Irish businesses that fear a loss of foreign direct investment in an enlarged EU need to view the enlargement process as a competitive opportunity, IBEC secretary general, Mr Turlough O'Sullivan, has said.
Mr O'Sullivan said last night that Irish companies should recognise that enlargement would provide them with "an extra incentive to implement the best business practices possible".
He said IBEC was concerned that the Republic's performance in meeting an agenda set at the 2000 Lisbon summit had been "anything but tigerish".
"Ultimately, it is highly likely that our performance in this regard will prove to be much more relevant in influencing future inflows of foreign direct investment than the fact of enlargement," he said.
Addressing an audience at the Institute of European Affairs, Mr O'Sullivan said the EU currently stands at "a pivotal point in its development". He said the 10 countries currently passing through the EU accession process offered significant investment opportunities for Irish business, "as exemplified by many Irish companies currently operating there, particularly in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic".
Mr O'Sullivan said that a ratified Nice Treaty would be essential if the current enlargement round was to proceed.
"Anyone who continues to deny this fact is misleading the Irish public," he said. "To pretend that nothing has changed since last June, and tell the EU to scrap its Nice Treaty, and then to think that we will carry on as before is to live in cloud-cuckoo land," Mr O'Sullivan said, adding that the Nice Treaty was a matter of strategic national interest.
He said the Republic could be marginalised within the EU if its people declined to ratify the Nice Treaty for a second time. "I think we all know that the EU can undoubtedly live without Ireland, but can Ireland live without the EU? The choice is as simple as that."
Mr O'Sullivan also took the opportunity to call on the EU and its national governments to promote the full liberalisation of the EU's energy and financial markets, as well as supporting innovation and entrepreneurship. Mr O'Sullivan said companies across the EU needed to "benefit from sufficiently flexible labour markets, build essential infrastructure and facilitate workers in obtaining the necessary skills".
The business community does not expect the EU to be perfect, but it is nonetheless "the only show in town", he concluded.
