New EU poll: info vital for voters
The latter observation was most definitely correct: the campaign features many of the same people who previously stood against the Nice Treaty, such as the Green Party’s Patricia McKenna, and Andy Storey, a lecturer in the Centre for Development Studies at UCD. As for the first observance, well, that depends on your view of the Constitution itself.
But if the negative comments came as no surprise - given that the launch of the campaign was distinctly underwhelming - there won’t be any such instant dismissals from one quarter: the Government. It remembers well the lessons learned from Nice I, when, to its acute embarrassment, the public rejected the treaty, thereby threatening to block enlargement.
The rejection was chiefly attributed to the punchy, pithy campaign waged by those opposed to the treaty. Almost as big a factor was the abysmal nature of the Government’s own campaign, which never really got started. The Government never considered it had to until it was far too late.
In the end, it took a second referendum for the treaty to be ratified. And, while Europe at large cared only that an obstacle to enlargement had been removed, many political observers here legitimately questioned what the Government’s actions meant for democracy. The attitude of “If we don’t like the result of your first vote, we’ll just get you to vote again until we do like it” hardly seemed true to the democratic ideal.
The Government doesn’t want any reminders of that, which is why it won’t dare curtly dismiss the Campaign Against the EU Constitution. If anything, the stakes are even larger this time.
The Constitution, agreed during Ireland’s presidency of the EU last year, and signed in October, replaces all existing EU treaties and provides a new legal basis for the entire union. It’s the way forward, in short, for the European project.
All 25 member states have to ratify the Constitution before November 1, 2006 for it to enter force. For Ireland to reject it, Bertie Ahern said last year, would be to reject the entire future of the EU.
That’s a bit dramatic. Yes, it would probably spell doom for the document, and plunge the union into political crisis. It would be back to the drawing board after years of painstaking work. But, as the Times of London noted this week, “the EU would muddle on, as it does.” It wouldn’t go up in a puff of smoke overnight.
Nonetheless, the Government does not want Ireland to be the one to put a spoke in the wheel. Hence, this time out, it will take absolutely no chances, which was why, at the “No” campaign’s launch this week, a Fianna Fáil observer was in the audience to take notes, notes which would form the basis for a rebuttal of the campaign’s claims within a matter of hours.
At 11am, the No campaign claimed the Constitution would lead to a less democratic, more socially unjust, more militarised union. Just after 3pm, European Affairs Minister Noel Treacy was rejecting each of these claims. On this one, the Government is clearly not going to be left behind at the starting blocks. Both sides, however, will have their work cut out in trying to hammer home their contrasting messages.
An EU-wide study of 25,000 people in January showed 45% of Irish people - as good as one in two - do not know what the Constitution is.
Of course, all this will be irrelevant if another country vetoes the Constitution before Ireland holds its referendum, a date for which has yet to be set. Spain was the first country to hold a referendum, and its public approved the Constitution. France is up next, on May 29, and this stage, the signs are not good: five successive opinion polls have indicated a majority intend to vote against the document, although the most recent poll also showed 43% saying they could change their minds before polling day. Thus, the information campaigns on the Yes and No side will be crucial, just as they will in Ireland. Let the debate begin.
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