Cowen warns Irish voters could face another treaty referendum

IRISH voters could be forced to go to the polls in yet another EU referendum on a strengthening of eurozone rules in the wake of the Greek crisis.

Less than a year after a second vote on the Lisbon treaty, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said the prospect of more treaty changes is being put forward by Germany and other countries in discussions on how to avoid a repeat of the situation in Greece.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has made clear the package to help Greece by the other 15 members of the eurozone was a one-off, and changes to the EU rules were needed to prevent it from happening again.

Before meeting other EU leaders last night, Mr Cowen said that, while there isn’t an appetite for more treaty changes, “frankly, as far as some countries are concerned, nothing is off the table.”

He was responding to questions from the former chairman of the Federal Reserve and an economic adviser to Barack Obama, Paul Volcker, who said during a conference in Dublin that the currency is “challenged”. He told Mr Cowen that the Greek situation “seems to raise some real questions about the governing structures in Europe”.

Mr Cowen responded: “The EU has conducted a constitutional debate for a number of years finally culminating in the Lisbon treaty – itself of course a series of political compromises. And I don’t detect that there was a huge appetite beyond the ratification of that treaty to then engage in further opening up of that debate.”

Speaking before he left for Brussels for a meeting of EU heads of state, Mr Cowen said leaders and finance ministers were “reviewing our present arrangements” in relation to the euro to “add credibility to the currency.”

He told a session of the Trilateral Commission in Dublin: “Germany and others have left open the prospect in these discussions, without predetermining the outcome, of further treaty changes being envisaged. Whether we will emerge in these discussions with a change, or whether we will require further treaty change is a point that I can’t decipher or give a prediction on at the moment,” he said.