A reference to a "federal" arrangements in the draft EU constitution proposed by the Convention on Europe should be removed, the Minister of State for European Affairs said yesterday.
Mr Dick Roche told an Oireachtas Committee the reference "wasn't something that people should get very excited about" but said it should be struck out in the interests of clarity.
He said the chairman of the European Convention, the former French president Mr Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, had made it clear that the nature of the union was not federal.
Reporting to the Joint Committee on European Affairs on a plenary session of the convention last week, he said that the expression had been used to describe particular institutional arrangements.
But he accepted that Britain had difficulty with the use of the expression, as did states in eastern Europe which are poised to join the union.
"Quite a significant number of European countries are quite offended by the use of the word 'federal'," Mr Roche said.
"A number of the new states's recent experience with one of their larger neighbours makes the idea of a federal union very negative." Mr Roche also said that a reference in the draft constitution to a common defence policy was "not something which the Irish people would wish to sign up to".
While he had no fundamental difficulty with the draft, he had tabled amendments in the interests of precision. Certain sections of the draft included "somewhat lyrical phraseology", he said.
Mr Roche said he favoured a constitution which was crisp, precise and had legal meaning. The objective was to publish a slim volume, which could be sent to households throughout the EU and could be readily understood.
He said he took exception to some of the arguments against the inclusion of a reference to God in the draft constitution. He considered such a reference appropriate, provided it was worded properly.
Referring to a discussions on a proposal by France and Germany to have the European Parliament directly elect the president of the EU Commission, Mr Roche said other EU members had expressed enthusiasm for an Irish proposal to involve national parliaments in such an election.
He said all the national parliaments could meet simultaneously to take an electronic vote for a president. This would comprise half an electoral college, with the European Parliament making up the other half.
