The newly-elected leader of the liberal group in the European Parliament, Mr Pat Cox MEP, has called for a change in Irish neutrality policy to allow support for military intervention in Kosovo.
Speaking in Stasbourg yesterday at his first press conference as president of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party, the third-largest in the European Parliament, he called for the EU to support immediate direct major intervention by NATO/ WEU forces in Kosovo to prevent another Bosnian situation arising there. "We have a duty, moral, ethical and political, to act," he said.
Pressed on the implications of this for Ireland he said Ireland's traditional neutrality was "an example of our tendency in the modern world not to countenance appropriate military action". We could not be neutral on military intervention in Kosovo, he said, "as it is a matter of morality and ethics".
Mr Cox said that Mr Slobodan Milosevic had learned the lesson of Bosnia and that high-profile, genocidal outrages provoked anger and galvanised the international community.
"By lowering the intensity [of his military action] without changing his objective Mr Milosevic knows that a village a day will keep the West away. He has learned to play the international community like an old violin," he said. "Unless he is stopped he will go on bullying," he said, and added that if the West failed to intervene "we can anticipate a humanitarian disaster in the Balkans next winter".
Ideally, he said, any intervention should have the support of the UN, but he doubted whether Russia would countenance it. In the circumstances he felt military action would be "a form of diplomacy" in that it would create the conditions for peace. A review of Irish policy on neutrality was long overdue, he said. The debate "has to be opened up, and it should be realised that all that is moral and ethical is not on the side of those who support neutrality. Circumstances have changed and our relationship with the WEU has changed," he said.
Addressing the issue of MEPs' expenses, Mr Cox spoke of his group's deeply-felt frustration at the slow pace of reform. He believed expenses should be paid only for costs incurred and that all MEPs should be paid the same flat rate of income, rather than the present situation where the salary is related to that of politicians in their own countries. Last night the parliament's controlling bureau decided to defer discussion on expenses.
