Speech by the President OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE Polish Institute of International Affairs
Speech by the President OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT THE Polish Institute of International Affairs, ROYAL CASTLE, WARSAW
Your Excellency, President Kwasniewski, Mr Sleptowski, distinguished guests,
Go raibh maith agat as ucht an fáilte croíúil sin.
“Dziękuję za miłe słowa powitania”
I am very honoured to have been invited to speak to the Institute of International Affairs, at such a significant time in Poland’s development, as well as in world events. As the first non-Polish speaker to address the Institute’s Forum this year, I am particularly delighted to have the opportunity to speak about Ireland’s role in an enlarged Europe.
This Forum performs a very valuable service in promoting the kind of dialogue and exchange of views which makes people with different histories and perspectives intelligible to each other. As the embrace of the European Union widens, drawing more and more nations into the Union family, it is very reassuring to know you have kept a special sensitive focus on Poland’s neighbours and their concerns about the potential for new dividing lines in an enlarged Europe. Understanding and dealing well with those worries is our best guarantee of a comfortable future for all of us - whether we are inside the Union or good neighbours to its member states.
Enlargement
The planned enlargement of the Union, for many years an aspiration, is soon to become a concrete reality. There can be no doubt but that this constitutes one of the most exciting and positive developments since the foundation of the EEC in 1957. It is surely a resounding affirmation of the great and noble dream of the Union’s founding fathers, formed when Europe lay in ruins after the barbaric conflicts of the 20th Century: a dream of a dynamic process of partnership between free democratic nations, each exercising its own sovereignty to create a formidable consensus which would guarantee stability, peace and prosperity for Europe’s children.
Ireland is proud to be part of such a Union, such a dream. There is a strong consensus in favour of this enlargement, together with a feeling of empathy with the accession countries. The Union has been good for Ireland and we believe that the candidate countries are entitled to the same opportunities we were given.
On 1 May next year, it will be Ireland’s privilege, during our Presidency of the Union, to welcome the acceding states as old friends but new partners. Each country has made enormous efforts to qualify for membership and they have earned the respect of their European brothers and sisters while earning their place at the Union table. The major challenge for the Irish Presidency will be to continue the post- enlargement transition phase, while maintaining the momentum of the EU agenda.
Enlargement brings a new dynamism to the Union. Each new member brings its distinctive identity and rich heritage, its own particular way of looking at the world. New friendships will develop among new and older member states. New alliances will form around common interests and values. Ireland and Poland, for example, have the potential to develop such an alliance for we have much in common in many areas and natural empathies born of our historic experiences of oppression and poverty.
Experience of membership
In 1973, when we joined the then EEC, we saw membership as a stimulus for economic growth and development of our society. Equally importantly, we saw it politically and psychologically as a means of underpinning our independence. In pooling with others, elements of our hard-won national sovereignty, we believed that we would gain more effective control over our destiny than we would by standing alone and on the margins. We have not been disappointed.
The EU has been a powerful engine for economic and social progress in Ireland. Without access to European markets and assistance from Europe, without the framework offered by European Union membership, our remarkable progress in recent years would have been unimaginable.
An Ireland outside the European Union would have been the old Ireland of high unemployment and emigration. Many of our people would simply have left Ireland behind or have been left behind in Ireland. Instead, more and more of our people are staying and others are returning to an Ireland renewed and strengthened and grown confident as its own genius has been revealed.
Our membership of the European Union has not brought solely economic progress, but also profound and positive social progress. Equal pay and opportunity for women together with better conditions of employment generally, owe much to our membership of the European Union and the huge increase in the participation of women in every sector of the economy has vastly increased our human equity resource base.
With the passage of time, it is easy to forget that improvement in Ireland’s fortune was not an overnight success, nor was it accomplished without some pain. Membership, while providing the necessary foundation, did not in itself guarantee success. Rather, it provided opportunities and an important stimulus - after that it was up to us, just as it is up to each Member State, to write its own success story.
In Ireland’s case, the process of transforming our society and economy was greatly helped by the receipt of Structural and Cohesion Funds. They were a driving force in our development. We needed significant investment in roads, public transport, environmental services and the promotion of new industry. They have helped close infrastructure gaps with other EU countries.
In addition, a strong investment in the education system and the up-skilling of a young and motivated workforce, to which the EU’s Social Fund contributed significantly, was also fundamental. This greatly assisted us in attracting unprecedented foreign investment, enabling us to create new jobs, build prosperity and build the self-confidence which generates native entrepreneurship.
Membership has broadened our horizons too, giving us an opportunity to play a role on the wider European stage and a welcome chance to develop a healthier relationship with our next door neighbour Britain. Historically that relationship had been fraught and violent but the maturity and power of today’s relationship can be seen in the two Governments’ joint quest for peace in Northern Ireland.
Before we joined the Union, some people were worried that our small nation’s cherished national identity and cultural distinctiveness would be diluted or overwhelmed by membership. Thirty years later our cultural confidence and Irish identity have never been stronger. We are now more, rather than less, confident of who we are and we are proud of the way we have punched above our weight within the Union, influencing Europe’s future, contributing not just to our own destiny but the destiny of our neighbours. We are comfortably Irish, comfortably European. Those twin tracks have proved to be a very successful combination.
Priorities for an enlarged Union
And now we prepare to open our minds and hearts to an even bigger Union, to get to know our new partners better and through them to understand our common European homeland and ourselves, better. What will be our priorities now that the shape of the Union is about to change so dramatically. The answer is, of course, that the priorities are not new, they are well rehearsed and they remain fundamental to the Union’s continuing success.
A strong Common Agricultural Policy and an effective cohesion and structural reform policy will continue to be at the heart of the Union’s action. Over our thirty years of membership, the Common Agricultural Policy has made a vital contribution to Ireland’s ability to promote and modernise our farming and agri-business sectors, keeping people on the land and sustaining our rural communities. The period of transition and restructuring was undoubtedly painful and difficult but access to markets in the EU and to countries outside the EU have enhanced farmer’s incomes and living standards and agriculture in Ireland continues to be the mainstay of the economy of many rural areas.
Ireland looks forward to continuing to develop close relations with new members to ensure that the agricultural and rural interests in the Council of Ministers are strengthened in an enlarged Europe. Together with Ireland, they will have a very important role to play in the future development of the CAP.
The continuation of a strong regional policy is a fundamental principle underpinning the European Union and, again I would say that, Ireland is a good example of what can be achieved. The enlarged EU should continue to have a properly focused and resourced policy which will ensure into the future that regions of the enlarged Union, especially the poorest regions, can be assisted to tackle the economic and social disparities which they face. This is a subject close to Ireland’s heart - given that we are conscious of the benefits and we will play a most constructive role in the process. We will of course be happy to continue providing advice and assistance to our Polish friends in this important area of policy.
International relations
I mentioned earlier in my remarks that membership of the EU has allowed Ireland to play our part on a larger stage. As a young State and a small State, Ireland has never shied away from active involvement in global politics but undoubtedly our membership of the Union like our membership of the United Nations has greatly enhanced the scope and effect of our contribution. We have been and remain deeply committed to the U.N., to its family of organisations and to its pursuit of an international legal order respected by all. Now as the Union expands and plays its full role in international relations we look forward to working with our new EU partners in promoting the shared values of democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Ireland has its own vivid memories of poverty and of conflict. They have distilled into a firm belief that in order to confront poverty, disease, violent conflict and to establish a more peaceful world, we must use the UN to build a future in which we can match military strength with moral restraint, the world's wealth with our wisdom and power with our purpose. We believe passionately that the EU remains the greatest ever adventure in democratic partnership between nations and in its growing success lies much needed hope that our world can one day have a humanly decent future based on cooperation, respect for diversity, mutual understanding and full social inclusion.
Conclusion
The defining moment of Ireland’s sixth Presidency of the Union will undoubtedly come on 1 May 2004. Something momentous will happen in Europe that day as the doors of history close and the doors of the future open. We are excited and challenged by this momentous responsibility which may indeed also involve drawing up a new Treaty on the Future of Europe. We intend to live up to our reputation of running an efficient, effective and impartial Presidency which takes account of the aspirations and sensitivities of all and makes each one of our European neighbours feel welcome and at home.
The Irish people have a great love of Poland. We have watched your inspirational struggle for democracy and we know that the outcome of the referendum on Union membership will be the thoughtful decision of a people who have been tried and tested and whom we will be proud to call friends, whether or not it brings Poland to Dublin on May 1st.
Go raibh mait agaibh go léir
“Dziękuję bardzo”
(Thank you very much)