I thank the Chairman for the invitation to talk.
I could spend my 15 minutes answering what Mr. Kieran Allen has just said, but that would use up the time allowed. I will therefore just stick to what I was to say in any case, partly because I did not recognise the European Union Mr. Allen described. I have been teaching EU law for the past nine years and am getting worried at this stage.
The raison d’être of the Union has almost been called into question tonight, and not just that of the Lisbon treaty. What was to become the European Union originated a few years after the disaster of the Second World War, which resulted in 60 million deaths, as a new method of governing relations between states, thus replacing economic and political rivalry and ultimately war with a very deep level of co-operation. Far from being a structure designed to promote war, the Union is designed to put an end to it. This is its most fundamental aim and it has been spectacularly successful in achieving this.
The new approach adopted by the European Union involved member states agreeing for the first time to delegate real and significant decision-making power to an international organisation rather than having states retain all decision-making power for themselves, as was the ineffective approach that obtained prior to its establishment. Mr. Kieran Allen obviously advocates the latter approach, although he is not a pro-war activist. The idea behind the Union involved going further than setting up powerless international bodies such as the League of Nations, which proved hopelessly ineffective in preventing the slide into the carnage and misery of world war. The revolutionary new strategy worked and European relations have been transformed.
The Union, which begun with the six-state European Coal and Steel Community, has enlarged to include 27 member states and has greatly widened its field of activity, which ranges from the Single Market and justice and home affairs to foreign policy. If the Union is so awful, one wonders why every country wants to join.
Ireland became a member state in 1973 and few would have anticipated the radical changes that awaited it since doing so. Economically, Ireland has been transformed and membership provided the framework for a radical increase in national wealth. It is really difficult to imagine this occurring otherwise. The wealth has benefited workers. We have had full employment and farmers and people across the board have benefited. Financial benefits derive from the Common Agricultural Policy and cohesion, structural and regional funding, all of which helped to fuel the growing Celtic tiger economy.
Ireland's place in the governing structures of a market involving close to 500 million consumers remains vital to a country which exports virtually everything it produces. Membership has also given Ireland more control over its destiny than would otherwise be the case. We have a population of less than 1% of the Union but are one of only 27 voices heard around the Council table.
What is the need for the Lisbon treaty? There have been four major amending treaties and referenda in Ireland since it joined the Union. The earlier treaties were linked to a big idea such as monetary union, the Single Market or the enlargement process. Broadly described, the aim of the Lisbon treaty is to make the institutions and mechanisms of the Union more effective and to inject more democratic legitimacy into the Union in a variety of ways, which I hope to describe. A good analogy is the example of a 57 year old house that has had a number of ad hoc extensions and which is to be renovated more thoroughly so it can continue to be habitable.
Previous amendments sometimes had an element of makeshift compromise about them, particularly in respect of voting arrangements. The idea behind the Lisbon treaty is to put in place a more durable arrangement. It was intended originally that the Irish-brokered constitutional treaty of 2004 would do the job but its rejection in referenda by the French and Dutch electorates ended hopes of this. The Lisbon treaty, which in some ways is less ambitious yet in many respects very similar to the constitutional treaty, has been agreed by the member states as an alternative. It is different in some respects. I agree it is largely similar to the constitutional treaty but it is different in significant respects. It drops the symbolism, the flag, the emblem, the motto, the title,"Minister for Foreign Affairs", although not the substance of the role, the language of the constitution, the preamble, the clause on primacy and also adds other elements, for example, a role that Mr. Kieran Allen did not mention, namely, a bigger role for national parliaments.
There are significant differences. I think they legitimate it being put to a referendum in Ireland and being put to the people all over Europe or to their democratic structures in each individual state. I notice that when people talk about undermining the votes in France and Denmark, they seem to forget there were also referenda in Spain and Luxembourg which voted in favour of the constitutional treaty. There seems to be a view that not going ahead with a similar document does not undermine the democratic results in those countries. It is always only France and the Netherlands that are mentioned in that regard.
Why is Ireland the only one of the 27 member states having a referendum on the Lisbon treaty? Any treaty that seeks to regulate the relations between 27 sovereign states in a range of policy areas is going to be long and complex. Opinions genuinely differ on whether the best way to ratify a document of this nature is via a referendum or via national parliament. The argument in favour of the referendum route, is that it gives everybody a direct say on an important issue. On the other hand, a referendum also confronts busy and sometimes frankly not very interested, citizens with a document that demands a great deal of expertise and-or advice to understand. Every member state except Ireland has opted to proceed via the parliament.
Sceptics, and I assume I would number Kieran in that regard, would argue that these countries have done that simply to avoid the possibility of defeat in a referendum. There are more worthy arguments which come into the equation. With a referendum there is always some risk of generating opposition or large-scale abstention on the grounds that the measure is complicated. Voting against the Lisbon treaty merely because it is complex is not the right approach. Doing this means we could not approve any comprehensive European Union treaty because any amending treaty between 27 historically independent states on such a range of issues will be complex. It is simply unavoidable.
I do not think that Kieran's advice that if you do not know vote "No" is particularly good advice. In my view if we vote "Yes" to the Lisbon treaty, there is a far greater chance of things going along as they did before, slightly more effectively, efficiently and democratically. I think Kieran's advice to vote "No" is really a plunge into the unknown.
What the Lisbon treaty will not do is end Irish neutrality. Article 42 states that the security and defence policy provisions shall not prejudice the specific character of security and defence policy of certain member states - it is referring to neutral states. We have also protection of our neutral status being written into the constitutional amendment that is confronting us as well. It will not end Ireland's foreign direct investment policies, it will not endanger Irish control of its corporation taxation policy and it will not facilitate the legalisation of abortion. It will not introduce a mechanism making the treaties capable of amendment without reference to the Government or the Oireachtas. The treaty is not responsible for ending the situation in which each state sends a permanent commissioner to Brussels and the new voting arrangements in the treaty will not prevent Ireland from defending its interests in a manner similar to that in which it has done in the past. I notice that Kieran did not make those arguments. I am glad because all of those arguments are wrong.
What will the treaty do? I do not have much time to go through all the changes in the 700 page document. I have been asked in particular to look at the issue of national parliaments under the Lisbon treaty, so I will save my last five minutes for that. I will touch on some of the other changes it will make. Under the heading "Democratic Reforms", it will ensure a bigger role for the democratically-elected European Parliament, for national parliaments, which I will return to, and for the European Court of Justice, especially in the justice and home affairs area. I think it is appropriate that any organisation with as much power as the European Union should be subjected to the requirement that it respect our fundamental rights and now, for the first time, with the Lisbon treaty we will have a catalogue of fundamental rights, limiting the European Union and the member states in implementing European Union policy in relation to what they can do. New voting rules in the Council of Ministers are clearer and more logical. Large states are being protected by the requirement that laws can only be adopted if they get the support of states representing 65% of the population, small states such as Ireland being protected by the other requirement that 55% of states must support them. In that respect, small states count as much as big states. There is protection there for big and small states.
Other changes include changes designed to increase the effectiveness of the European Union. A permanent president of the European Council and a high representative for foreign affairs will give more cohesion to the European Union and to its foreign policy. One change that I would have imagined that Kieran likes, although he did not mention it and seemingly it is not enough to make him vote for the treaty, is that the treaty provides for the possibility of withdrawing from the Union. Therefore, if the Irish people decide that the European Union is as terrible as Kieran makes out, they will have a right to pull out of it, if they democratically decide to do so. Treaty revision seeks to reform generally the process of amending the founding treaties to make it generally more democratic and transparent to speed it up in some limited cases, but always subject to the veto of member states and their national parliaments.
Overall in the common foreign and security policy area, there is more continuity than change. We must live with the reality that most member states of the European Union are militarily aligned with one another. Originally, if the French had not rejected it by virtue of what was called the European Defence Community Treaty back in the 1950s, defence policy would already have been dealt with under the European Union treaties. Because that treaty was rejected, the Western European Union treaty was signed and that governed relations. However, as time has gone on, French objections disappeared and the Western European Union has been gradually fading away like the smile of the Cheshire cat.
It is true that the European Union is gradually taking over some responsibilities of the Western European Union. What should the Government's attitude be to this? My answer is that it should probably be the same as it is at the moment. Some people would say that we will not touch anything or have anything to do with any of that. In an era in which peace enforcement and peace keeping tend to be more regionally based, it is a good idea that Ireland states that it does not want to compromise its neutrality and so it will not agree to anything that puts an end to its neutrality but at the same time if it can help with crisis management or with peace keeping it will do so. I think that is appropriate and desirable. In substance the new arrangements are not that radical an innovation because all the member states, except the neutral states, are allied to each other. What difference does it make if it goes on in the Western European Union or the European Union, as long as our neutrality is adequately protected? It is adequately protected.
I was asked to say a few words about national parliaments under the Lisbon treaty because it does introduce some important new reforms which are important from the democratic point of view. Parliaments, including the Oireachtas, already have an important role in European Union affairs under national law and practice. Their job includes the task of scrutinising draft EU laws and the performance of national government ministers in Brussels. The Lisbon treaty seeks to add significantly to the rights of national parliaments. The treaty will insert a new article into the Treaty on European Union setting out the additional roles which parliaments are intended to have.
The important powers sought to be conferred on national parliaments can be divided into four categories. First, the right to police the so-called subsidiarity principle. Subsidiarity is a principle of European Union law which basically is a complicated name for a simple concept, namely, where the EU shares a competence with member states, EU action is only permitted in situations where member states themselves cannot achieve an objective. Subsidiarity has been part of EU law since 1993, but under the Lisbon treaty, national parliaments will be given powers for the first time to police adherence to it, to ensure the European Union does not violate this principle and does not act in situations where member state action would be just as good. That is via a yellow card and orange card procedures, which I can go into, if necessary. Depending on national law, national parliaments can also bring a case before the European Court of Justice if the Lisbon treaty comes into force to make sure that it is adhered to. Therefore, subsidiarity policing keeps the European Union in its place.
A second role for national parliaments will be a formal role in drafting any future treaties of this nature. If the Lisbon treaty reforms are adopted, then when EU treaties are amended in the future, the process will involve some kind of convention. This is somewhat like the Philadelphia convention that drafted the US constitution, and member state parliaments will be represented in that. This is a significant right for national parliaments, because it means they can mould the future shape of the European Union.
The Lisbon treaty makes changes to the way in which the treaty can be amended in the future. For most changes, the system will stay the same, but for some less controversial amendments, simplified procedures will be introduced. The further need for a ratification process in member states will be removed in two cases. To ensure that national democratic rights are not undermined, the new article 48 provides that each and every member state parliament in the European Union is given a six month period during which it has the right to veto single-handedly the treaty change in question.
Lack of access to knowledge about what goes on in the EU has hindered access to power on the part of national parliaments. One of the most significant reforms of the Lisbon treaty is that it ensures direct access from the community institutions straight to national parliaments on a whole range of issues. Most importantly, draft laws are to be forwarded to national parliaments and eight weeks will have to pass before these laws can be put on the agenda, while a further ten days are needed before a position can be adopted at European level. This is where subsidiarity principles come in, represented by the orange and yellow cards. If a third of all parliaments indicate that the EU has gone too far and has violated subsidiarity, then the EU proposal will have to be reviewed. That is the so-called yellow card. If a majority of the votes go that way, the legislation will be entirely blocked if the Council of Ministers or the European Parliament agree with national parliament, which is the so-called orange card.
It will not be easy for national parliaments to block legislation, but it should not be because we do not want the system to paralyse the EU. These reforms will be less significant for the yellow and orange cards they produce, than for the national political debates they will hopefully stimulate. They may be a first tentative step in transforming national parliaments into a virtual second chamber of the European Parliament. Whatever one thinks about these reforms, they are better than what we have now.
Mr. Allen said that voting "No" would not do this or that. He seemed to give the impression that everything will be hunky dory if we vote "No". I do not believe that. What will happen if we vote "No"? We will basically be left in a situation in which we go back and renegotiate, which means we are blocking reform in the EU, a process that has taken seven years. We will not be able to renegotiate the treaty in any significant way, because if the other 26 member states see us pick out some elements of the treaty, then they will want to pick out other elements and pretty soon we will have no agreement at all. Therefore, we would only be able to re-negotiate very small details and opt out of very small, minor matters. What is the good in that? I do not think there is anything out of which we should opt. We already have everything we need.
What possible good can come of blocking reform for a protracted period? We will be leaving the EU in a situation in which it is functioning without agreement on how to move forward in the future. Apart from the fact that rejecting the treaty will not inspire goodwill, while it will not drive away foreign direct investment, it certainly will not attract such investment. It will leave an organisation that has done tremendous good politically and economically for Ireland and the rest of Europe - including keeping the peace in Europe - drifting in a rudderless way. On that basis, I advocate that we vote "Yes".
