WIP

Ten Questions with Ambassador John Bruton

by: Adrian O'Higgins

Adrian O’Higgins: Ambassador Bruton, firstly thank you for taking he time to speak to me today. My first question is how would you describe how you got to where you are today?

Ambassador John Bruton: Well I became the Ambassador here by virtue of a decision by the external relations commissioner of the time Chris Patton who decided he wanted a political ambassador in Washington on the grounds that Washington was a hugely influential and political place. Europe needed to be represented here and understood here so it was decided to appoint a EU ambassador to the US.

AOH: Do you think that an enlarged Europe can integrate as quickly as the original 15 pre-2004?

JB: I think the bigger he Union becomes the more difficult agreement will be in general. A unanimous agreement for Treaty change or new powers will be more difficult in a bigger Union. However, the more reach the Union has the more influence it has on the world stage overall.

AOH: Are there similarities between the European Union’s development and that of the development of the United States? Is there anything we could learn from that development?

JB: It’s hard to tell really. The European Union remains a Union of Member States. Sovereignty ultimately remains with those states as opposed to the Union itself. States are free to withdrawal from the Union if they so wish unlike in the United States. Will that change? Well I think that would require some major world event which would call into question the sovereignty of the bigger member states in order for them to give their power to a larger identity. I couldn’t foresee such an event but you’d never know.

I think our system in he European Union is closer to that of the US then it is to the internal systems of our member states. I don’t think there is anything in terms of political organisation that we need to learn. One thing that is stronger in the United States is their emphasis on freedom of speech in comparison to Europe. People speak their mind here and there is a slightly less tendency to take offence in what is said. In Europe there tends to be a governing consensus and if you speak outside of that consensus you may not be as accepted as you would be in this country. In a broad sense that’s true. There is more tolerance of diverging opinions I think. However this conformism is found in most places including the US.

AOH: Focusing more on your personal career, what do you think is your greatest political achievement?

JB: I find those questions very difficult to answer. My main contributions would be bringing peace to the Island and the bringing of unprecedented prosperity to the country but of course in neither of those cases was I the sole contributor. I was one of those contributors as Minister for Finance, as Minister for Industry and Commerce dealing with industrial policy and then as Taoiseach. Ireland enjoyed unprecedented growth from 1994 until about 2000. Subsequently I think the growth after 2000 was fuelled by other things which have fallen apart since.

The modernisation of Ireland economically was one of he things I contributed to. I also contributed to peace in Ireland in particular by demonstrating that there are people in the south of Ireland who are willing to listen to both sides in Northern Ireland and who are willing to hear a Unionist point of view expressed freely. To listen to whatever merits are in the argument without dismissing them because of who is saying what is said. Giving voice to that feeling was an important role to be played against a background where all previous politicians basically espouse the Nationalist point of view without question and only speak to the Unionists to the extent that they wanted to change their mind. That was never going to go anywhere and I think I contributed to that change and therefore created a different atmosphere which made the Good Friday Agreement possible.

AOH: Do you have any opinion on the current economic and political situation in Ireland?

JB: Of course I do but I’m not engaged in Irish politics anymore. I think we’re facing pretty serious decisions with regard to the country’s finances and I think those are decisions which ought not to be postponed because the longer the postponement the longer the compound interest on our debt which works against us. We had succeeded in getting our debt down to a very low level and that’s now rising very fast. We must ensure we stay within our ability to service them.

AOH: Do you feel as if Fine Gael’s fortunes will improve in the future then?

JB: While I’m still in this job I don’t want to start talking about party politics in Ireland really. Although I am a member of Fine Gael and entitled to be, I’m not engaged in active politics. The fact that the country was still very prosperous influenced elections in 2002 and 2007 in favour of the sitting government. Now I think people were beginning to wonder how real it was in 2007 but I think we’ve seen a different opinion being expressed in 2009 but I’d really prefer not to go into that.

AOH: What would be your best piece of advice for any aspiring politician?

JB: You have to strike a balance in any political career between reading, studying and understanding at lest some of the issues at a reasonable dept and not looking at them solely by their political feasibility but also by what’s right, what represents the best thought on the subject in question. You need to give time to that and you need to give time to the grassroots, constituency service and meeting people. These are important if you want to be a successful local politician. You can’t have one to the exclusion of the other. If you spend your whole time studying policy you won’t be very effective because you wouldn’t get enough votes quite simply! If on the other hand you spend all your time on grassroots type issues and don’t look at longer term deeper questions you might as well not be in politics. You won’t do anything or achieve anything. To achieve things you have to know what you want and to want something worthwhile you’ve got to study the issues. So essentially you need to do both.

AOH: Looking at the bigger issues surrounding Europe, what do you see as the greatest challenge facing the Union?

JB: My sense would tell me that in the medium term we have got to go a good bit further in making the European Union more democratic in a popular sense. We need to be able to allow the public identify themselves through the electoral as Europeans as well as being Irish or French or whomever. The current European Parliament elections don’t really do that because they are elections in individual member states where national issues predominate. My view is that we should have some genuinely Europe wide election either for President of the Commission or President of the Council or even for a certain section of the MEPs to be elected at large throughout the whole of Europe. Any one of those would create a real European election.

In the absence of that we need to have a conversation Europe wide to create a European identity. We need to have a European identity of some kind to underpin the European Union to the degree that it could withstand crises that may arise in the future. The bigger the Union becomes the more susceptible it is to face crises that it might not be able to overcome. Unless there is proactive work to develop this European identity, the best way to do that is through politics and he electoral process by the way, I don’t think that giving courses in school about European history is good enough. I mean its good but its just not good enough. Civics courses are just not enough to create that identity. Lectures stating that you should study the Lisbon Treaty may be necessary but its just not enough.

AOH: Final question. You’ve had an amazing life experience and much success. Do you have a life philosophy that you believe has contributed to your success?

JB: Well I wouldn’t dignify it as a life philosophy but one thing that I picked up from my father when I was watching him as I grew up is generally to believe the best of other people. You’ll not always be right but you’re often more right then you are wrong if you believe that people are well motivated. They may do stupid things or they may do things that are wrong but very often they may do it in part out of a good motive. So I think if you look for the good motive you’ll be happier yourself and you’ll make them a little bit less unhappy and life will work a bit better for you. That I think is generally a good philosophy for life. Obviously its important as well for a young person to realise that having a stable family relationship is a very important thing. That’s something that requires work and attention. Its not something that you’re just entitled to. Its something that you have to work hard at.

AOH: Ambassador, thank you very much.

&nbs