LAST CHANCE FOR LISBON: IRELAND’S EU REFERENDUM By Hugo Brady Ireland will hold a second referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon on October 2nd. Most opinion polls in the run-up to the vote show that a majority of Irish voters now back the EU treaty they rejected in June 2008. However, despite Ireland having subsequently won a special deal on the treaty, and despite the country’s economic dependence on the Union, the result of the referendum is far from certain. The government is the most unpopular since Ireland won its independence, the public mood is volatile amidst a deep recession and many voters remain unconvinced and confused about the treaty’s merits. At stake is much more than the credibility of Ireland’s already enfeebled government. A Yes vote would allow the EU to improve the way it makes decisions, particularly in foreign policy. A No vote would lead to recrimination, policy paralysis and probably a freeze on further EU enlargement. The EU’s leaders – divided on what to do next – would be distracted from the many urgent tasks that face the Union, ranging from responding in an effective and co-ordinated manner to the economic crisis, to making a success of negotiations on climate change, to putting in place a new European Commission.
Not in the bag Ireland’s voters shocked EU governments on June 13th 2008 by rejecting the Lisbon treaty by 53 to 47 per cent.1 Despite the fact that the country’s businesses, media and political mainstream are almost uniformly pro-European, the government failed to assuage the fears – mostly spurious – 1 See Annex, pages 5-7, for a breakdown of the treaty’s principal reforms. raised by the No campaign over the treaty’s impact on corporation tax, neutrality, abortion and a loss of Irish influence in Brussels. On October 2nd the Dublin government, the country’s various pro-treaty campaigners and Ireland’s 26 EU partners will hope that the Irish reverse that decision. The odds appear to be stacked in favour of a Yes, for several reasons. First, the EU has added a set of quasi-legal guarantees to the treaty that address many of the more tangible concerns that turned Irish voters against the treaty the last time round. The guarantees state that nothing in the treaty will affect Irish law concerning family matters, corporate taxation, military neutrality or workers’ rights. On top of this, the EU governments have also agreed not to implement a clause in the treaty that would shrink the number of European commissioners from 2014, so that each member-state would periodically forego the right to have a commissioner. Ireland, like many EU countries, feared that its voice in Brussels would be weakened during the periods when it lacked ‘its own’ commissioner there. Second, Irish voters appear to be more favourably disposed towards the treaty Opinion polls in September indicate that a clear majority of voters back the treaty. One survey puts the share of Yes voters as high as 62 per cent, with 15 per cent still undecided.2 Many voters have concluded that Ireland can illafford a confrontation with the rest of the EU at a time when its economy is reeling from a collapse in global demand, high unemployment and a burst property bubble.
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than they were a year ago. 2 Pat Leahy, ‘Poll shows Lisbon treaty support remains strong’, The Sunday Business Post, September 13th 2009, http://www.sbpost.ie.
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