Mr. Bertie Ahern:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for inviting me to reflect on the 20 years since the enlargement of the European Union. In May 2004, we brought in that big step or big bang as it was called at the time of ten new member states. We now celebrate the 20th anniversary of the largest enlargement in history, expanding the Union by those ten member states, most of them from central and eastern Europe, as the Chairman outlined. That big bang enlargement undoubtedly boosted Europe's security and economic power and advanced the spread of democracy across the Continent. Integration of the predominantly post-communist and economically weaker countries posed major challenges at the time. Despite the changed context, as the Chairman said, the EU is now looking to integrate more countries from eastern and south-eastern Europe with underperforming economies and fragile democratic systems.

As we look back on the main issues in the 2004 enlargement and how the EU and candidate states managed to overcome them, we need to consider if any lessons that were learned remain relevant for the current enlargement process. What can the EU do make the integration of new members as smooth as possible? Why is the continuation of EU enlargement important, as I think it is?

Keeping my comments to looking back, 20 years ago, on 1 May, when we had all the countries of central and eastern Europe here, we called that the Day of Welcomes. I had travelled around the EU with officials three times in the previous 18 months as we prepared for that enlargement process. I acknowledge the huge support I got from and the work done by the Department of Foreign Affairs at the time. Bobby McDonagh here and Anne Anderson in Brussels were the two leaders at the time. They were enormously talented officials who went on to very senior positions afterwards, but I was lucky they were with me throughout those 18 months.

As the Chairman said, by any fair analysis, membership of the European Union has been transformative for both our country and others. This morning I see a poll that shows 84% support in this country for Ireland's status as a member state. That is not bad in any exam. As a smaller member state with an open and export-led economy, the Single Market has bolstered our economic development and enhanced our competitiveness. Looking at the countries that have joined, it is a fact of life that there are positive impacts everywhere to see, including infrastructural services, regional development and environmental protections. Of course, people can always point to ongoing problems. That is the nature of it.

As we looked across a range of areas at that time, we were working to try to rely on the good functioning of the EU and the multilateral system for our stability and prosperity. The multilateral system worked a bit better 20 years ago. I am not taking any credit for that but, worldwide, I think it worked better. We also focused on influencing and shaping the direction of the Union to ensure that it met the needs of our citizens and delivered on our aspirations both then and since then. We were in a good position at the time to help countries because we had benefited so much from European membership.

This country is almost unrecognisable from what it once was. The economic, social and political shifts of the past five decades for us have been nothing short of seismic. Our 50th anniversary gave us an opportunity to reflect on our membership, and I know the committee did that. We joined the Union as one of the poorest countries in western Europe. We had been independent for just over five decades. A lot of the newer countries at the time looked to us and said, "Maybe, at the time, Britain, France and Germany were one thing", but ours was a small country and they could look at what we had achieved and what they could achieve. Most of those countries at the time had their own financial and unemployment problems. Unemployment was high in those times. It is hardly mentioned nowadays, but today's position is such a different one from where we were 20 years ago.

Membership resonated with the smaller countries and gave us the impetus to strengthen our own human rights record to drive forward civil and social rights. It introduced gender equality legislation and protection of workers' rights and rights of minorities and made us become a much more tolerant, kinder and inclusive country than we were when we joined. That resonated with all the member states. When I did the tours - I did three - particularly during the Presidency in the last six to nine months, because the enlargement process had really stepped up from October 2003, the questions were all about how small countries could do this and how they could move away from what they were, particularly the countries that were in the former Russian zone. Of course, there were naysayers at the time who said that membership would threaten our economic well-being and dilute our traditions and values, that the decision-making within the Union would become unmanageable, that it would be impossible to run a community of 27 and that a small country such as ours would not be heard.

I was on the social affairs configuration of the Council for five years, the ECOFIN configuration for nearly as long and the European Council for 11 years, so I spent nearly 20 years on the Council. I found that it was nearly easier to do business with the larger number because you could build blocs. Before that, France and Germany would play the game together. It was very hard to get in the middle of that. With the larger number of countries, you could manoeuvre your way around. Once you were relatively sociable and not opposed to going for a drink, you could work good coalitions, which Irish people did to good effect during those years. In the period since 2004, we have continued to grow and prosper under that umbrella. It has continued to go right for us. We have moved away from some of our more traditional views, leading to a more open, accepting and progressive society. We have maintained our voice within the EU and there seems to have been no watering down of our identity or our sovereignty. It is through this voluntary pooling of sovereignty that we most eloquently exercise it in reality.

In my view, both at the time and looking back, enlargement is a testament to the European Union's success and to our own. With each wave of enlargement, the Union has been enhanced by the unique profiles and contributions of each of its current members and further enlargement will strengthen the European Union. I will talk about my views on that later. An increased number of EU member states has meant greater geographical weight for the Union on the global stage, which is the way we have to go in light of what is happening in the United States and elsewhere and the reality of the world today and into the future. There will be a China-dominated area and an America-dominated area, so the European Union will have to be dominant in our area. It is going to be the premier league. If you are not part of the bloc, you will definitely be isolated. I cannot think of any coherent argument contrary to that view. We can honestly say that it has brought prosperity for our people. It is a great environment where economies can grow and people can thrive. It promotes democracy, equality and inclusion and tackles poverty. It is vital that we ensure the Union continues to deliver for our citizens, as we outlined 20 years ago.

On the downside, every day we see an erosion of the ideals that we had begun to take for granted. We see a fracturing of multinational multilateralism and an unfortunate move towards a more divided world. In the face of this division, we must reaffirm our commitment to the cause of multilateralism, which I know this committee strongly believes in. There is no more effective way to do that than through the European Union because it was founded on a peace process. Countries came together following the devastation of the Second World War and hoped for economic and then social and cultural ties to prevent further conflict. I do not need to say anything about the conflicts of the present time. The committee is dealing with those all of the time.

Those are my quick opening remarks. There are new issues on the agenda that were not around 20 years ago. Climate change is now an existential threat. It is a European and global problem and requires a global response. It is a common challenge that we cannot solve alone. I do not pretend to have the answer to it. However, my experience of the European Union from the 20 years I was the heart of it and from having watched it ever since is that it plays an important role in influencing the climate action agenda on both on the European stage and on the global stage. I know it will continue to work in that regard. Bringing in the enlargement countries 20 years ago was good for us and good for them. Of course, there have been challenges along the way but, as we did on the day of welcomes 20 years ago, we can genuinely celebrate what was achieved and the part Ireland played through our officials, the Government and the Opposition. People were very much onside with the campaign at the time. We did not have political differences on those issues. It has stood us in good stead.