The chairman of the European Movement has called on the Green Party and other anti-treaty groups to stop "misinforming" the public on security aspects of the Amsterdam Treaty. Mr Alan Dukes also blamed the media for the "information gap" on the treaty.
At the movement's introduction of an explanatory treaty brochure yesterday, Mr Dukes criticised the "barrage of outrageous claims by certain organisations and individuals who assert that a vote for the Amsterdam Treaty is a vote to end Irish neutrality".
The treaty did not provide for a common defence policy and it did not merge the EU with the Western European Union, he said. "It is only the Irish people who can sanction by referendum our joining a European common defence, if that was ever agreed."
It was "curious" that the media published uncritically the "most extraordinary claims" made by treaty opponents. Yet the "measured" arguments of those in favour of it were not published at all. The media had fallen for the oldest ploy in the book, he said, where people claiming to get no coverage "shout loudly and then get loads of coverage".
"As a politician, I'm used to 90 per cent of my material ending up on the cutting-room floor. But as chairman of the European Movement, I'm angry that 99 per cent of the material we send the media on Europe ends up there." He called on the Green Party, the Peace and Neutrality Alliance and the National Platform to refrain from "inaccurate and totally misleading" statements on the treaty.
Supporting the Government's decision to hold the referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty on the same day as that on the Northern Ireland Agreement, Mr Dukes was confident "Irish people can walk and chew gum at the same time".
"In every election, people make up their minds on a series of complex issues. It was "specious" to say people needed more time to make up their minds on the treaty, Mr Dukes said. Postponing the referendum would achieve nothing.
The brochure produced by the European Movement, Amsterdam - the People's Treaty - European Common Foreign and Security Policy - Your Questions Answered - poses and answers several questions about the treaty. Special emphasis is laid upon the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the target for many of the criticisms from the anti-treaty side.
