Has anyone read the Lisbon Treaty? (9/2/08)

I left Dublin yesterday forgetting, to my secret relief, to bring my newly-acquired copy of the Lisbon Treaty. Although I don’t feel fully qualified to comment on the treaty without having digested all its 270 pages of annexes, clauses and annotations, perhaps it is a task better begun on a Monday morning than on a sunny weekend. In the meantime, before even beginning to analyse the treaty itself, there is ample meat for observation in the comments of the pro- and anti-treaty players who are beginning to draw their battle lines.
Sinn Féin launched its official No to Lisbon campaign last Tuesday in Buswells, notable for the absence of party leader Gerry Adams. The taxi-driver taking me to the launch informed me, with that assurance and authority unique to taxi-drivers, of a serious rift in Sinn Féin between the party leadership and other senior party members, but at the launch the party played down any such notions. Caoimhghín O Caoláin TD said that schedules and engagements prevented the party leadership from being always present, but insisted that Gerry Adams was the most popular party leader in the country, and that he would have a key profile in their campaign. Sure enough, Gerry Adams is doing a ‘doorstep’ with reporters this afternoon at Sinn Féin’s bookshop on Parnell Square. I asked Dublin MEP Mary Lou McDonald whether her party’s vigorous opposition to the treaty might discourage people who did not support Sinn Féin, from voting No. She replied that the question of the treaty almost transcended party politics, and expressed confidence that voters would judge the issues on their own merits and demerits. However she slightly defeated her own point by saying that Sinn Féin’s firm and informative stance would probably win more voters over to their party. In reality, Sinn Féin started its anti-Lisbon campaign in the first week of January, but at last week’s launch they announced plans to hold seven public meetings throughout the country, and distribute leaflets outlining an ‘alternative to the Lisbon Treaty’ to half a million homes.
Sinn Féin has proclaimed itself the only political party to oppose the treaty, and they are to be admired for assuming this role wholeheartedly. Until the government name the date for the referendum, the Yes campaign will be a piecemeal affair of isolated speeches and media comment and reaction. The Taoiseach, European Affairs Minister Dick Roche and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore have all made speeches advocating a Yes vote; Fianna Fáil and Labour MEPs have issued press statements outlining their reasons to vote Yes, and senior media figures, notably the Irish Times’ political commentator Stephen Collins, have set out their stalls in favour of the Treaty. Minister Dermot Ahern has asked voters not to listen to opponents of the treaty, whom he has accused of acting out of ‘dogma and narrow self interest’…‘re-telling the same old myths’. The Taoiseach warned that if Ireland rejected the treaty it could ‘spark a crisis’, while our own EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said a ‘No’ vote would make us ‘the laughing stock of Europe’. But are such dark prophecies a valid reason to vote Yes? – Or do they testify only to the peer pressure the government is under from its European partners. Where is the coherent, comprehensive drive by the government to win over the 66% of Irish people who don’t know how they will vote? The Taoiseach said yesterday that the referendum would be in late May or early June, but why the delay in naming the exact date?
Former Green MEP Patricia McKenna, chair of the People’s Movement which opposes the treaty, has put forward a possible explanation. She won a Supreme Court case in 1995 banning the use of State funds for the promotion of a particular side in any referendum campaign. Minister Ahern said last week that the government had received ‘strong’ legal advice from the Attorney General that the McKenna judgement did not apply until the referendum legislation had been approved by the Dáil and the Seanad, and signed by the President. Ms McKenna has accused the government of getting around the principle of the Supreme Court ruling by deliberately stalling the passage of the bill and the announcement of a date, and in the meantime using public resources to persuade people to vote Yes. She has pointed, for example, to the information leaflet produced by the Department of Foreign Affairs entitled ‘The EU Reform Treaty’, which she describes as ‘tendentious, and slanted in favour of a Yes vote’. The leaflet describes the treaty as ‘the next, necessary steps for the development of the EU’. This cannot be described as a neutral view, and would be strongly contested by those against the treaty. Ms McKenna has urged the government to publish the Attorney General’s advice, claiming that ‘it concerns amending the constitution, which can only be changed with the consent of the people, and thus is a matter of serious public interest’. It would be interesting to see the Attorney General’s advice, if it shows that the government has in fact delayed naming a date to avoid the implications of the McKenna judgement.In the meantime, the National Forum on Europe, set up to provide a neutral public space to debate the treaty, has held its first open meeting in Blanchardstown public library. The evening was dominated by speakers against the treaty. The next public meeting will take place in Waterford City Hall on Monday 11th February. Unless the Yes side make a determined showing, this too will be a platform for those calling for a No vote. Whether these meetings are reflective of a growing public disenchantment with the treaty and its implications, only time, and the next opinion poll, will tell.