outside Leinster House, the Irish Parliament building

Winning popular support for Europe

On 15 June Brendan Kiely, quite recently appointed as the Director for the European Movement in Ireland, outlined the challenges the movement faced. Studies showed that the better informed people were, the more positive they tended to be. Lack of information meant that people were more likely to be negative in their response. He was keen to develop more projects in schools in Ireland. Somehow the image of faceless bureaucrats in Brussels had fixed itself, and the benefits of European co-ordination had remained hidden to many people.

From the German side, Dieter Lubeseder pointed out that there were now 4.8 million people out of work in Germany. People were asking, "where is EU money going? Who exports jobs? Is the EU to blame?" The euphoria which used to exist has gone and acceptance of Europe is dwindling. Now only about 40% think that the EU is broadly a "good thing" whereas it used to be 80%. Enlargement had proved too costly for the contributor countries like Germany. People felt they had lost jobs to people from the new member states, and they did not want any further enlargement - there was little thought about what would happen if Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia or even the Ukraine did not become members. Above all, German people did not want the Turks in the EU.

Michael Rider, chair of the Sussex branch, admitted the UK was not known for its enthusiasm for Europe. The UK saw itself as different from the rest of Europe because of its geography, its history ... and its tabloid press. The geographical isolation had been destroyed by a combination of the Channel Tunnel, the internet and cheap air travel. But the tabliod newspapers continued to reinforce what they perceived as national interests. These were myths that needed to be shaken off.

Ireland's wealth built on EU money

In another session, Sarah Shiel, from the European Parliament information office in Dublin, described a proactive role of getting information about the work of the European Parliament into the media. Ireland has been the biggest economic EU success story so far. The country's wealth has clearly been built on EU money. In 1973 its average GDP was 65% of the average of the other 8 members; now Ireland had, after Luxembourg, the highest per capita income of any member state.

Ireland's population had increased enormously - 30 years ago the population was about 3m and unemployment was about 16%. Now it was about 4 million and growing, partly because there was full employment and Irish people who had emigrated to get jobs were coming back, and it was also attracting people from the new member countries. It appeared that the Irish government prefers the US economic model to the EU one - tax cuts and lower levels of social protection. Noticing that the big EU members have not been doing too well recently, people feel that Ireland has got it right.


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The National Forum on Europe

There had been much discussion in the Sussex branch about using the Irish National Forum on Europe as a model for involving UK people in debating issues about Europe. On 16 June the Sussex and German groups met at Dublin Castle with the Director of the National Forum on Europe, Geraldine Byrne Nason. She is a civil servant seconded to the Forum but her salary is paid by the government.

She said that the Forum was a cross-party independent body created in 2001 after the defeat of the first referendum on the Nice Treaty. The model for it was a body which had been set up in Northern Ireland as a non-partisan body to discuss Irish issues. The Forum has a detailed written mandate restricting it to the function of animating and promoting public debate on the EU, its enlargement, its future and Ireland's place in it. No other EU member state has such a Forum.

Political parties are given representation which may be disproportionate to their representation in Parliament. This ensures that parties such as the Greens or the Socialists or Sinn Fein are given a full opportunity to express their views. All political parties are represented. In addition to political parties there is a civil society "pillar" of membership in which organisations have observer status. Bodies such as the European Movement have this special observer status. The Forum itself does not advocate or promote any particular course of action.

The distinguished Chairman of the Forum, Senator Maurice Hayes, is a very experienced chairman and widely respected for his independence and ability to maintain a careful balance in inviting people to speak and in chairing debates. In Northern Ireland he sat on the Patton police commission.

Meetings and activities

The Forum has two sorts of meeting - a plenary one, which takes place in Dublin twice a month, and local meetings in other parts of Ireland. There had been two distinct phases of debate so far - first focussing on enlargement, then on the constitutional treaty.

Caroline Erskine, media officer for the Forum, said that it used to be difficult to get the media interested in Europe because there was not much polarisation between pro and anti. The first Nice referendum changed all that and now news editors were more interested. The Irish Times faithfully reported the Forum's work. There have recently been articles in Le Monde and in the Financial Times commending the Forum's work. The Forum's own website is updated every week.

The Forum holds debate competitions for schools. One fruitful decision had been to invite local newspaper editors to judge the school competitions. The Forum publishes material and a DVD with three short films on its activities. It had been important to find presenters for these who were in touch with young people and had strong personalities.

State-funded but independent

The budget for the Forum was met by the Irish government. Including the salaries of 7 or 8 staff members and all the material they produced, the expenditure was less than 1 million euros. The Irish government did get grants from Europe for information purposes but they did not go to the Forum. The fact that the Forum is state-funded does not mean that it is not independent and neutral - its Chairman and its Director have occasuonally had to refuse requests from ministers and to remind them of the neutral status of the Forum. It has been apparent that the standard of debate on the EU had improved markedly since the Forum began its work - recent polls indicated that the level of awareness of the Forum is quite high.