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Ireland not to take part in EU battlegroups

“Ireland is not to take part in the European Union’s battlegroups due to constitutional difficulties.

The Irish Times reports that Irish defence minister Willie O’Dea ruled out participation for the foreseeable future because of major legal and constitutional difficulties.

Ireland is a neutral country and needs a UN mandate before deploying its troops.

It is foreseen that the EU battlegroups should be deployable within 10-15 days but getting a UN Security Council Resolution passed usually takes longer.

“The Security Council doesn’t pass resolutions in five to 10 days,” said Mr O’Dea adding that a resolution is “a necessary mechanism to trigger [Ireland's] participation”.

Other aspects of the battlegroup proposal - which envisions teams of up to 1,500 troops being rapidly deployed to trouble spots - are also causing problems for Ireland.

As a small country it does not have the means to provide a battlegroup on its own but was hoping to participate with other neutral countries, Finland and Sweden.

However, it appears that under a defence act of 1954, Irish troops cannot be sent abroad for training, while having foreign troops in the country may breach the Irish Constitution.

This says that there may be only one army in the state.

These revelations are set to be an embarrassment for the Irish government at the EU level as it had been part of the original decision to set up battlegroups.

The EU’s battlegroups are supposed to be ready for action by 2007.”

At what stage I wonder will the member states governments accept, and then admit that the whole process of the EU is about making that organisation the government, that being the case Ireland need not be overly concerned because there an answer to their problems.

Last night I was reading a “Report for Briefing Seminar Istanbul 2-3 July 2004- Constitutional Legal Aspects of the Integration process to the EU” by Dr Alfred E. Kellermann who concludes thus.

“Since the relationship between Community Law and National law will be regulated in the European Constitution will it then be nevertheless be necessary to regulate that relationship in the National constitutions?

Adaptation of national constitutions is necessary before and after accession. It is a moving target, which should continuously be monitored. Perhaps the time will then come for a complete revision of the national constitutions, in which the constitutional legislators will finally recognise and describe the true importance of the European integration progress in the “living constitutions” of the member states. In this respect, the situation in the EU Member States may, after all, not be so different from that of the candidate countries, which are also faced with the question whether their constitutions, despite their recent origin, may need to be changed so as to facilitate adaptation to the European Union legal order.”