Roisin Doherty - Ireland, Neutrality and European Security Integration

Risn Doherty
University of Ulster

First published 2002 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright Risn Doherty 2002

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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 2001095876

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-74012-9 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-315-18381-7 (ebk)

In the preparation of this book I have received help and support from many sources. My thanks are first of all due to Dr. Lee McGowan, who guided the D.Phil. project on which the book is based. He has been an unfailing source of advice and support.

The book would not have been possible without the people who gave up their time to be interviewed for the original D.Phil. I would like to thank all of them, but particularly, Declan Kelleher, and Keith McBain, Department of Foreign Affairs and Noel Dorr, formerly Department of Foreign Affairs. In the Defence Forces, Lt.-Gen. Gerry McMahon (Retired), and Col. James Saunderson. In the Department of Defence, Michael O'Donoghue. Also, Dr. Garrett Fitzgerald, Prof. Jim Dooge, Prof. Patrick Keatinge TCD, Patrick Smyth, Philip O'Conner (formerly Democratic Left), Des O'Malley TD, Gay Mitchell TD and Patricia McKenna MEP. In WEU, Duirmid Williams and Richard Tibbles. Also, Magnus Scholdtz, Swedish Embassy in Brussels, Mika-Markus Leinonen, Mission of Finland to NATO. Also in NATO, Jamie Shea, Frank Boland and Rear Admiral Alistair Ross.

I would also like to thank John Cushnahan MEP who facilitated the fieldwork in Brussels by giving me office space in the European Parliament. Thanks are also due to the School of Public Policy, Economics and Law at UU for providing funds for the fieldwork and to Prof. Colin Thain for his contribution to the project. Pat McKee at UU answered all my word processing questions.

The new European security order constructed after the end of the Cold War has severely tested the adaptive abilities of the security policies of all the European neutrals, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Ireland. All of these countries except Ireland based their neutrality policy on impartiality between the blocs. Membership of the European Union (EU) has required adjustments in neutral policy in particular to allow for observer status in the Western European Union (WEU) and to keep pace with the evolving relationship between the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). It has also been necessary for the neutrals to form relationships with NATO through its off-shoot organisation Partnership for Peace (PfP). More fundamentally the development of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) towards a common defence policy has posed particular problems for neutrality as the eventual aim of common defence, to which all the neutrals have committed themselves, may be incompatible with neutrality. While this is a long term project and the end is uncertain, the process of security integration is under way and has been complemented by developments in NATO and Europe's broader security architecture.

These changes raise the question of to what extent states previously committed to neutrality will be involved in this new order and what the implications will be for neutrality. This research will attempt to answer these questions from Ireland's perspective, focussing on the continued compatibility of neutrality with participation in European security structures, particularly the CFSP. Recent changes have challenged Ireland because of a tension in the national psyche between the fact that the population wants to maintain what it thinks of as neutrality and the contradictory fact that Ireland is committed to the EU, which is developing a defence dimension. Irish Governments have addressed this tension by promising a referendum if Ireland ever accepts a defence commitment.