An alternative vision for Europe

BY FERN LANE

Bairbre de Brún

Sinn Féin has an alternative, radical vision for Europe; a vision that corresponds to the party's agenda for change in Ireland. Addressing the Ard Fheis during the EU and Neutrality debate on Friday evening, EU parliamentary candidate Bairbre de Brún set out the party's policy on the European Union.

Sinn Féin's vision, she said, is one "which seeks to restore Ireland's national sovereignty whilst at the same time operating on the basis of equality with other nations for our good and theirs".

Not only does Sinn Féin want an EU of equals, she continued, but also "a globally responsible EU, an economically and socially just EU. We want to be part of an EU with institutions that promote national, collective and individual human rights; a union that works towards full employment, housing, health and education for all its citizens. We want to build a Europe that leads the way in the cancellation of debt in the developing world, that is nuclear free, that protects the environment and that welcomes and trades fairly with other regions."

Unfortunately, however, the current reality is far from this vision, she said. Rather, "we have an EU where 55 million people still face poverty and social exclusion. We have an EU where decision-makers are more concerned with slamming shut the doors of fortress Europe rather than dealing with the endemic poverty and conflicts that exist across the world that drive refugees and others to seek a better life within the borders of the European Union."

But this reality is not inevitable, she said. It can and should change, and to that end Sinn Féin will engage constructively with EU institutions. If elected, Sinn Féin MEPs would work to bring about the radical changes contained in the party's broad ranging agenda for Europe and would demand "radical reform of the orientation of the European Union".

Sinn Féin Councillor Eoin Ó Broin told delegates that the forthcoming European elections hold out the very real possibility that, for the first time in Irish history, Irish republican MEPs will be voted onto the EU Parliament. He said that "the profound implications for the peace process, for the nationalist community in the north, for the all Ireland struggle and indeed for a more positive voice in the EU should not be underestimated".

He added that it was important to remind the public, and the media, that Sinn Féin is not an anti-Europe party. "Yes, we are opposed to the current direction of the European Union integration project," he said, "but we have a positive alternative for the European Union; one which is democratic, one which is transparent, one which prioritises social and economic justice and political and cultural equality."

Speaking on Irish neutrality, Dublin EU candidate Mary Lou McDonald told the Ard Fheis that military neutrality "has been a core republican value since the time of the United Irishmen, and in keeping with this tradition we in Sinn Féin have committed ourselves to a policy of positive neutrality in action".

This policy, she said is about "actively asserting our rights and duties as a neutral state, including the responsibility not to collude in war by allowing our airports to be used a refuelling bases for foreign armies".

Positive neutrality, she continued, should be about recognising that "the world's most deadly weapons of mass destruction are poverty, hunger, disease and injustice. Positive neutrality commits us to tackling the social, political and economic roots of instability and conflict."

Positive neutrality should also be about "rejecting any EU role in security and defence and instead actively promoting the United Nations as the only fully inclusive and thereby only legitimate forum for resolving international conflict, recognising that significant reform is urgently necessary to strengthen the UN's capacity to uphold international law".