President Sarkozy’s visit - Time to get real about Lisbon vote

NOT since Margaret Thatcher’s intransigence and contempt for the republican cause, peaceful or violent, made her the Provos’ best recruiting sergeant in the 1980s has the intervention of a foreign political leader in Irish affairs had such potential for disaster as yesterday’s visit by the French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

Ever since he told a private meeting of his UMP party that “the Irish would have to vote on Lisbon again”, he has been more of a hindrance than a help.

So much so, that he has been at the receiving end of a barely concealed rebuke from Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

President Sarkozy’s four-hour visit was a roadshow rather than a step towards his unrealistic ambition of resolving the crisis during France’s six-month European presidency, which ends at Christmas.

His let-them-eat-cake dismissal of Ireland’s rejection of Lisbon has exacerbated the difficulties Brian Cowen, his government, his party, the main opposition parties and all of those who campaigned for a yes vote will have in restoring our relationship with the rest of the European community to one of equals.

However, that he came at all underlines the great difficulties facing the union and Ireland’s place within it.

Yesterday was a busy day for President Sarkozy as his central domestic project — reform of the French political process — was on the line.

He has proposed a rewrite of almost half the French constitution in the biggest shake-up of how that country is run since Charles de Gaulle became president in 1959.

MPs and senators narrowly voted through the bill last night during a special congress at Versailles.

The chaos surrounding the preparations for the visit, its brevity and exclusivity will be used by those who opposed ratification to bolster arguments about a democratic deficit and politicians’ remoteness.

It would be hard to argue that they are wrong and it is equally hard to understand why politicians have not learnt of the central lessons of the Lisbon result — that the electorate cannot be taken for granted and that anything short of sincere and deep engagement is unacceptable.

Politicians should also reflect on how the public reacted to the “trust us” line of argument.

The line from Paris is that President Sarkozy considers this a fact-finding mission, though how he will filter the wheat from the chaff in such a short time, only he knows.

He will be confronted, if he is subjected to the same arguments as the electorate, with a series of wild claims and self-serving positions but one thing is certain in all of this: a solution will have to be found to this impasse and the sooner the better. The stakes are far too high for point scoring and self-serving threats.

We are facing tremendous economic challenges and the insecurity this situation causes could well undermine efforts to confront inflation and re-establish economic growth.

If President Sarkozy’s visit becomes one of the opening steps in a process that leads to the resolution of the crisis then it will have been a good day’s work.

None of us should underestimate the issues and every effort must be made to reach a solution that honours the democratic decision of the electorate and safeguards our place in Europe.

This will be very difficult and take considerable imagination and time, but anything less will not succeed.