The Amsterdam Treaty would allow Ministers to commit the State to a common EU defence without holding a referendum, according to Green Party MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna.
"Ireland is on a roller-coaster ride towards a nuclear-based common defence," Ms McKenna told a treaty seminar in Dublin at the weekend. Organised by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, the session was intended to highlight alleged threats to neutrality contained in the treaty.
Article J7 of the treaty, according to Ms McKenna, states that a common defence, involving all member-states, could be formed at any stage in the future "should the European Council so decide". This meant that Ministers could commit Ireland to a common defence without consulting the people through a referendum, she maintained.
Successive governments had promised that neutrality could only be abandoned if the people decided in a referendum, she said. "These promises amount to empty political gestures as there will probably be no need for a further referendum on neutrality if Ireland adopts Amsterdam."
She claimed the treaty "formed part of a Franco-German strategy to build a collective defence based on the principle of nuclear deterrence . . . the bigger EU states are trying to have us all huddle together under their nuclear umbrella".