Spectre of terrorism stalked the European stage

THE spectre of international terrorism stalked Europe during the late 1970s with far-left groups such as the German Baader-Meinhof gang (later the Red Army Faction) and Italian Red Brigades the focus of cross border security operations.

But a renewed push, led by France, for a quick extradition system between EEC member states left Ireland diplomatically isolated during 1978. The government was intent on negotiating an opt-out so they would not be forced to hand over republican suspects to Britain.

The Irish ambassador in Paris, in a December 17, 1977, letter to foreign affairs, linked increased pressure on Ireland to sign up to the European convention on the suppression of terrorism to the hasty extradition of Klaus Croissant, a lawyer and associate of the Baader Meinhof gang, from France to West Germany.

The speed of president Giscard d’Estaing’s decision to allow the extradition in November 1977 had caused uproar with criticism not only from the French Left, but also from Gaullist leader Jack Chirac. As ambassador, Hugh McCann saw the move as an attack on “a long and deeply rooted tradition of political asylum in France” which through the years had been used by “the Maud Gonnes and John O’Learys of many countries.”

In response, president Giscard was seen as intent on “merging the emotive German question into a wider context” by pushing for all EEC member states to sign up to a strengthened inter-state extradition agreement. The French presented their idea of creating what was termed a “l’espace judicarie european” (or “European legal area”) throughout the EEC’s nine member states to their European partners in December 1977.

The proposals gained support from most other states, including Britain, but set alarm bells ringing among Irish diplomats, who had refused to sign the anti-terror convention in early 1977 due to existing concerns over its extradition clauses.

Department of foreign affairs official Hugh Swift, in an April 12, 1978, note, stated that the French concept “must be qualified in the Northern Ireland context and that their ideas of automatically and simplified procedure may give rise to serious political as well as legal problems.”

While publicly the government denied they were under pressure from other EEC states to sign up to stronger anti-terrorism agreements, saying there was respect for Ireland’s “constitutional” position, privately officials felt otherwise.

In August Mr Swift wrote to a Mr Corcoran at the office of Ireland’s permanent representative on the Council of Europe, about a new anti-terrorism declaration for which agreement was being sought. Referring to a widely reported address made by taoiseach Jack Lynch to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party in which claims that the republic was a “safe haven for terrorists” were refuted, Mr Swift said: “In the course of this address, the taoiseach specifically denied the allegations then current and originating from British ministers, that we were under pressure in Europe to accede to the European convention on the suppression of terrorism. The present draft declaration would constitute an example of such pressure. It is not, in my opinion fanciful to imagine that the declaration may be the result of British influence in the Council of Europe.” However, he felt the draft declaration should be “vigorously opposed”.

Ireland would eventually sign up to an anti-terrorism agreement with its EEC partners in December 1979 which allowed a state to decide to try an offender itself rather then extradite them.

Ireland eventually signed up to European convention on the suppression of terrorism in February 1986, although the convention did not come into full force here until 1989.