State halts release of EU treaty documents

The EU has refused to release documents on the fiscal treaty after the Government intervened.

In response to a request to the European Council for all documents submitted by the Government or on behalf of the Irish people, it said the Government had argued successfully against releasing the documents.

The Government made five submissions to try to change the fiscal treaty in advance of the successful referendum held on May 31 — setting out the specific objectives pursued by Ireland in the context of the fiscal compact.

The Government argued that to release the documents would undermine the financial stability of the EU.

Jakob Thomsen, spokesperson for the council’s general secretariat said: “Given the arguments raised by Ireland and after having examined the content of the requested documents, the general secretariat came to the conclusion that their release would undermine the protection of the public interest as regards the financial, monetary or economic policy of the union.”

A spokesperson for the Department of the Taoiseach said it is the long- standing position of the Government not to release documents relating to international relations, even where they impact on domestic policy.

However, the spokes-person said: “It of course remains the position of the Irish Government to provide transparency to the public.

“This was reflected in the unprecedented level of detail provided to the public in the information campaign around the stability treaty referendum.”

Mr Thomsen said the sensitive political nature of the treaty and the current climate in Europe were all taken into account when assessing whether or not to release the documents.

He said that revealing member states’ positions on the negotiating process could undermine future agreements.

“Revealing the national position of a participating member state in the negotiating process of the fiscal compact treaty would most likely lead to more difficulties reaching similar agreements in the future and would seriously undermine similar negotiations.”

The Department of the Taoiseach said not revealing our negotiating position was working in Ireland’s favour.

“The Government have no wish to publish any documents which could undermine the EU in this way,” a spokesperson said.

“Indeed, the subsequent outcome of recent EU negotiations with regard to banking and sovereign debt provides evidence of the value of this position when it came to similar negotiations.”

Independent TD Shane Ross said the idea that Ireland’s negotiating position could undermine EU negotiations represented a “bloated sense of self importance” from the Government.

He said people would like to see what sort of negotiations the Government were doing on their behalf.

“It would be useful for people to find out what sort of horse trading goes on behind closed doors at an EU level,” he said.