The answer's no
Jun 13th 2008 DUBLIN
From The Economist print edition
Ireland rejects the EU's Lisbon treaty
AFP
THE European Union has been plunged into chaos after the rejection of its latest treaty by Irish voters. EU leaders must now decide if the Lisbon treaty is dead or can be salvaged in some form—even if the cost is pushing Ireland to the fringes of the European project. Though strongly pro-European, early tallies on Friday June 13th showed Irish voters rejecting the new treaty by a hefty margin. During voting on Thursday, both supporters and opponents complained that they did not understand the highly technical text—many chose to “play safe” and say no.
The Lisbon treaty is complex. It offers sweeping changes to the way the union runs—creating a new full-time “president” to represent member states, and a foreign-policy chief to speak for Europe round the world. It also sweeps away national vetoes in some important areas of policy, such as cross-border policing and justice. Many Irish no voters voiced suspicions that the treaty would, in reality, rob their small state of clout at the EU’s top table.
Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkel of Germany are set to issue a joint response as soon as a final result is announced on Friday, calling for leaders to debate a way forwards for Lisbon at a long-planned summit in Brussels next Thursday and Friday. France takes over the rotating presidency of the EU on July 1st for a six-month stint, and is desperate not to lose a carefully planned agenda of projects on things like climate change, immigration and beefing up EU defence co-operation. Both leaders will call for sticking to that French programme: whether that is realistic remains to be seen.
Expect some EU politicians to demand that the Irish vote a second time on the treaty (and this time get their vote “right”). That has been done before: the Irish were asked to vote again after they rejected the Nice treaty in 2001, and obliged with a yes vote the following year. Federalist types will demand to know why a small country on the far-western fringes of Europe, with less than 1% of the EU population, should be allowed to deny Lisbon to 26 other states. Others, including Britain, will continue with their own ratification procedures for Lisbon, but will resist any attempt to “punish” Ireland.
A second Irish referendum would be harder to pull off this time. An economic slowdown after a long boom hung over this week’s referendum. Ireland’s economy will be in still worse shape in a few months’ time, when any second vote might be organised.
More important, the Lisbon treaty’s claims to democratic legitimacy are already threadbare. The Lisbon text is a reworking of an earlier attempt to create a constitution for the EU. That grandiose project was killed off by votes against it in twin referendums in 2005, in France and the Netherlands. It was no accident that Lisbon was a hard text to read: EU leaders were to be heard crowing last year that they had made it “unintelligible” in order to smuggle it past voters. The Lisbon treaty was specifically designed to be passed by the less risky route of parliamentary votes. Unfortunately for its fans, Ireland has to hold referendums on any treaty that amends its constitution. In the end, it was the only country in the block to hold a popular vote on the text.
The yes camp amounted to the entire Irish political establishment: the only parliamentary party to oppose Lisbon was the nationalists of Sinn Fein. Disgusted yes campaigners accused Sinn Fein and a motley collection of other anti-Lisbon groups of spreading lies about the treaty, including claims that it would impose higher taxes on Ireland, force the country to legalise abortion and undermine Irish neutrality. Lies were told, but the big parties waged a terrible, half-hearted campaign. In the face of punchy anti-treaty slogans like “Lisbon: It’ll cost you”, the main messages from the yes camp included such bland generalities as: “Europe: let’s be at the heart of it”.
Ireland now faces a fight to remain at the heart of Europe, amid calls for its marginalisation. That would be outrageous hypocrisy, of course: Ireland only had to vote on the Lisbon treaty because the French and Dutch had already voted no to the constitution. But the EU has been wounded today: do not be surprised if some of its leaders lash out.
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