In 1962, Garret FitzGerald wrote a lengthy article in Studies on ‘Political Implications of Irish Membership of the EEC’, a coherent argument proposing Ireland’s entry to the union. At the time he was an astute academic and economist of repute with a strong leaning towards public service. In this article he argued that, far from it being the case that Ireland would be giving up its hard-won sovereignty by joining a supranational entity like the EEC, membership would actually protect national sovereignty and give the country the benefits of sustained peace and economic prosperity.
Garret FitzGerald, ‘Political Implications of Irish Membership of the EEC’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 51, No. 201 (Spring, 1962), 44-81. JSTOR link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30084119 »
Political Implications of Irish Membership of the EEC
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Sharing of Sovereignty
If even association provides no very hopeful escape route from commitment to the political implications of European integration, we must then consider just what are these political implications. To say that membership of the EEC, or association with a view to membership, involves a sharing of sovereignty, is to beg this question. All international commitments involve a sharing of sovereignty in greater or lesser degree. The freedom of action of a modern State is limited by dozens of international agreements, entered into by the governments of the world with a view to smoothing the flow of international trade, and creating harmonious relations between States. The obligations which we have undertaken to other States during the four decades since independence include such varied restraints on our freedom of action as double taxation agreements, under which we agree not to tax certain profits which come within our jurisdiction; agreements restricting the radio and television frequencies to be used by Irish stations; and an OEEC agreement not to impose new quota restrictions on imports and to liberalize the quantitative restrictions on imports to Ireland that existed at the time when this agreement was signed.
These and very many other self-imposed restraints upon our freedom of action as a sovereign State are accompanied by many other limitations on our freedom of action imposed by the harsh economic realities of the world we live in. Thus while we have the right to fix our own interest rates, and to value our currency at any level we wish, our power to exercise these rights of sovereign States is effectively limited by the knowledge that the arbitrary exercise of these powers could have very serious effects upon our economy, and the living standards of our people. We could fix a bank rate of 2½% tomorrow—if we were prepared to face the consequences, the flight of capital, or the imposition of controls on capital movements, which would effectively halt the inflow of foreign capital necessary to our economic growth.
The extent of the limitations imposed upon the freedom of action of a sovereign government by its international commitments and by the social and economic realities of the modern world are widely under-estimated and misunderstood. Many of the rights theoretically inherent in a sovereign government consist in nothing more than a right to take various courses of action, all of which would in one way or the other impose such hardships on the people of the country concerned as to be unacceptable and impracticable. In considering the political implications of the sharing of sovereignty in an organization like the European Communities, then, we must distinguish clearly between the rights of independent action which we should have to give up to central institutions of the Communities, and the effective powers that we should lose—powers which under existing conditions we could actually use.
The sharing of sovereignty involved in membership of the European Communities differs notably, however, from the inroads made on sovereignty by the traditional type of international convention. In the first place the areas in respect of which sovereignty has to be ceded are far wider, and the sections of national life affected are much more extensive. Secondly, whereas in the normal international convention the limitations on sovereignty are spelled out in detail, and are not subject to any extension without the agreement of the parties concerned, the process of sharing sovereignty within the European Communities is much more flexible in character, for the participating countries agree not merely to undertake specific obligations vis à vis each other, but also agree to hand over to new international institutions control of future decisions affecting wide areas of human affairs.
There are broadly speaking three stages of sharing of sovereignty within the EEC. In respect of very many matters the member States merely agree to co-ordinate their policies, or to work together towards a common stated objective, without giving up their ultimate power of veto on any decision that may be reached. In these cases while the right of veto is retained, it nevertheless becomes in practice very difficult for any State to exercise it unreasonably, in favour of an attitude that runs clearly contrary to the spirit of the Treaties on which these Communities are based. Thus while the German Government had the right to, refuse to make any major concessions on agricultural policy during the negotiations at Brussels, at the turn of this year, and could simply have insisted on the postponement of a decision for a further year, it was psychologically impossible for the German delegation to take such a line, which would have been contrary to the spirit of the Treaties, and the ideals of the Communities.
The second stage of sharing sovereignty involves what the Treaties describe as a ‘qualified majority’. This involves a departure from the unanimity principle, but falls far short of the simple majority system that we are used to in national parliaments. For the purposes of these decisions in the Council of Ministers of the Communities the different member countries are given differing numbers of votes, which take some account of the relative size and importance of the member countries, while, however, endowing the smaller countries with a strength disproportionate to their population or wealth. Thus the three main powers—Germany, France and Italy—have four votes each in the Council of Ministers, while the Netherlands and Belgium have two votes each and Luxembourg has one. In order to pass by a qualified majority a decision must receive twelve of the seventeen votes, and must either be proposed by the European Commission (the Executive of the EEC), or must receive the support of four countries. This means that the three main powers cannot push through a project requiring a qualified majority without the support either of the European Commission or of one at least of the smaller countries—thus providing an effective guarantee against the exploitation of the smaller countries by the larger. At the same time this qualified majority system, by allowing decisions to be taken even in the face of an adverse vote by two of the six countries (or even three where the proposal has the support of the Commission), eliminates the great weakness of the traditional unanimity system, under which nothing can be done unless every country concerned is agreeable.
Finally, there is the simple majority system with which we are familiar. For major decisions this system could not be employed within a federal structure until an advanced stage of development had been attained, with confidence firmly established between member States, and fears of exploitation and power politics dissipated.
By the ingenious introduction of checks and balances these systems of decision-making can be varied almost indefinitely. Thus one proposal put forward in connection with the Union of States envisaged by the Fouchet Committee has been a mitigation of the unanimity rule proposed for the Council of Heads of State or Governments, by means of a provision that where a decision fails to achieve unanimous support it might be referred to the European Parliamentary Assembly. If passed by that body by, for example, a two-thirds majority, it could then be returned to the Council, who could then pass it by a qualified majority.
These devices to bridge the gap between the rigidity of the unanimity rule which makes progress towards a federal system impossible, and the simple majority, which would be unacceptable to all countries in the early stages of development towards a federal structure, are immensely important. The successful working of the qualified majority system within the European Communities incidentally owes much to the fact that the Executives of the Communities see it as part of their functions to protect the smaller countries against possible exploitation by the larger powers, and the balance between, for example, the Benelux countries plus the European Commission on the one hand, and France, Germany and Italy on the other has in practice proved to be a fairly even one—with the scales tipped in favour of the Commission and the Benelux countries by the absence of a united front on most issues as between the larger countries.
The range of Community decision-making under the Rome and Paris Treaties is very wide indeed. Thus, for example, the European Economic Community is concerned in the first instance with the freeing of trade between member countries in goods other than coal and steel. To ensure that free trade will be fair trade the Commission’s activities have to be extended to the control of restrictive practices, dumping and State aid. Free trade in goods also implies the right of free establishment for industry, as well as the free movement of services, of labour, and of capital. Harmonization of social security, of wages and of taxation are also involved, as well as co-operation between Governments in monetary matters in order to ensure that the consequences of freeing of trade are not frustrated by, for example, competitive devaluations of currencies.
Thus even though the responsibilities of these Communities are confined to economic matters, one thing leads to another, and the area of human affairs over which sovereignty has to be shared is a very wide one. So wide is it indeed, that it leads almost automatically (as the authors of these Treaties intended) to the sharing of sovereignty in the more purely political fields of foreign policy and defence, as well as in educational matters—viz. the areas with which the Fouchet Commission has been concerning itself. Thus failure to co-ordinate the foreign policies of countries which have pooled their sovereignty over the whole economic and social field would in the long run prove unworkable—for foreign policies cannot for long be formulated and applied in an economic vacuum, and without regard to economic considerations.
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Photo: © European Communities, 1975 / EC, Photo: Christian Lambiotte