COMMENT: Ireland's neutral status remains unchanged and our proud record of participating in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions will continue under the Lisbon Treaty, writes Joe Costello
IN 1972, the Labour Party campaigned against Ireland joining the European Economic Community, as it was then known. The given wisdom in the party and the trade union movement at the time was that the powerful industrialised countries of Europe would destroy Ireland's weak, protected industries, causing a wholesale loss of jobs.
However, a resounding 80 per cent of the electorate voted for Europe. Brendan Corish, the Labour leader, immediately accepted the outcome, declaring that the people had spoken and that they had clearly decided that Ireland's future was with Europe.
It proved to be a wise choice for Ireland to move from isolation on the periphery of Europe to collective decision-making at the heart of Europe. Since then, Irish citizens have voted democratically in referendums in every decade to approve every stage of the development of what we now call the European Union to the present time.
The EU has a long tradition of promoting rights in the workplace - including women's rights to equal pay, parental leave, working time and health and safety in the workplace - all of which have benefited Irish employees.
The Common Agricultural Policy transformed Irish agriculture, providing farmers with a substantial transfer of EU funds and with incomes no longer dependent on Britain's cheap food policy and price monopoly. The education and training of our young people was hugely supported by the European Social Fund.
A countrywide network of institutes of technology was established in the 1970s and 1980s with European money. They produced the young graduates with the high-tech expertise that made Ireland the European hub for so many international companies.
At the time of membership of the EU, Ireland was by far the poorest of the nine member states. Ireland's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was only 58 per cent of the EU average in 1972. Today it is 130 per cent of the EU average. The massive haemorrhaging of our young people in search of work across the world has ceased. And now the youth of Europe is attracted to our shores. A workforce of less than one million in 1972 now exceeds two million.
Clearly, membership of the EU has had a significant and positive impact on who we are, what we are and where we are at this stage in our history. The Lisbon Treaty is not a bolt out of the blue, but rather the latest in a line of treaties which have moulded the union since its foundation in 1957.
The Lisbon Treaty is an amending or reforming treaty, which seeks to make the EU institutions in an enlarged EU more effective, more transparent and more answerable to the member states. Under the treaty, all member states, large and small, have exactly the same rights in an EU Commission reduced in size to ensure greater efficiency. All the law-making deliberations of the European Council of Ministers will take place in public for the first time.
The directly elected European Parliament will have co-decision powers with the Council of Ministers and will have democratic control of the European budget.
There are important new powers given to national parliaments which will enable them to play a key role in the framing of policy and in lawmaking. A new citizens' initiative will enable ordinary citizens to have important issues placed on the EU agenda.
Each aspiring member state must adhere to the provisions of the UN Charter of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights before it can join.
The Lisbon Treaty will give effect to a new body of human, civil, social, cultural and workers' rights that will be binding in law. This is the Charter of Fundamental Rights that will underpin all lawmaking in the EU if the treaty is passed. In addition, a "social clause" requires that social issues be taken into account when defining and implementing all policies. The treaty makes legal provision for social dialogue and recognition of the social partners.
In the last 50 years, Europe has been at peace with the world and with itself. The EU Common Foreign and Security Policy is firmly anchored in peacekeeping, peacemaking and humanitarian missions of a civil and military nature.
The Lisbon Treaty specifies that all missions must be in accordance with the United Nations charter and with international law. Ireland's neutral status remains unchanged and our proud record of participating in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions such as those in Kosovo, Lebanon and Chad will continue under the Lisbon Treaty.
Finally, the treaty creates new goals and challenges for the member states. At the National Forum on Europe, the Labour Party argued that the EU should take leadership of the great challenges of the day affecting humankind.
Under the Lisbon Treaty, the EU has firmly placed itself as the leading player in tackling climate change and the sustainability of the planet. Likewise, the Lisbon Treaty will commit the EU to become the world leader in Third World development and the eradication of global poverty.
These are worthy challenges and worthy objectives. The Labour Party believes that the Lisbon Treaty reflects much of the ethos and values of the Labour Party and is deserving of our full support.
Joe Costello is a Labour TD for Dublin Central and is the party's spokesman on European Affairs and director of elections for the forthcoming Lisbon Treaty referendum