Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity for a short few minutes to speak on the issue of Europe Day. Europe, the political and economic vision of close co-operation and significant integration, has been the major post-Second World War project for most European democracies. Through the steps of the European Common Market and the European Economic Community, EEC, we have achieved a European Union founded on the shared values of tolerance, equality and peace on our Continent. We have a way to go, however.

The expansion of our Union has often been based on political pragmatism. We had the accession of Spain post Franco, Portugal post Salazar and Greece post the colonels. This did not happen because the democratic values in those countries had reached such levels that they could instantly involve themselves in the institutions of the European Union but to bed down democracy. That has been one of the driving forces of the European Union since the Second World War. That is hugely important in ensuring a democratic base in Europe. Even in our lifetime, we have seen in the Balkans what the absence of bedding down that fundamental democracy can mean. That has been significantly undervalued and insufficiently recognised.

The underpinning principles of the European Union are human rights and economic cohesion. I want to say a word about each of those. Human rights are based on equality. The concept of equality on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, race and religion is fundamental. We still have a way to go, even within the European Union, to ensure those values are defended and exported. On economic cohesion, a basic principle was to bring the economic well-being of all of our citizens up to the highest levels. We established the Cohesion Fund for that very purpose, and Ireland has benefited from that fund.

I sometimes listen to commentary about the European Union exporting austerity or being a conservative economic force. In truth, the European Union is what the people of Europe elect it to be. When the European Union had socialists and democrats in dominant positions, at the time of Jacques Delors and others such as Romano Prodi, there was a different vision. At times of crisis, such as during our economic crisis, for example, the dominant political forces have, unfortunately, been conservative, primarily the European People's Party, EPP. That is the reason that conservative approach exists. The European institutions themselves do not have a political flavour. They are determined by whomsoever is elected to government in the member states of the Union. If we want progressive politics, we must elect progressive politicians to achieve that objective.

I will make brief mention of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, which is often criticised. It was created by Sicco Mansholt, a Dutch farmer who remembered the two post-Second World War famines in his country of the Netherlands. He designed an agricultural strategy for Europe to obliterate hunger, which in and of itself is not a mean or poor objective to have for someone who had experienced the famine that ravaged his country in the winter of 1945-46. To ensure that Europe would never go hungry again was a desirable and noble objective.

We must be clear on what Ireland wants or expects of the European Union. Many, including many Members of this House, measure our involvement in a purely transactional term. They ask how much we put in and how much we get back. Brexit is our wake-up call. If we see the European Union as something separate from us, as being over there in Brussels and a place to go for funding or for access to markets or goods, whether it is vaccines or something else, then we miss the fundamental point of Europe. The point of Europe is to build a different concept and politics to ensure peace, prosperity and cohesion, the rule of law and fundamental equality.

Ireland has to help create the European Union. We have done our job to date in all its flaws and complexities. It is a place of democratic stability, rule of law, equality and economic opportunity but we have an awful lot further to go to achieve the objective that each of us can envisage for our Continent as the best possible place to live for our peoples in the future. We have to do it outside the shadow of Britain and be willing to contribute in every sense to make that noble vision a reality.

See this speech in context