How EU can help keep the peace

Date: 19/10/1995

By John Hume

THE European Union is about peace. It is easy in European affairs to get bogged down in detail and to miss the bigger picture. The objective of the first European institution, the Coal and Steel Community, was to “create the basis for a broader and deeper community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts”; in the words of Schuman, to make war “not only unthinkable, but materially impossible”. Who could have imagined then what is taken for granted today - 370 million European citizens working together under the Treaty of European Union “to promote economic and social progress, and peace and security in the world”.

Issues are resolved not by threat, not by trade sanctions, not by force, but by democratic means of cooperation, consultation and compromise in the Commission, the Parliament and the Council. Derision about this achievement, dressed up in xenophobic and jingoistic colours, is despicable.

One of the founding fathers of Europe, Altiero Spinelli, wrote from prison in 1942 that Ireland and Yugoslavia were two places that needed a new, over-arching order to permit different communities to live and work together in harmony.

In fact, Europe has been an important element in the resolution of the problems besetting Northern Ireland. It is now playing a vital role in supporting the peace process and a more integrated Europe would greatly facilitate the achievement of lasting peace.

First, Europe has provided a context through its institutions and policies which has more often than not allowed the two communities in Northern Ireland to see their objective common interests and their objective common interest with the rest of Ireland. I have long enjoyed cooperation in European affairs with my fellow Northern Ireland MEPs, Ian Paisley and Jim Nicholson. We have lobbied together on issues as diverse as financial support for housing in Belfast, the sheep and beef regimes, the retention of EU funds by Westminster, and the Harland and Wolf shipyards.

Last October, on the day of the loyalist cease-fire, we held a meeting with Jacques Delors to urge him to support the peace process. Delors, and in his turn Jacques Santer, responded magnificently, with a special

415-million-ecu programme for peace and reconciliation aimed at drawing individuals and communities affected by the violence back into the mainstream and supporting the revival of tourism and inward investment which are part of the peace dividend.

In Belfast, Santer promised to respond positively to further proposals which will develop the common ground between us and the people we represent. We will take him up on this invitation.

Being part of Europe has also highlighted the common objective interests shared between the North and the South of Ireland. For someone from my tradition this is self-evident, but within the Unionist community and indeed sometimes within the business and political communities in the Republic of Ireland, Europe has served to bring these common interests into focus.

North and South share Objective 1 status under European regional policies.

Over the period of 1994 to 1999, Europe plans to spend 1,250 million ecu in Northern Ireland through the structural funds. This will add 1.5&percent; to GDP and create up to 27,500 gross job years. We will also benefit from many Community initiatives, such as Interreg which promotes cross-border cooperation (157 million ecu).

Europe is the major contributor to the International Fund for Ireland, which has created up to 24,000 jobs in the eight years of its operation. By any estimate, these are important flows into the economy.

Farming is important to Northern Ireland, contributing 4.2&percent; to GNP. European membership has shown that in agriculture the interests of northern and southern farmers are essentially identical. The perception in Europe is of one small island selling its agricultural produce on essentially the same criteria; a grass-fed product in a clean, green Ireland, with a pollution-free environment and a high animal health status. Farming unions North and South lobby together and pursue the same agenda. They realise that success requires cooperation and joint action.

Europe has also, through the internal market (defined in the treaty as “an area without internal frontiers”), created an economic space on the island where we can grow together and not apart. In particular, the areas along the border which have suffered disproportionately have been given a new dynamism.

In recent years it has been businesses, chambers of commerce and trade unions which have provided real impetus to cross-border collaboration, trade and cooperation throughout the island. In almost every sector - agriculture, business, tourism, energy - the main interests and groups on both sides of the border are calling for a more integrated, harmonised and unified approach to marketing, planning, taxation, and to regulation. This is an economic and social reality to which all political parties will have to adjust.

Indeed, in the Framework Document the British and Irish have responded by suggesting a North-South body to create new cooperative and constructive relationships, with specific reference to EU matters. In particular, they agree on the need to develop an “agreed approach for the whole island in respect of the challenges and opportunities of the European Union”.

It is important to say that people of Northern Ireland appreciate the support and solidarity shown to them by their fellow European citizens. To a large extent it is up to us to take advantage of the opportunities that have been offered. But there remain a number of areas where Europe could immediately contribute more. For example:

There is massive interest among the people of Northern Ireland in the education exchanges Socrates and Leonardo. These serve a particular function in broadening horizons and nurturing tolerance and self-confidence. They are the antidote to Yeats' dismal description of Ireland as a place of “great hatred, little room”. We would like to see a massive expansion in places offered to our young people.

Europe should be more active in ensuring that its funding is additional and that its requirements in relation to transparency, to consultation with the social partners and with the voluntary sector, are fully met by authorities in Ireland, North and South.

Europe should facilitate and encourage, as proposed by the farming unions, harmonisation of the beef regime, milk quota regime and the farm retirement scheme, in both North and South.

There are also a number of foreseeable developments in Europe which could facilitate or hamper the achievement of lasting peace in Ireland:

The social and economic future of Northern Ireland is closely linked to the future of regional and agricultural policy in the Union. However, the view is gaining ground that the Union must enlarge to take on the Central and Eastern European countries and that the price for this must be a weakening of agricultural and regional policies. This is a recipe for the disintegration of the Union and the decline of its regions, such as Northern Ireland.

Much of the cooperation and business development which is under way will suffer if there is not coordination between Dublin and London on the move to EMU.

The UK social policy opt-out, until now, has had little practical effect. But if the divergence of UK social policy from the European Union grows more acute, tensions and distortions will emerge on the labour market.

Success in framing a common security policy would remove an obstacle to reconciliation and solidarity. We must develop a framework for European security with the overall negotiation of a more integrated Europe.

The broadening of the scope of the treaty to outlaw discrimination on grounds of nationality, gender, religion, opinion and sexual preference and the accession of the Union to the Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Rights has been proposed by the European Parliament. At the same time, the Framework Document identifies a “large body of support, transcending the political divide for the comprehensive protection and guarantee of fundamental human rights”.

The deepening of the reality of European citizenship and the fundamental rights which it implies would greatly increase confidence in the impartiality of the legal system and in the systematic and effective protection of such rights.

John Hume, 58, has been one of Northern Ireland's three MEPs since 1979. He was also elected a member of the British parliament in 1983. He has been leader of Northern Ireland's Social Democratic and Labour Party since 1979. Earlier this year he was nominated by the European Parliament's Socialist Group as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a central figure in the current peace process in Northern Ireland.