The four Irishmen who sat in a room in Brussels 50 years ago on 18 January 1962 were not altogether at ease. They had a lot on their minds. And they had a lot in their briefcase – some 3,500 pages of reports, presentations, declarations, records and appendices.
They were about to take a big step that they were not entirely sure was the right one. The possible consequences were unpredictable but they would certainly commit Ireland to a major change in its economic and social life for the foreseeable future.
The men were Mr Frank Biggar, Irish Ambassador to Belgium, Dr TK Whitaker, Secretary of the Department of Finance, Mr Jack Lynch, Minister for Industry and Commerce and, at their head, Mr Seán Lemass, the Taoiseach.
They were in Brussels to present to the European Economic Community, as the European Union was then known, Ireland’s formal application for full membership.
At the time, the EEC was just five years old and had only six members – France, Italy, Germany and the three Benelux countries. The Irish team could never have foreseen that 50 years later, after having twice changed its name and taken on new members, it would develop into the present European Union of 27 countries.
As far as Ireland was concerned, the application that Mr Lemass presented to Walter Hallstein, the President of the EEC Commission, that January day in 1962, marked the watershed between the Ireland of de Valera’s “comely maidens dancing at the crossroads” and the Ireland that was to breed the Celtic Tiger and all that followed.
Of the four men in the Irish delegation, the member most committed to the idea of the EEC was Dr Whitaker. It was he who had already convinced Lemass that de Valera’s visions of a self-sufficient Ireland, living on its own produce and manufacturing all it needed at home in tariff-protected factories, was a pipe dream. With Lemass’s backing he had begun to turn Ireland into one of the world’s leading free trading countries.
The success of this policy encouraged him to press Lemass to seek EEC membership. From being champion of industrial protectionism the Taoiseach had a Damascene conversion into a European crusader. Against opposition from Civil Service conservatives, Fianna Fáil traditionalists and clerical conformists, but backed by popular support with an eye on European subventions, he became a complete convert.
The Brussels reaction to the Taoiseach and his colleagues was not an “Oh you’re Irish; Come into the parlour” welcome. Ireland’s neutrality in World War II and its refusal to join NATO raised suspicion about the country‘s willingness to join a European defence organisation.
Her ability to remove or reduce tariffs quickly and comprehensively was doubted. Her economic dependence on a UK whose European bona fides were distrusted was seen as a problem.
That evening, after the Irish application had been filed away, a tired but relieved Taoiseach gave me an off the record interview.
He told me that Ireland had no alternative but to join the EEC.
The days of a Europe divided into a jigsaw puzzle of independent little states was over. The world trend was for small states to surrender part of their sovereignty to protect themselves economically as well as militarily. Unfortunately, that would lead to a greater degree of cultural imperialism.
Irish culture was bound to change, regrettably, in some aspects, for the worse. Ireland would certainly have to permit divorce and artificial contraception. Many other changes would follow.
He foresaw Ireland becoming part of a European military force and being committed to fight if another member state, including the UK, was attacked. In any case, he said, Irish neutrality was not a fixed policy; it was a tactic to deal with a particular situation, meaning our claim on Northern Ireland.
After the Brussels meeting, the Irish Government hoped that negotiations would begin in a few weeks’ time. When that showed no signs of happening it began a diplomatic drive to win support from the authorities of the six existing EEC members.
It was a strategy that would be continued for the following decade. Obstruction after obstruction held up our application, the main one being de Gaulle’s veto on the UK’s membership. It was not until de Gaulle was no longer President of France and Lemass was no longer Taoiseach that the UK and Ireland were admitted.
The delay was something about which I had tried in my own way to forewarn the Irish people or, at least, those of them who read the Irish Press. Six weeks or so after the Irish application had been handed over, Walter Hallstein accepted my request for an interview.
After a few preliminary remarks, I asked him straight out: What did you think of the Irish application? He looked at me for a good ten seconds, as if he were making up his mind. Then turning to the cabinet on his left, he opened a drawer. He took out a heavy sheaf of paper, which I immediately recognised.
“There’s the Irish application,” he said. “I have not even looked at it since Mr. Lemass gave it to me.”
I was taken aback. “The Irish won’t like to hear that”, I said. “A lot of hard work went into it. The Irish people are very anxious to get a quick and favourable reply.”
“It’s nothing to do with the application itself,” he said. “The position is this. If the UK joins the EEC, Ireland will too. If the UK stays out, so will Ireland.”
I did not delay him much longer. I knew that was very bad news for Ireland and that there was nothing more President Hallstein could add. I had my story, a good one from a journalistic point of view and, as it happened, my last story after eight years as the Press’s London Editor.
Next day I looked to see whether it had made the lead on page 1 as I expected. It was not on page 1. Nor on page 2 or page 3. There was no sign of it in the Irish Press of January 19, 1962. I believe it was spiked, as we journalists say when a story is killed.
I was too busy in my new job to follow things up. I have no evidence for it but my belief is that Major Vivion de Valera, the Managing Director, had referred the story to the Taoiseach who had given it the thumbs down on the grounds that it would harm himself, cause alarm among the nation and damage the Government and Fianna Fáil.
It was not till 11 years later, after Lemass and de Gaulle were both dead, on January 1 1973, that Ireland, along with the UK and Denmark, finally joined the EEC.
Desmond Fisher
