Sess the impact of Europeanisation on politics in the Republic of Ireland.

Authors Avatar

This Essay is submitted to

Dr. Margaret O'Callaghan

by

J. G. Colm Power

for the

MSSc course in Irish Politics

6

Assess the impact of Europeanisation on politics in the Republic of Ireland

Since the accession of the Irish Republic to the European Economic Community in 1973 there has been a continuous process of Europeanisation occurring throughout the Irish polity. The extent of Europeanisation has been governed in some cases by the need to extend or create new political structures and institutions in order to accommodate the expansion of the powers and consequent bureaucracy which these developments inevitably create. In some respects this has enabled the E. U. ethos (or elements of it) to reach deep into sections of Irish society. The overt devotion to European unity exhibited by the sections of the population Desmond Fennell refers to as the Dublin oriented 'nice people' and the endorsement for more straightforward economic reasons by the rural traditionalist 'rednecks'  of what has latterly become the European Union (E.U.), has culminated in the enthusiastic acceptance by the Irish electorate in general of the single European Act and the far reaching provisions of the Maastricht Treaty. Beneath the imperatives of economics and the dictates of fashion Terry Stewart believes that there lurks '...a desire among Irish people to be part of the movement towards European integration.'  The extra tiers of government and judiciary which the E.U. (and the European Court of Human Rights) has provided and the shared sovereignty that now exists between Europe and the Irish Republic has opened up whole new avenues for change and modernisation by pressure groups in such areas as cultural development, the status of women in Irish society and social change. The preoccupation of Irish governments with Europe has been of a predominantly economic nature since Ireland's first application for E.E.C. membership in 1962. Richard Kearney asserts that the '...almost exclusive emphasis on the economic dimension...'  has dogged Irish perceptions of the E.U. right up to the present day. The corollary implicit in the abandonment of autarkic nationalism: that political independence would also be compromised was ignored by most Irish politicians at the time.

Aodogan O'Rahilly, a contemporary autarkic nationalist of the Lemass era put it succinctly from his own republican perspective: 'Our application to join the E.E.C. can be aptly compared with the proposal to pass the Act of Union.'  To a great degree the exclusive ideology of New Nationalism (now largely archaic and redundant) has been replaced by an inclusive European identity untainted by the old slur of West Britonism and fostered assiduously by those classes in Irish society once tagged as the residual rump of Redmondite Ireland. Even the Irish Labour Party, though the only major Irish political group initially opposed to membership of the E.U. - due mainly to loss of sovereignty affecting neutrality etc., has latterly become an enthusiastic supporter of further integration into Europe. The paradigm view of representative politicians in the Republic is that Ireland cannot survive alone in what is fast becoming a highly integrated global economic system. During the Dail debate on The Single European Act (S. E. A.), the Labour leader Dick Spring admitted as much when he spoke of unemployment rates reaching 20% and 50,000 people emigrating each year - figures which resonate with the earlier crisis of Fianna Fail's autarkic hegemony in the early nineteen fifties. Spring, in R. Kearney's words, argued that: '...our nation does not at present have the wealth, markets or opportunities to survive on its own.'  He did not allude however, to a time when these negative criteria might be reversed. On the contrary, it is the accepted paradigm in Irish political circles that the E.U. is the economic saviour of a country otherwise doomed to virtual extinction on the periphery. Another more pragmatic attraction for Labour is the dominant position of the socialist grouping in the European Parliament of which it is a member. As more power accrues to the centre, Labour hopes to use this connection to influence legislation regarding Ireland. Conversely, right-wing and conservative elements in Irish society have begun to mobilise opposition to E.U. engendered liberal legislation as the full implications of membership slowly dawn on pressure groups.

Join now!

From a constitutional perspective Europeanisation has radically shifted the paramount position of de Valera's 1937 Bunreacht na hEireann. Basil Chubb believes that the series of E.U. treaties culminating in Maastricht have in effect become the second Irish constitution; or an 'external constitution' as Brigid Laffan would have it.  This has led inevitably to the challenging of indigenous laws and basic tenets of the Irish Constitution in the European Court of Human Rights and through direct E.U. legislation which contravenes indigenous law. The adoption of S.E.A. itself resulted in a referendum as it required an amendment to the Irish Constitution ...

This is a preview of the whole essay