Immigration has proved to be a source of "great strength" to the Irish economy, EU commissioner for internal market and services Charlie McCreevy has said.
Addressing the Europe Week conference in Galway yesterday, Mr McCreevy admitted that he would have seen immigration as a "problem" if asked for his views on it 20 years ago. "I'd have felt we had enough people on the island," he said.
However, this was not his view now and yet he could understand the "great uncertainty" among some EU member states about the economic impact of further enlargement.
It was against this "insecure" background that the EU was attempting to achieve agreement on a new European constitution, Mr McCreevy said. However, support for the new constitution was essential for a strong and efficient Europe which promoted and defended the interests of all Europeans.
The greatest risk to European integration's values in terms of peace, stability was that they would be taken for granted, and no more so than in Ireland where 40 per cent of the population was not even born when Ireland joined the EU.
"Ireland may also underestimate the extent to which the second World War shaped the world view identity of others," McCreevy said, "because it had felt the brunt of the war less directly than many fellow Europeans."
Despite "a lot of the heat" that had surrounded debate on the European constitution, it did not propose to alter the fundamental nature of the union in any way, he continued. The constitution did not afford the EU any significant new powers, but strengthened the role of the European Parliament and also offered citizens a stronger hand.
Under its remit, a petition of a million citizens could invite the European Commission to bring forward an initiative for legislative action.
The constitution did not have the brevity or "elegance of prose" of the US constitution, Mr McCreevy acknowledged, but it was "not supposed to". It was a document designed to improve the workings of a complex organisation 50 years into its existence.
