs.
Mr Sutherland said he would prefer if Ireland were part of the Schengen area and were a full participant in the justice and home affairs elements of the new treaty. He said the British and Polish recent attitudes to the EU "worried him".
Mr Sutherland, who is also chairman of oil giant BP and Goldman Sachs, said successful French efforts to remove from the objectives of the EU a reference to "free and undistorted competition" had been a major worry at last month's EU summit.
But he said that strenuous lobbying by former competition commissioner Mario Monti and himself had worked by getting a new competition protocol inserted in the text of the reform treaty.
"I think this additional protocol saved it," added Mr Sutherland.
Meanwhile, Mr Sutherland accepted another term as the UN special representative on migration yesterday after receiving a request from the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon.