‘No’ campaign slams Cowen letter

Date: 04/07/02

By David Cronin

AN ADMISSION by Foreign Minister Brian Cowen that citizens from new EU states will be automatically entitled to live and work in Ireland is being used as ammunition by groups urging a rejection of the Nice Treaty.

Dublin-based anti-Nice group The National Platform this week circulated copies of a letter Cowen wrote to his government colleague Tom Kitt in March last year.

In it, the minister says he contacted his counterpart in each candidate country for EU membership in June 2001 to inform them their citizens will 'have full and free access' to Ireland's labour market 'from the first day of accession'.

'I understand that three other EU member states - Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, have also taken a similar decision to us,' Cowen added.

'The rest of the existing member states have reserved the right to restrict the access to citizens of new member states, excluding Cyprus and Malta, for up to seven years from the date of accession.'

Cowen recognises the fears of many EU countries about the impact that large-scale migration from the new entrants could have on their labour markets but says: 'Authoritative studies predict that such severe distortions are unlikely and it is quite possible that member states will be in a position to open up their borders sooner than the maximum of seven years.'

National Platform secretary Anthony Coughlan argued that there could be major repercussions if 'huge numbers of workers from low-wage, high-unemployment East European countries [are] drastically undercutting Irish workers' wages from day one of their accession.'

His group is playing a leading role in the campaign against the Irish referendum on Nice - due in October or November.

This will be the second poll on the treaty; the country's voters rejected the first one a year ago.

Coughlan regards the minister's admission as another example of his department's 'irresponsibility'.

The ministry has a 'totally uncritical attitude to EU development', he claimed.

Coughlan said he is neither anti-enlargement nor opposed to immigration.

He welcomed the fact that eastern Europeans will be able to move west after a seven-year period but feels it is wrong for his country to be more generous than most others in the EU.

'The economic and political implications for Ireland, the only English-speaking country involved, of 75 million East Europeans being entitled to live here from day one are mind-boggling,' he said.

An admission by Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen that citizens from new EU states will be automatically entitled to live and work in Ireland is being used as ammunition by groups urging a rejection of the Nice Treaty.