Coalition must learn from other referenda

The best efforts of the Brussels bureaucrats, it seems, were not enough.

When the German minister for European affairs came to Dublin last week, he admitted that EU officials had tried to design the fiscal compact treaty in such a way as to make a referendum unnecessary.

But they failed in that task, with Attorney General Máire Whelan yesterday advising the Government that a referendum was required to ratify it here.

Now the Government has a major challenge on its hands in getting the referendum passed.

In keeping with his repeated assertions that his administration did not fear holding a referendum, Taoiseach Enda Kenny yesterday said he was “very confident” that the public would “emphatically” endorse the treaty.

But for a more realistic view of the feeling in the Cabinet, one needs to look at the recent comments of a couple of his ministers.

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar expressed fears that a referendum would simply turn into a protest vote against Government cutbacks. “I would be concerned that it would turn into a referendum on extraneous issues such as septic tanks, bondholders, [the] banking crisis or decisions being made by the Government, such as cutbacks.”

Finance Minister Michael Noonan feared another outbreak of the “cultural wars” that had surrounded past referendums.

“I wouldn’t like another round of the Irish cultural wars, which always [break out] when there’s a referendum on European issues. So I’m firmly of the view that if we can do things by parliamentary vote, that’s the way we should proceed.”

But the Attorney General — or perhaps more accurately, the Crotty judgment — has put a spanner in the works.

Crotty was a 1987 judgment by the Supreme Court which essentially decreed that any proposed significant transfer of power to the EU required a referendum.

One minister said yesterday that the Attorney General’s advice hinged on the judgment. The fiscal compact entailed a transfer of economic sovereignty, and as a result, a referendum was unavoidable.

It has been provisionally pencilled in for late May. Now the Government has to go out and win it — and judging by previous treaties on EU matters, that won’t be easy.

Nice I crashed to defeat before Bertie Ahern’s government put it to a second vote, which saw it passed.

Lisbon I crashed to defeat and Brian Cowen’s government put that to a second vote too, which was ultimately successful.

Three things helped that government in getting Lisbon II passed.

The first was the knowledge that it had made a mess of the Lisbon I campaign and learned from its mistakes — Lisbon II was a much more disciplined effort.

The second was that Cowen & co secured legal guarantees from the EU that core Irish policies on taxation, abortion and neutrality would not be affected by Lisbon.

But it was the third factor — people’s fears that a no vote would deepen the economic crisis — that was arguably the biggest influence.

Micheál Martin was Fianna Fáil’s campaign director in Lisbon II, and speaking in Dublin recently, cited post-referendum research which analysed why people switched from no to yes.

“The research indicates very strongly that the gathering storm clouds were the prime motivating factor behind people switching... Sometimes the context, grim and all as it is, can actually move people in a different direction than you might expect.”

Similar factors will be at play in the referendum on the fiscal compact treaty.

Three years on from Lisbon II, with years of budgetary cutbacks still ahead, people remain hugely fearful about the country’s economic prospects and what it means for them.

For example, recent research showed just 18% of people expected the economic situation to improve over the next year. So fear will definitely be a factor.

But the Government will not want to trade on fear alone. They would like a sweetener — something to offer to the public to convince them that there’s some real, tangible benefit in this.

Instead of the legal guarantees on issues like abortion that were a feature of Lisbon II, the Government will be hoping for something else from the EU — specifically, a deal to reduce the cost of the Anglo bailout.

That would be the sweetener, and as one minister observed yesterday, the referendum “puts it up to Brussels now” to deliver on a cheaper bailout.

But it’s not just about Brussels, of course. If the first lesson of Lisbon II was to prepare well for a campaign, the current Government might do well to heed that lesson.

It may sound silly to compare the fiscal compact with the household charge, but one of the Government’s own TDs, Ciarán Lynch, recently complained about the Coalition’s weak information campaign on the latter.

“The public information campaign around the household charge needs to be beefed up as a matter of urgency,” he said, adding that people were “completely confused” about the system.

If the household charge demonstrated a weakness in the Government’s ability to communicate information to the public, it is going to have to fix it in time for the treaty referendum if it is to secure a yes vote.

Q&A

It’s another European referendum, but this time it’s different.

Q: Why is it different?

A. Because on the last two occasions, when the Government put the Nice Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty to the will of the people, the resulting no votes stopped the EU in its tracks — until Ireland was offered concessions and voted yes in repeat ballots.

Q. And this time?

A. This time the referendum will not be on a treaty change affecting the 27. It’s about a separate “fiscal compact” between the 17 eurozone states. That means it doesn’t need unanimous ratification in 27 countries, but only majority backing in 12 of the 17.

Q: Even though Ireland can’t block the “fiscal compact”, is it trying to hold the EU to ransom?

A: It’s more mundane than that: The Constitution more or less obliges Ireland to hold a referendum on things of this sort or face a potential legal challenge. But of course referenda have a habit of being hijacked by vested interests and delivering unwanted results.

Q. Is Europe holding its breath?

A: Not really, because Ireland can’t block this deal. The Government should be the side holding its breath, because a no vote would deny Ireland access to any of the increased bailout funds enshrined in the “fiscal compact” we would be turning down. This time, the political fallout would more likely be in Dublin than Brussels if it’s a no.

Q: That would embarrass the Taoiseach wouldn’t it?

A: Just a bit. Enda Kenny needs this referendum like a hole in the head, but he’s being brave and saying it’s an opportunity to reaffirm Ireland’s commitment to eurozone membership.

Q: Is he wrong?

A: No, he’s right, but he’d also be right if he said the referendum was an opportunity for Ireland to stick two fingers up to Brussels once again, despite having done far better than most from the EU economically in the last couple of decade.

Q: Will the Irish say no?

A: It shouldn’t be hard for the Government to convince voters that there’s no mileage in a no vote this time but, as Fine Gael MEP Sean Kelly put it, “it would be unhelpful if the debate was hijacked or if the issues were muddied and confused by inaccurate comments”.

Q: Isn’t the EU debate always hijacked?

A: Yes, to the constant frustration of the Brussels mandarins. Because although an Irish no would not stop Europe in its tracks, it would be more confirmation of flagging public support for the EU and what it stands for.