TAOISEACH VOWS ‘WE WILL BE CLOSE AGAIN’
For true democracy, the time has come to directly elect people to represent all of Europe, writes Taoiseach Leo Varadkar
DESPITE all the upheaval of recent years — the rise of populism, Euroscepticism, nationalism, and the rise of anti-democratic forces — there is a renewed solidarity and unity of purpose within the European Union. Ireland, and the European Union have emerged stronger from the week gone by.
As EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said recently: “The wind is back in Europe’s sails”. When the leaders of Europe sit down this week to discuss the Union’s future direction, we will do so with a positive and optimistic outlook that would have surprised many commentators a few short years ago.
It was a tough week, but worth every moment. As I said last Friday, we have achieved all we set out to achieve in Phase I of the Brexit negotiations. We got the guarantees we were looking for from the United Kingdom, with the full support of the European Union. And I am satisfied that sufficient progress has been made on issues of national interest to Ireland.
When the European Council meets in Brussels later this week, we can start to work out the details of what has been agreed and begin to talk about free trade and the new relationship between the EU and the UK. We have ensured that Irish issues will be treated as a separate strand throughout the Phase II negotiations, which means they will get special attention like they did during Phase I.
But what about the relationship with the UK? What form should that take?
Now, we can move on to work out the detail of what has been agreed and to talk about the transition phase and new relationship between the EU — including Ireland — and the UK.
Recent events have strained our relationship with the UK. But I do not think that they have damaged it. The UK has been our closest ally on many issues at EU level. We have a shared history, with bonds of friendship and family as well as economic links that will endure. Our two nations will continue to think alike on many matters.
We share their interest in maintaining peace for everyone on this island, in free trade, in free movement, and in prosperity. Our guiding light and only ambition throughout has been to ensure that the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement are able to operate in full when the UK leaves the EU, and that people could continue to live their lives and run their businesses as they have done for the past 20 years, particularly along the border.
The UK can rely on the continued friendship and goodwill of the Irish Government and the Irish people in the months and years ahead. As we move to Phase II, I have no doubt we will be close again. This will allow us to focus on the core issues of Phase II — trade, jobs and the transition phase.
The good news is that all sides in this debate — Remainers and Brexiteers alike — want to secure free trade. The agreement we reached last week will help us all to achieve that goal, because it guarantees that the same standards will apply, North and South. Free trade and a level playing field are two sides of the same coin. For example, you cannot have free trade between two entities if one undercuts the other through subsidies or lower safety standards, lower environmental standards, or lower standards on food safety.
Nor can we allow Brexit to drive a wedge between North and South. The best way is by building more bridges, not borders. Writing about another part of the world, Senator George Mitchell suggested that “compromise is not a weakness, but a virtue necessary to serve the well-being of future generations”. His words should continue to guide us, North and South, in the months and years ahead.
Due to the agreement last week between the EU and the UK, we have been able to preserve the Common Travel Area between the UK and Ireland, allowing free movement of people between north and south and east and west. This includes the common citizens’ rights that have been enjoyed by British and Irish people in both of our countries since independence: the right to live, work, study, access healthcare, education, housing, and welfare in each other’s countries as though we were citizens of both. What Arthur Griffith, back at the time of the Treaty, called “the reciprocity of civic rights”.
We will remain fully engaged and vigilant throughout Phase II — the negotiation, drafting and conclusion of the new treaties that will be required between the EU and UK and their implementation.
Over the past few weeks, the support we received from the EU negotiators and fellow heads of State and Government was invaluable and was the clearest possible illustration of the values of the European Union, and why small countries are better off in a big union. It puts beyond any doubt that our future lies in the European Union, at the heart of the common European home that we helped to build.
Many of the policy challenges we face are increasingly global. They cannot be met by nation states acting alone. I believe we should be positive about the challenges facing the future of Europe. We should now talk about what we want to achieve, more than what we want to block or resist. Issues such as mass migration, climate change, cybersecurity, global trade, and the regulation of medicines and major corporations, will not be solved by different countries coming up with different solutions. In unity, there is security, in cooperation, there is strength.
The Europe of the future, I believe, must continue to do what it does well, and focus on the big new challenges facing Europe and its citizens. Many of our core positions are well-known: we support the completion of the Single Market, the Digital Single Market, Banking Union and Capital Markets Union. We want a well-funded Common Agricultural Policy, and programmes that work in areas like research and innovation.
We want to protect the Erasmus Programme, which allows thirdlevel students from across Ireland to go on study exchanges across the EU. We will protect Interreg cross-border funding, and crucial investments from the European Investment Bank. And we want to be part of the new European common security and defence initiative, PESCO, which we will sign up to next week.
We also want a more democratic Europe. I believe it’s time that we allowed candidates to be elected to the European Parliament who represent all of Europe, and so move to a truly European democracy. I’d like to see some powers being devolved back to member states, municipalities and regions. It’s odd that American states, cities and counties sometimes have more autonomy to do things than EU member states.
Another reform might be to make permanent the Spitzenkandidat system, and to democratise the process of choosing candidates for other leading positions within the EU. The EU has always offered the promise of a better future, but it is a future that will not be handed to us. We must work to create it.
‘We have a shared history, with bonds of friendship and family...’