EU: The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has welcomed proposed amendments to the EU's draft constitutional treaty that would take account of Ireland's common law system.
However, he said the amendments would need to go a good deal further to satisfy the Government's concerns about abolishing national vetoes in some areas of criminal justice.
"There are certain aspects of our criminal justice system which we regard as ones in which we must retain full competence. They are the fundamental principles of how it works. These should not be capable of being swept away in the wake of approximation measures without our interests being taken into account. At the moment our position is that we are insisting in those areas on unanimity," he said.
EU foreign ministers arrive in Naples today for two days of talks designed to break the deadlock over the treaty in advance of next month's EU summit.
Italy, which holds the EU presidency, has proposed amendments which would allow countries such as Ireland to refer to EU leaders issues that impinge fundamentally on their legal system.
Mr McDowell said the move was positive but suggested that the mechanism fell short of an "emergency brake" procedure that would effectively give Ireland a veto.
"It's what I would call a clutch rather than a brake. The engine comes off but the car doesn't necessarily come to a halt. So there's a lot more work to do on this," he said.
Mr McDowell said that, while a reference in the amendments to the common law system was welcome, it was not enough to reassure the Government.
"It is a positive development but acknowledgements in a kind of rhetorical way are not what we're interested in. We're actually interested in clear, concrete constitutional provisions. For instance, there's always a rhetorical acknowledgement of the need for subsidiarity but in the last analysis, it only means whatever it means on any given day. You can talk about it but you can't achieve much with it against a determined majority against you. The same applies in this area," he said.
Mr McDowell was speaking in Brussels, where EU justice ministers yesterday agreed on tougher anti-drugs laws, setting minimum terms for the maximum sentences for some offences.
The Netherlands claimed after the meeting, however, that its "coffee shops", where cannabis is sold openly, will not be affected by the agreement.
