Mr. Bertie Ahern:

To get agreement was always difficult because everybody had their pet list of problems which they were trying to get around.

To summarise, there was the cost factor and the question of whether the existing member states of the European Union could carry the load and the percentage. There is always a lot of debate about this and I suppose there will be debate about the next round of enlargement. The reality is that the percentage that every member state pays is not a huge percentage of its GNP. I do not know what it is now, to be quite honest, but I remember the argument we had when it was 1.24% of GDP. We had long, endless meetings about how, if we increased it to 1.27%, we would raise so much. I am not saying the figure is insignificant but it is not earth-shattering. That was obviously a big problem.

Getting people to finalise their laws, particularly around human rights issues, was always a problem. During my time, in my early days in the European Council, I was dealing with the Turkish situation, when there was a lot of pressure for Turkey to join. Many human rights issues were very much on the plate and open for discussion. As we knew, enlargement was going to happen during our Presidency, which is why we started in 2003. We went three times to each member state to see what the issues were and we worked with the Italian Presidency that preceded us to see if we could iron out most of those issues. There was a small list of issues that were very difficult. Hungary and Poland, needless to say, were probably the hardest ones to crack. Poland was the last to get on side. I recall some long meetings trying to get understanding. As is the case in Poland today, there were two different ideologies. One was hugely conservative and rural and the other was very progressive. We were trying to square the circle. They are gone now but I had endless meetings with the two brothers who were president and prime minister in Poland back in those days to try to get agreement.

On the European constitution, Ireland really did a good job on the constitutional issues. Our embassies and officials were good on this. We got good agreement and a lot of help from the French on that because it was a former French President who had done a lot of the work on the committee to get ready for a constitution. We passed it at the European Council and got the agreement of the 27 member states. We are very proud of that. Unfortunately, it only went to referendums in three countries, namely, France, the Netherlands and Luxemburg. It failed in the first two while Luxemburg voted for it. Jean-Claude Juncker was the only one who got a referendum on it passed. The difficulty with the referendums, as with all referendums and it is something not unfamiliar to us, is that the issues were not the issues in the constitution. In France, everything else was debated but nobody really debated the constitution. The vote was not really a vote against the constitution. That is how life is and how these issues are. That was a pity because the work done by the committee headed by the former French EU President took all of the treaties and documents that had been dealt with from the start of the European Union in the fifties and brought it back into a simple constitution that was quite a simple document. I know it was rejected a bit in the Lisbon treaty but it would have been far easier for everybody, including the courts and the officials, if that document had been passed. It was a simply constitution. It was shorter than our Constitution. It was a very short and clear document that was very transparent. We had 20 countries in favour of it and we had a few problems to get it across the line. It was only in the last few days that we got it across the line. It was seen as a considerable success to get a European Constitution agreed. Then, due to what happened with the Lisbon treaty, parts of it were taken up and parts were dropped and we continue on with it now. Legal people would probably not have liked it because an awful lot of people make a lot of money now trying to work out what things stand for, but it was a very good, simple document.

On the next round of enlargements, I will deal with the issue of Hungary and Orbán. Many of the issues that are brought up with these countries now were not ones they had a problem with at the time.

Maybe I should deal with issue of Hungary and Viktor Orbán. A lot of the issues that are brought up with these countries now were not ones they had a problem with at the time. Unfortunately, now, they take issue with the European Union and are fighting with it on areas where, in my view, they got very good agreements. They take up a battle because it is popular to do so.

While I am a great supporter of the Parliament and the institutions, the difficulty for the future of the European Union is that it must be careful, in the Parliament and in the Union itself, that it does not forget about the close parliamentary tier. If it becomes too much Europe, people back in the national governments, like this committee here, will feel they do not have a say and that decisions are made too far away. There is a bit of a move to that all the time, although that is not to say it is not right a lot of the time, but you have to be very careful that you carry the local population. If you do not carry the local parliament, parliamentarians and population, then you run the risk that there will be an us and them position. While I do not think we are at that stage, I refer to the EU as it gets bigger. I will come to how big the EU can get in a moment but I am in favour of enlargement because people have a sense of it. However, it must be remembered that laws are followed by people in their own countries and they have to be on board.

Although I am not sure about the procedures here now about looking at EU legislation, the amount of stuff thrown at governments, and trying to keep on top of it, is a hard task. It was when I was here. Politicians, Senators and TDs are busy people. They cannot watch everything and then something will jump up and become a major issue. All these Acts can be superimposed into our legislation but the scrutiny process will become more and more important. As more countries feed into the European Parliament and Commission, and with all these Commissioners, stuff is being fed out that can become quite complicated. Something that looks as if it does not have much to do with Ireland, could have something to do with Ireland. That area is really important. If I am asked whether I was always satisfied in my time that everything we signed up to and put in our legislation had been scrutinised properly, I can tell the committee that I was not. I felt the volumes were bypassing us.

This committee knows how hard it is in these Houses to have consolidated legislation, whether that be consolidating legislation back from social welfare, taxation or whatever. I served on a few of those committees over the years in my early days in here and it is a hell of task, even with technology. I think that can get more and more difficult. In response to Deputy Haughey, they are the concerns I have on these things.

On enlargement itself, in this country we are a strong supporter of enlargement. Fifty years of EU enlargement has transformed our economy and society, as I said at the start. It has increased our global influence. All European countries deserve the same opportunities that we got, provided they meet the necessary conditions for membership. We have to recognise the value of enlargement as a transformative driver of democracy, stability and peace in candidate countries. We take that for a given. Accession reforms must be driven from within candidate countries themselves and we have to see the candidate countries take full advantage of the current momentum in enlargement after a long period of stagnation.

Twenty years ago, when we had the last round of enlargement, there was a policy in the European Union of the new neighbourhood initiative, as it was called. We would build a relationship with the countries that were not in the European Union. Ukraine was an obvious one of those at the time. We were to build all of these countries around Europe and then with the Delors and Prodi Commissions, we had this endless debate about what Europe was.

Where are the lines of Europe? Where does Europe begin and end? Of course, the Turkish issue is what was driving that. America was pushing us very hard at that time to support Türkiye being a member until France made it clear that would not happen then, since or perhaps into the future. The EU and the member states have to provide assistance to candidate countries to implement necessary reforms. Ireland is looking at ways of doing that as we did it before. It has to be carefully done. I do not think the big bang we did in 2004 is the issue for today. The big bang then came from what happened in 1989 and 1990. It was from a different period. I do not think that big bang applies today. Much of the new growth plan for the western Balkans, which was proposed by the Commission President, includes a proposal to gradually integrate candidate countries into aspects of the Single Market – services, workers, cross-border payments, road transport, decarbonisation, energy, digital, and industrial supply chains. That seems to show the Commission is not thinking of a big enlargement. If one looks at what the Commission is stating in its policies, it is thinking more of a gradual enlargement. I think the growth plan for the western Balkans is to slowly bring in some of these countries.

We also have to remember – I am sure this committee has dealt with it – the Kosovan, Serbian and other initiatives. I have had reason in my other work in conflict resolution to be involved with some of those countries and they are very complex. There are no easy solutions. You have to get into what is possible for some of these member states. Looking at the list of possible enlargements and listening to some of the things I have heard and some of the groups I am involved in, it seems that Montenegro, Serbia and North Macedonia are on the front line of the next enlargement. Those are, according to the Commission’s report of last November, the countries in the front line. Then when one starts looking at Albania, Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia, one sees that there is a hell of a task in them.

In conclusion, if you think you will get a big bang enlargement that goes from 27 to 35, I would not be a cheerleader for it.