Former Taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald hailed the European Union as a model of modern peace-making today (Thurs Dec 15) and urged the EU to influence the United States to embrace its positive values.

Delivering the Tip O’Neill Lecture at the University of Ulster, he appealed to the EU to harness widespread international backing for its way of doing things but warned that time was not on its side.

“In the longer run, only a cohesive European effort to promote globally its new value system offers a hope of influencing the US to develop similar values.  The same is true in relation to Russia and, eventually, China,” he said at the Magee campus in Derry.

Dr FitzGerald, who served two terms as Taoiseach in the 1980’s, praised Ireland’s leading role in EU peace-keeping operations.

But he questioned one aspect of its stance on neutrality which, he said, some member states must view as “eccentric”, namely Ireland’s opt-out from the peace initiative that prevented civil war in Macedonia two years ago, because of a Chinese veto on peace-keeping action there due to Macedonia’s recognition of Taiwan.

The distinguished statesman, who led Fine Gael for 10 years, was speaking on “Europe’s Role in World Peace” at the invitation of Nobel Peace Laureate Professor John Hume, who holds the Tip O’Neill Chair of Peace Studies.

“To an extent which we still fail to recognise, large parts of the world now associate Europe with a philosophy of humanity, solidarity, and integration,” he declared. “The EU is seen as a model of the way to approach international affairs. It has become the prime inspiration for the African Union, Mercosur in South America, the Central America Free Trade Association, Asean in East Asia, and the Gulf Co-operation Council.”

Dr FitzGerald said: “ The EU’s potential role in spreading peace should not be under-estimated: I believe that its example will in time spread beyond Europe’s boundaries - especially as this example is reinforced by its active role in peace-keeping in other continents, and by the seven specifically European values that it espouses….”

The Tip O’Neill Chair, which is supported by The Ireland Funds, commemorates the late Speaker of the US House of Representatives, who was renowned for his commitment to the promotion of peace, reconciliation and justice in Northern Ireland.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan delivered the lecture at Magee in October 2004.  Other leading figures who have given it include Senator Edward Kennedy; Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission; Michel Rocard, former Prime Minister of France; Taoiseach Bertie Ahern,as President of European Council of Ministers; Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament.

Dr FitzGerald was welcomed by the university’s Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Richard Barnet, Magee Provost Professor Tom Fraser and Professor Hume.

Professor Hume described Dr FitzGerald as “highly respected international figure, one of whose priorities as Taoiseach was always peace and justice in Northern Ireland.”

Professor Hume said: “Today we have the biggest revolution in world history – the technological, telecommunications and transport revolution. As a result of that, the world is a much smaller place and we all are in a much stronger position to shape it. Therefore, the American and European Union leaderships should work together and take the necessary steps to shape a world where war and conflict is a thing of the past.”

Dr FitzGerald, in a wide-ranging address, charted Europe’s changing fortunes, spanning centuries when it waged war outside its boundaries, to colonial domination by its powerful nations, the devastating effects of two world wars, the rise of the US and USSR as Great Powers and Western Europe’s fledgling efforts to secure internal peace and prosperity through co-operation that spawned today’s expanded European Union.

Dr FitzGerald cited seven initiatives which he said demonstrated both the progress Europe had made in the past 60 years and the extent to which that progress differentiated it from most other parts of the world, including democracies such as the United States. They were

Commitment to international law:

Acceptance of a supra-national Human Rights Court at Strasbourg:

Creation of a European Zone of Peace and increasing dedication of European national armies to peace-keeping:

Substitution of aid for colonisation:

Abolition of capital punishment:

European initiative on global ecological action:

International Criminal Court

European nations had gradually evolved common foreign approaches, e.g. towards the Middle East and US militarization in South America. The collapse of the Soviet Union had been followed by fears of an eruption of national disputes between neighbouring eastern European states but in most cases “the pulling power of the Union’s Zone of Peace proved irresistible.”

Dr FitzGerald spoke of the EU’s initial failure agree a common policy on the Western Balkans and said that the humiliation and shame of the Yugoslav debacle had finally forced it to develop not just a belated common policy on the Balkans, but a much wider European Security and Development Policy. 

“The rapidity with which the EU’s role in peace-keeping has developed has been quite remarkable,” Dr FitzGerald continued, listing a dozen projects currently under way in eight countries of Europe, Asia and Africa.

“The result of all this rapidly developing peace-keeping and peace enforcement activity is that Europe is now an extraordinary positive force in the world.  It has the possibility of influencing the US eventually towards a similar approach - drawing on opposition within the US to American abuses of power.  And it has a potential influence also on Russia and China.

“But all this depends upon Europe acting cohesively, and gaining and keeping its moral leadership.  In the longer run only a cohesive European effort to promote globally its new value system offers a hope of influencing the US to develop similar values.  The same is true in relation to Russia and, eventually, China.

“And time is running against Europe….For Europe to exert the kind of positive moral leadership that the world needs at this juncture, it needs to act coherently especially during the quarter century ahead.”

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Martin Cowley
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