FINANCE Minister Michael Noonan travels to Berlin today to convince his German counterpart not to force a referendum on Ireland.
The Government needs to reassure Germany that putting a ban on budget deficits into national legislation will be enough.
But despite weeks of arguments and negotiations, Berlin is insisting that it wants to ensure that the debt brake could not be abandoned easily, and this requires putting it into the constitution.
Germany increased the stakes during the last round of discussions, insisting that any country that does not sign up to the new fiscal treaty will not be eligible for aid from the bailout funds.
While Ireland and others convinced them to specify that nothing would interfere with the current €67 billion loan, this puts future funding in question.
If Ireland failed to pass the new treaty in a referendum or adopt the debt brake, the country would be cut off from EU funds, including money to ease the country back into the markets, according to the draft treaty.
The Government hopes to win enough support for its position before next Monday’s meeting of Eurogroup ministers in Brussels when the treaty will be the main issue.
If Mr Noonan fails to convince his colleagues that legislation on the debt break would be sufficient, the final round will be fought out by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the special EU heads summit on January 30.
Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa admitted it was difficult to know what would emerge next week.
"They [Germany] really do need to understand and Minister Noonan has to make it very clear that it’s utter nonsense to oblige Ireland to put this into the Irish Constitution," he said.
Nessa Childers, also a Labour MEP, said the pressure to put it into the Constitution was threatening the country’s sovereignty.
Government sources said they were looking at ways to convince Germany that legislation would be sufficiently binding.
One way could be if the President referred it to the Supreme Court, and if they confirmed it, nobody else could challenge it in the courts. However the President could not be forced to refer it and the court’s decision could not be predicted.
German negotiators agreed to soften the wording from insisting the treaty and its debt brake be enshrined in a country’s constitution "or equivalent", to "preferably" in the constitution.
The final draft to go before next Monday’s eurozone finance ministers is expected to be ready by the weekend.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, January 18, 2012
