Membership of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) should not prevent the State from building on its independent foreign policy tradition, a senior Government adviser has said.
Dr Martin Mansergh, who has advised the last two governments on Northern Ireland, told a conference of soldiers' representatives that membership of PfP would have a "liberating" effect on the Defence Forces.
It would allow the Republic to make a greater contribution to international peacekeeping. The experience of working towards a peace in Northern Ireland would also assist in helping to resolve similar conflicts involving tensions between ethnic groups.
Dr Mansergh was addressing the annual conference of the Permanent Defence Forces Other Ranks Representative Association (PDFORRA).
He said: "There is an inherent contradiction in the attitude that, on the one hand, wants Ireland and the international community to intervene more vigorously to stop genocide, ethnic cleansing and other forms of conflict, and on the other hand wants to stay aloof even from the loosest non-binding regional co-operative structures with our closest political and economic partners."
Commenting on the proposals to create a common European defence and security policy, he said: "We can anticipate efforts to develop within the EU a capacity to intervene militarily in conflicts within the region if necessary without direct US participation.
"The scope of this will be discussed intensively over the next two or three years. Most probably, it will not involve turning the EU into a formal military alliance, and to what extent, in practice, it will develop into a military power in its own right remains very much to be seen."