Referendum gives us the chance to make the EU account for itself

ANOTHER year, another European treaty. But the people of Europe, to judge by last June’s Euro elections, have never been so disillusioned with the European project. Eurosceptic parties made gains in Britain and Belgium.

Sinn Féin got their first MEPs elected here. Participation in European elections has never been lower - fewer than half the electorate bothered last time out. This is despite the fact that MEPs have more power than before, as we saw during the Buttiglione affair when EU commission president Barroso was forced to reshuffle his new team in order to win the support of the European parliament.

And yet, EU governments are determined to push for further integration. The European constitution must be ratified by each member state by the end of 2006, and many countries - including Britain, Denmark, France and ourselves - are committed to holding a referendum on the matter.

The constitution is supposed to simplify European law by subsuming all the existing treaties into one. Finally, say its proponents, there will be a single document containing all the principles and parameters of the union.

There will be clarity as to what comes under the purview of the EU, and what matters remain the prerogative of the sovereign member states.

Its detractors, maybe predictably, maintain that this is yet another step on the road to a federal Europe, to an increasingly unaccountable superstate.

The national veto will vanish from new areas, most notably justice. Asylum and immigration issues will now be decided by qualified majority voting.

According to the constitution, “a qualified majority shall be defined as at least 55% of the members of the council, comprising at least 15 of them and representing member states comprising at least 65% of the population of the union”.

Some say this will give the French and Germans enormous clout, since they have 40% of the EU population between them. Given their economic and political influence, won’t they be able to find another 13 countries with 25% of the EU population to support them? Will the likes of Poland, Malta, Hungary, Luxembourg and Cyprus put up that much of a fight? Ireland will lose some of its voting strength, with its percentage of the vote in the Council of Ministers being reduced. And within five years we will lose our automatic right to a commissioner.

Perhaps these considerations are minor in comparison to the accountability problem which bedevils the European project.

The process for making European law is opaque, to say the least. Legislation is proposed by the EU Commission whose members are selected by governments, not by the people. (You won’t remember anybody asking you if Charlie McCreevy should be our EU commissioner.)

The legislation having been proposed, it is then decided upon, in secret, by the Council of Ministers.

It is far from clear how an individual Irish citizen can impact upon a change of European law when the levers of power are so diffuse and remote.

Who do we lobby and who can we hold accountable? What if we are simply outvoted on crucial issues? Can we always know how our minister is voting on issues of trade, environment or health? The new constitution attempts to answer this accountability and transparency problem, at least in circumstances where the national veto is lost. Legislation must be ratified by the European Parliament, the one EU institution whose members are directly elected by ourselves. But here, too, be dragons. How often are European Parliament elections decided on the basis of European policy?

And how can the parliament adequately represent the interests of smaller member states, when the number of MEPs these countries elect is so tiny? The recent controversy over Rocco Buttiglione gave us a not very reassuring glimpse of the future. What we saw was power without accountability.

Yes, the parliament was now able to humiliate the European Commission and force Barroso to back down. But did the decision to block Buttiglione really represent the will of the European population? Didn’t we see an influential clique acting without taking any soundings from its electorate?

In a democracy, citizens ought to be able to impact on the law-making process in a number of ways. Getting involved in a political party or a lobby group or simply voting for different parties enabled us to identify with, and buy into, the political process.

THAT is absent from the European project. An Irish voter can have little influence on a German or a French MEP, no matter how the decision may affect us. And our own MEPs may be more beholden to the political blocs and groupings which they join in the European parliament than they are to the parties under whose banner they were elected at home. These blocs do not have a presence among, nor do they depend on, ordinary voters throughout the union.

Traditionally, Irish voters have looked favourably upon European proposals.

Every single treaty which has required a plebiscite has been passed by comfortable margins, even though the last treaty, Nice, required two referenda. Despite the fact that those margins have been narrowing steadily since 1972, the Government will be justifiably confident of passing this latest proposal.

The last sampling of public opinion on the question suggested that over 50% of the Irish public backed the plan, with about 25%-30% of people opposed. All the mainstream parties and papers can be relied upon to support the new constitution, as can the IFA, the major unions, and probably the Catholic Church.

Against that, the extreme left, Sinn Féin and the extreme right do not make a convincing opposition. That is something of a shame. It will be more difficult to have a thorough debate about the future of Europe, and how we might make the project more accountable and democratic, when most of the big guns are on one side.

The founding fathers of the European project, Schumann, Adenauer and de Gasperi, would not have approved. After witnessing the destruction that resulted from extreme nationalism, they resolved to foster co-operation, trade and fraternal links between the former warring countries of Europe.

Individual nations worked together, and created a successful trading bloc which rebuilt a shattered continent. The spectre of totalitarianism and armed conflict was banished. But that very economic success seems now to have blinded the people running Europe today. Many seem to regard a commitment to democracy and accountability, such a central concern in post-war Europe, as a hindrance.

But those of us who will get to vote on the new constitution should not retreat from democratic and accountable structures which, for all their flaws in terms of efficiency, have served us well. We should at least consider that before delegating yet more powers to the Brussels bureaucracy.