Professor Gavin Barrett:

In response to Senator McDowell, like Dr. Day I take the view that effectiveness is the key point here. It is not integration for the sake of integration or, indeed, sovereignty for the sake of sovereignty. It is neither. It is about what works best. We need a real commitment to subsidiarity. Of course if things can be decided at national level they should be but if they need to be done at European level, they should be done at European level as well.

The Senator also mentioned migration. That, remarkably, is a field in which competence has already been adequately agreed. It was agreed as long ago as Amsterdam in 1999 that the difficulty there is the lack of political agreement. However, we cannot give up the search for agreement on that because if we do not have a common approach on migration, we will end up with a lowest common denominator approach and slamming the doors in a way that violates human rights and does a disservice to the country of reception itself. I was struck by the fact that a key role in the vaccine for Covid that was announced the other day was played by the children of Turkish migrants into Germany. They were the ones who discovered it. Migration is an enrichment as well as a challenge for member states.

As regards whether we lose out by not participating in issues of justice and home affairs, I think we do in some ways. We lose out in the substantive issue because we do not get to mould the agenda. It is true that we can opt in afterwards but if one fails to mould the agenda in some way, one loses out to a certain extent. There is a certain degree of resentment there as well because there is a cost to integration. Other states expect that these burdens and costs will be shared equally. There is a certain cost there as well. We lose out by not being in the Schengen zone but we had to choose between the common travel area or Schengen so I completely understand the choice that was made there. I have reservations about extending that to justice and home affairs generally. I am not sure about that. It is something we need to think about but I am fully in agreement that effectiveness is what we should be focusing on there.

Senator Chambers asked about the issues that are going to be discussed. Some of them come from the General Affairs Council, like the security of the Union and its citizens, a successful and inclusive economy, the social aspects of the EU, a strong Union at the global level, and an efficient Union.

Some of those issues, such as health and fiscal policy, have been added because of what is happening. The main division there is between policy issues and institutional issues. Both of them will be raised and the ones more likely to lead to treaty changes are the institutional issues, which may in due course lead to a referendum in Ireland. We have to wait and see in that regard.

Deputy Harkin mentioned the issue of a European army. I have no insight into how the debate on defence will proceed at European level. I note that we already have a Common Security and Defence Policy that can lead to a common defence but that has to be unanimously agreed. Ireland can vote against that if it wants and it has a constitutional bar on participating in a common defence if it does not agree to it. We are perfectly safe as regards neutrality. At the same time, we need to participate in the debate. The issue of defence looks quite different on the other end of the European Union, in Poland or Finland, for example. It is something we at least need to talk about at some stage. I would not be worried about the treaty rules in that regard. As I said, the notion of a European army is simply not on the agenda. I would not be worrying about that.