Plan B leaves Irish voters offside as referendum vote approaches

A RECENT issue of The Economist magazine describes the case for EU enlargement in terms more eloquent than any I’ve read to date.

"By embracing eastward enlargement," it said, "western European politicians are asking their voters to make a visionary leap of faith. Europe's leaders argue that enlargement will greatly strengthen Europe's stability and prosperity. Democratic institutions will be locked into place in Central Europe's young democracies. Potentially unstable countries, some of them with disputed borders, will be tied into a European Union where such disputes are settled in a civilised fashion.

"Just as the Spanish and Irish rapidly caught up with the economies of the countries in the EU after they joined the club, so the Poles, Czechs and others will become as rich as their western cousins. And the slow-coach economies of western Europe will also benefit, getting a welcome boost from a young, energetic and educated labour force to the east."

Impressive stuff. Remarkably, however, for an article about enlargement, The Economist had only this to say about our own referendum next Saturday: "In the middle of this month the Irish will have a referendum on the Nice treaty, but even that is only indirectly about enlargement."

Oh dear. The cat's out of the bag. There we were thinking this referendum was all about enlargement, but The Economist tells us that it's not. Why didn't the EU Commission tell us? Or our own Government for that matter?

They didn't tell us because they were too busy exerting maximum emotional pressure in order to secure a Yes vote. Our own EU commissioner, David Byrne, told us that Eastern European countries were in "a state of high anxiety" about the Irish referendum. And nearly every word from the Government and other Yes campaigners has been calculated to make us feel like moral criminals for even considering voting No.

This strategy was always a risky one, not least because Romano Prodi admitted after the first Nice referendum that the treaty was not legally necessary for enlargement. The Government, unabashed, roped in political leaders from the applicant states (including prosperous Slovenia) to plead for a Yes vote, without ever telling us that enlargement could happen anyway, or indeed that the changes envisaged by the Nice Treaty would take place irrespective of enlargement.

Only recently has the Government cut back on, or 'adjusted', its spin.

Close examination of Brian Cowen's utterances now shows a coy little nuance. Nice is the only 'agreed' mechanism for enlargement, he says; only by passing Nice can we proceed 'within the agreed timetable'.

The Government changed its tune because others revealed the truth. Pavel Telicka, the chief negotiator for the Czech Republic's accession, confirmed the existence of a 'Scenario B' for enlargement should Ireland reject the Nice Treaty. And he should know. He also said the accession of the applicant states would only be delayed by a matter of months, in the event that Ireland rejects Nice.

His comments dovetail with those of Christiane Kirschbaum, a member of Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen's staff, in Hamburg last week.

"If they vote No the closure of the negotiations will apparently be delayed a little - but only a little," Mrs Kirschbaum said. "In this case you can trust the member states. . . Plan B is already in the drawer."

Mrs Kirschbaum then said something even more revealing. 'Plan B' (which involves making adjustment to the accession treaties of each of the applicant states) was being kept under wraps out of courtesy to Ireland in advance of its referendum, she said.

Courtesy to the Irish Government, maybe. But hardly courtesy to the Irish people, if what it means is that we are deprived of the full facts.

The whole story lays bare a very worrying mindset on the part of the European Commission and the Irish Government. Both believe that the ordinary voter can't be trusted. It is OK to keep people in the dark, even to deceive them, if that's what it takes to get the result you want.

European officials are worried that, if issues like enlargement were put to a vote on the continent, voters would concentrate on less noble issues like the cost of subsidies to the new countries, competition from cheap eastern labour and fears about flows of immigrants from the east. But rather than confront these attitudes in a democratic way, the shapers of the EU prefer to achieve their aims by stealth.

The Economist cited a senior German diplomat who justified the refusal to put enlargement to a popular vote by arguing that the big decisions in the European Union have always been made by élites, and have then gained popular acceptance later.

If this attitude is typical of Brussels, then we have very little option but to reject the Nice Treaty on Saturday, because to do otherwise would mandate government-by-deception. Surely no step should be taken towards further European Union (and the Nice treaty, indisputably, involves such steps) until Irish and European political élites start behaving more democratically.

The Nice referendum highlighted a key difference between the Irish Government and the other governments negotiating the treaty. The other governments were effectively plenipotentiaries because they only had to get the support of their parliaments for the treaty they negotiated. This was relatively easy. But the Irish Government had to hold a referendum on the result of their late-night bargaining in Nice, and in a climate where it is becoming increasingly difficult for governments in power to win any kind of mid-term plebiscite or election.

This means that the Irish Government has a tougher job than most. But instead of accepting this reality, and using it as a bargaining chip in negotiations with other countries, our Government wants to reassert its authority over its own people, and to ensure that what it agrees in negotiations is subsequently ratified by the populace.

There are, or course, problems with the Nice treaty itself, not just with the Irish Government's handling of the referendum. Currently each nation state has a veto on major changes within the EU, but a Yes vote on Saturday will change this position forever. Irish people will still be consulted in a referendum before ceding further powers to the EU. Yet even if we reject such new treaties we will be unable to prevent other countries from going ahead with them, under the doctrine of Enhanced Co-operation, and this will generate new pressures on us as a small nation.

Ireland will lose its European Commissioner on a rotating basis - that is well known but we will also lose the right to determine the identity of the Irish Commissioner.

If we vote No, enlargement can still go ahead, so any annoyance caused to applicant governments will be transitory. On the other hand, our bargaining power in Europe will go up, because in future negotiations the ability of the Irish Government to persuade its electorate to vote Yes cannot be taken for granted.