Ireland enjoys its time in the European sun

Political Editor Harry McGee says Europe’s problems were put aside for an unreal day.

IT WAS an unreal day. Dublin felt unfamiliar. It basked in early summer sunshine. Driving through the streets, it felt like a South American capital city immediately after a coup. There were few civilians about but, everywhere you looked, there were clusters of gardaí in day-glo yellow jackets and riot gear.

The bus ride at noon from the city centre to Farmleigh around the perimeter of the Phoenix Park was a weird journey. As we came closer to Farmleigh, we passed a large army camp. Inside the Park itself, heavy artillery had been set up to deter an unknown, theoretical enemy.

Once inside the Park, though, the atmosphere changed to one of complete serenity. It was a beautiful day and the setting was magnificent mature trees, long grasses with yellow splashes of buttercups, and an accommodating blue sky. The day-long ceremony that ushered in one of the most momentous shifts in European political life since the Second World War panned out into laid-back affair. There was the solemn stuff but it wasn't disproportionate.

What the day marked also seemed an unreal prospect only 10 or 15 years ago. The accession of 10 new states has increased the population of the European Union, at a stroke, by 75 million to 450 million. The new states comprising two small Mediterranean states and, significantly, eight former Eastern Block countries makes the EU the world's second biggest economic bloc and its third biggest population bloc.

And for one day, Ireland was no longer at the edge but at the centre of a new Europe of 25 hosting an enlargement that may bring untold possibilities but will also bring untold challenges and dangers.

Billed as a "Day of Welcomes", the focus was as you'd expect on the celebratory and self-congratulatory. We got some of the hand-on-heart and evocative stuff.

That was to be expected. Only 15 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet Empire, its former satellites were now aligned and integrating with the west. For the first time in history, a shift of that magnitude had happened peacefully and democratically, and not because of war or annexation or threats.

After a messy week on the domestic front, it turned out to be one of Bertie Ahern's best days since he became Taoiseach in 1997. He was in his element. You could see it from his body language, the spring in his step, his comfortable and relaxed manner. As the silver limousines pulled up outside Farmleigh he greeted each of the leaders like old friends, accompanying the hellos with a joke and a brotherly slap on the back.

There was one nice little indicator of the laid-back vibe of the day. As the leaders posed for a "family portrait" outside Farmleigh, it was noticed that one of their number was missing. The straggler was Tony Blair whose excuse was that he had been listening to the football scores.

Surprisingly, on a day of symbolism and visuals, there was a fair deal of substance in the press conference on Saturday morning. The subjects ranged across all the major challenges facing the Union the Constitution; Europe's developing common defence policies; the prospects of Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Turkey acceding; Iraq; terrorism and possible successors to Romano Prodi as the next President of the Commission.

On the Constitution, Ahern said that he would start keep trying to reach agreement on the Treaty.

"There are enormous difficulties if we try to continue on the way we are going. Today we now have 25. Obviously it's going to be more difficult, technically and administratively.

"We really do believe and I have been on the Council a long time in one form or another that change is essential," he said.

Pat Cox was having none of the negativity either. A British journalist asked him if he though the Union of 25 would be dominated by a small axis of Western States.

"That is a very British question," he said in a barbed reply before taking an indignant swipe at the naysayers.

"We must be evidence led and not prejudice led. We have seen the reductionism of this wonderful moment of enlargement into tabloid headlines in so many places that should know better, about floods of migrants.

"The only flood we have seen is the flood of tabloid ink and prejudice," he railed.

Cox had no hesitation in setting out his stall on the defence elements of the Constitution. His own views would not enjoy widespread support in this country.

He pointed to the Srebrenica massacre and the "shame and shamefulness" of the EU's inertia at the time.

The defence policies he said, do "not require a single army. It does not require of us a single policy. But it does demand of us a common capacity to resolve to do more together, pooling our respective sovereignties when we choose to do so. To do otherwise would be unconscionable. No more Srebrenicas. That should be the logic and that's why we must do it."

Of course, Mr Cox's own name is being mentioned in the round as Commission president. He himself repeated that he will tell the world about his intentions on Wednesday.

Mr Ahern was careful about all this and gave a holding response.

"I think there are a number of very prominent and very outstanding people whose names are being floated, some of them seriously.

"Over the next five or six weeks, it will be my task to talk to all of my colleagues. I do believe we will get an extremely good President," he said.

There were a couple of niggling questions but most were parked for another day. For many of the new EU states, democracy is a relatively new concept.

The gap in wealth and income between the new entrants and the well-heeled countries that drive the Union is worryingly large. Latvia is very poor with an average income of about €270 a month (in Ireland, it is closer to €270 a week). The catch-up for these countries will take a long time. And now with 25 countries in, decision-making, consensus and pooling will be difficult and unwieldy. The institutions of Europe the Parliament, Commission and Council were conceived when the membership was only six. It's obvious that new arrangements are needed and that negotiations on the Treaty cannot be allowed to drag on.

The security arrangements on Saturday were unbelievable, but reflected a couple of new realities, not all of them good. President Bush's disastrous invasion of Iraq has done diddly-squat in the pursuance of values to which he pays lip service. By consequence, Europe and its political establishments are targets. After Madrid, it is foolish to take any chances.

Sorry, we had almost forgotten about the riot. The 7,500 security personnel weren't drafted in to tackle the sad ragbag of idiots who were crusin' for a bruisin'. You need to be careful about language and about hyping things up.

Most newspapers and indeed the top Garda brass had spent the whole week hyping all of this up. The "riot" that occurred was just a skirmish that was well contained. About a hundred morons managed to undermine the peaceful (and justified) protests that had taken place that day.

The EU, despite the gallant efforts of Senator Maurice Hayes's Forum for Europe, seems like a remote entity and concept to most ordinary citizens. That image isn't helped when the leaders are protected from the people by a security cordon

In context, they are only quibbles. It was an unreal day. And on a serene, sun-splattered May Day, it was Seamus Heaney who found the apt words to describe the sense of occasion, the momentous change.

Outside Áras an Uachtaráin, he read from Beacons at Bealtaine, the poem he had written for the occasion.

"So on a day when newcomers appear.

Let it be a homecoming and let us speak.

The unstrange word, as it behoves us here."