The main aims of the Lisbon reform treaty, as spelled out in its preamble, are to enhance the efficiency and the democratic legitimacy of the Union. This treaty is different from those that went before it. It was not produced behind closed doors, rather it was crafted in public. The reform treaty is not, as some would have us believe, the work of fevered minds with no mandate.
This treaty finds its origins in the work of the Convention on the Future of Europe, a body of 200 men and women drawn from the national parliaments of Europe and from the governments of the member states that did its work in public and listened to what the public had to say. It finds its legitimacy in the fact that it was uniquely constructed in a way that involved the people chosen by the voters of Europe to represent their interests.
A second and equally important point is that this is a balanced treaty that represents a particularly good deal for the small and medium-sized member states. The latter point should be bourne in mind by those who mindlessly sloganise about voting "no" to get a better "yes". There is no chance, nor is there a need, for a better "yes"; this treaty is good for Europe and great for Ireland.
I will outline what this treaty will do. It will enhance the European Union's democratic character; increase the role of national parliaments and the European Parliament; reform decision-making within the Union; and make the Union better equipped to deal with the real issues that are important to the lives of all European citizens, including every person on this island, issues such as globalisation, energy security, climate change and a more challenging international economic environment. The treaty will strengthen the voice of the European Union on the world stage; give effect to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; set out the European Union's powers and limits more clearly than ever before; and give specific powers to the Union to help combat international and cross-border crime.
The EU member states have invested years of work in producing this treaty. It is vital to the European Union's future. That fact is recognised by democratically elected governments, national parliaments and the vast majority of the members of the European Parliament.
The forthcoming referendum once again puts Ireland in a pivotal position. Without securing a "yes" vote in Ireland, this treaty will fall and the Union will be cast into a further period of introspection. That will damage the European Union but most importantly it will damage Ireland. Important as the treaty is for the European Union, its emphatic ratification is vital for Ireland.
Ireland's place is at the heart of Europe. We are a small nation that has carved a unique niche within the European Union. Ireland is seen as a member state that is fully committed to the European project. We are perceived as a player. We are viewed with goodwill. We have influence way above our size and are seen to punch above our weight.
Since joining the European Union, as was stated last night, we have made remarkable strides. Irish per capita GDP was 60% of the European average in 1973 but stood at 144% of the European average in 2007. The Single Market has opened up trade opportunities for Irish-based companies. Our exports to European Union member states increased from €45 billion in 1997 to €87 billion in 2006. We have benefited hugely from European Union transfer payments. Between 1973 and 2003 we received €58 billion in CAP, Structural Funds and Cohesion Funds from the Union. Membership of the European monetary union and the euro zone in a sense saw Ireland come of age.
The euro has eliminated exchange rate uncertainty for business and tourism and provided stability and protection in an otherwise volatile world. By far and away our biggest achievement within Europe has been the creation of 1 million extra jobs since 1973. Our workforce today at 2 million is twice what it was when we joined the Union. Most importantly, because Ireland is seen to be fully committed to Europe, we have been immensely successful in attracting foreign direct investment from right across the world. One recent study published in Brussels described Ireland's capacity to attract US foreign direct investment as "simply stunning". The same report made the point that as at the end of 2006 Ireland had attracted $83 billion US investment more than China, Russia, India and Brazil, which, combined, attracted $73 billion. Jobs flow from investment.
Because of the clear benefits of European Union membership, even those who initially opposed Ireland's joining the European Union must accept that our place is in Europe. We now have the bizarre situation where Sinn Féin, having fought tooth and nail against Ireland joining Europe and having urged a rejection and a "no" vote in every treaty, now proclaims itself to be committed to Europe, while again urging a "no" vote. That is an example of it trying to have it both ways.
If we were by any chance to reject this treaty, Ireland would not only create a major reversal for Europe but we would damage our reputation, we would squander the goodwill we have painstakingly built up as a nation over the years in Europe and by creating uncertainty we would send what IBEC has called "a worrying signal. . . into the board rooms" where decisions on foreign direct investment are made.
This is a good treaty. It aims to make Europe more democratic and more effective; to give us a better voice on the world stage; to enhance the rights of European citizens; to better define the limits within which the European Union operates; and to provide the Union with the capacity to deal with major challenges. I will deal with each of those issues. This more than any other treaty will improve the democratic character of the European Union. The European Parliament will have its powers dramatically increased, in terms of dramatic improvements in law-making and increased budgetary powers. It provides that the Parliament will directly elect the European Commission President. It will enhance the Parliament's role in any future treaty negotiations.
The big winners in this treaty will be national parliaments. They will be given a dramatically extended role. They will receive draft EU law at the same time as national governments; have a longer time to scrutinise draft EU law; be able to object to a draft proposal on the grounds that it breaches the principle of subsidiarity — the national parliaments are made the guardians of subsidiarity in this treaty; and have the right to veto any proposal to change an issue from unanimous voting to qualified majority voting.
The treaty contains a unique new initiative. It will enhance participatory democracy. A petition signed by 1 million citizens collected from a significant number of member states requesting the Commission to take a specific initiative must be addressed by the Commission.
A central aim of the treaty is to make the Union more efficient, more effective and better equipped to meet the challenges in the years ahead. It provides that there will be a new full-time President of the European Council who can be elected for a maximum of two renewable terms of two and a half years. The President's role will be to co-ordinate the work of the Council. The Council will become a fully-fledged institution. This new office will be more of chairman than chief; it will certainly not be that of a president of Europe to be feared by any citizen.
In the future, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, which currently rotates every six months between the member states, will be provided by a team of three member states working together over an 18-month period. This is hardly a dramatic step forward. This will share the burden of the Presidency, ensure continuity and help to integrate thinking in the Union. In Ireland's case our partners will be Greece and Lithuania. They could hardly be more advantageous. Our partners will be two other small states, neither of which has a lead role on temperate agriculture. This will be clearly to our advantage.
A new voting system will be used in the Council of Ministers. Under the new arrangements a qualified majority vote will require 55% of the member states and 65% of the Union's population. At present, Ireland has seven votes out of 345. The new voting system was selected because it is simpler, more efficient and easier to understand than the complex system of voting introduced in the Nice treaty. Under the new system, at least 15 member states representing almost two thirds of the Union's population must support a measure before it is carried. In other words, it is based on consensus. Another dramatic effect of the new voting process is that it reflects the dual nature of the EU, which is a union both of equal states and equal citizens.
To prevent the European Commission becoming too large and unwieldy, its size will be capped at two thirds of the number of member states from 2014. This is not a new idea. As Deputy Timmins observed yesterday, it was envisaged in the Nice treaty, which was endorsed by the voters. Under the new arrangements, the right to nominate a Commissioner will rotate on a strictly equal basis between the member states, large and small. When Ireland joined the EU, the large member states nominated two Commissioners while the smaller member states could nominate only one. Again, the principle of equality underlines this proposition.
Membership of the European Parliament has been capped at 751. Concern has been expressed that the Parliament was growing too large to be effective. The treaty provides that no member state shall have less than six or more than 96 MEPs. As envisaged under the Nice treaty, Ireland will have 12 MEPs. The new arrangement means that the smaller countries have proportionately more MEPs per capita than the larger states.
The EU institutions were designed for a community of six member states. The arrangements have operated for 50 years without fundamental reform. No business enterprise of any scale or importance would expect, 50 years after its foundation, to be operating on the same organisational basis that was put in place on the day of its foundation. The changes proposed in the treaty are not great but they will make Europe more effective for business and for its citizens.
A new post of high representative for foreign affairs and security policy will bring together two existing posts. These arrangements aim to enhance the co-ordination of EU activity in respect of third countries and generally improve the EU's visibility in external relations. The high representative will not replace national Ministers for Foreign Affairs or the national foreign services.
The treaty also provides for the better protection of the rights of EU citizens and raises those rights to an entirely new level. For those of us who have read it, perhaps the most admirable aspect of the treaty is the provision whereby the Charter of Fundamental Rights is made legally binding on the Union's institutions and on member states when implementing EU law. The charter sets out the rights enjoyed by the EU's citizens. These include the right to life, the prohibition of torture, respect for private and family life, the right to an effective remedy, the right to a fair trial, citizens' rights, such as the right to vote and stand as a candidate at elections to the European Parliament, and workers' rights, such as the right to information and consultation, protection in the event of unjustified dismissal, fair and just working conditions, and the protection of young people at work. Why would anybody object to that?
The charter draws its inspiration from the EU treaties, from international human rights law and from the constitutions of the member states. The values on which the European Union is founded — respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities — are spelled out more clearly than ever before in this treaty. Yet, a minority of Members of this House are calling for its rejection.
The treaty provides a more precise outline of the powers conferred on the Union by the member states. It makes clear that the EU has only those powers explicitly conferred on it — the principle of conferral. The subsidiarity principle provides that the EU shall only act if and only in so far as the objective in question cannot be sufficiently achieved at member state level. Under the principle of proportionality, the Union shall only act to the extent necessary to achieve the objective in question.
The balance of responsibility between the Union and the member states remains more or less as it is in most areas. However, there have been some grossly exaggerated comments regarding the number of areas that will move from unanimous voting to qualified majority voting. The most sensitive areas, including taxation, defence matters, common foreign and security policy, social security, citizens' rights, official languages and the seats of EU institutions, will continue to require unanimous agreement into the future.
Every EU treaty that has been put to the Irish people by way of referendum has become the subject of myths, distortions and untruthful efforts to confuse and mislead either by those, such as Sinn Féin, who have traditionally opposed Ireland's involvement in the European project or by the ad hoc opponents that spring up around each referendum. This treaty has given rise to a bumper crop of myths. These myths are propagated by an intriguing collection of opponents, the bulk of whom have no democratic mandate and none of whom has any record of delivery for this country. We have had claims that this is a self-amending treaty. More specifically, there have been claims about the loss of our neutrality, massive transfers of competences and powers, loss of influence through the new voting system, a reduction of our ability to prevent decisions that are not in Ireland’s interests and the loss of an Irish Commissioner. Each of these myths is easily dismissed.
The self-amending treaty myth is precisely that, a myth. The treaty makes clear that any future treaty amendments "shall enter into force after being ratified by all member states in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements". In Ireland, this means that any change of any significance at any future time will require a referendum.
The most enduring myth is that ratification will erode Ireland's neutrality. Sinn Féin has consistently peddled this myth for 35 years. In 1972, for example, campaigning against our entry into the EEC, Sinn Féin opposed accession on the grounds that the objective was "a united states of Europe with a European army". "Irish people", we were warned, would be "compelled to fight wars the European powers decide to wage". Our neutrality would be forsaken and compulsory military service for young people would be introduced. Opposing the Single European Act in 1987, Sinn Féin claimed it would "surrender power completely to the NATO-dominated EEC". Sinn Féin's opposition to the Maastricht treaty in 1992 was based on its prediction that it represented a "death knell for Irish neutrality". In 1998, Sinn Féin opposed the Amsterdam treaty with the argument that it represented "the most significant step towards a military common defence in Europe" and would "ensure that the nuclear-armed Western European Union" was integrated into the European Union structures. Opposing the Nice treaty in 2001, the leader of Sinn Féin, Mr. Gerry Adams, who has been curiously absent from the current debate, said that the treaty would "bring us closer into a European army and into NATO".
The truth is that our Constitution prohibits participation in any common defence. It is a pity that Sinn Féin, having reluctantly and only recently recognised Bunreacht na hÉireannn, would not take the time to read it. The second referendum on the Nice treaty provided that Ireland may not accede to any common EU defence arrangement without the specific consent of the people in a referendum. This is part of our Constitution and will not change. Arguments that Ireland can somehow be involved in a common defence are without foundation.
The focus of EU policy is not warmongering but peacekeeping, crisis management and humanitarian tasks that are entirely consistent with Ireland's values and best traditions. The treaty does not require member states to increase military capacity. Some of its opponents would have us believe that the EU is about to undertake military adventures. Nothing could be further from the truth. The types of operations in which the EU is involved are based on peacekeeping efforts. In Aceh Province, for example, a monitoring mission was established to help build peace in a troubled region. The EU mission to the Western Balkans has stabilised an area that saw grotesque human rights abuses in the last decade. The humanitarian and peacekeeping operation in Chad, meanwhile, was requested by the United Nations.
The move to majority voting is another of those areas that has attracted an encrustation of myths. Not to be outdone by anybody in making false claims against the treaty, Sinn Féin charges that it provides 105 new competences to the EU and that a further 68 areas will move to majority voting. The reality is different. The treaty provides for 22 existing areas to be transferred to qualified majority voting. None of the changes is earth-shattering. The list was published in a recent parliamentary reply to Deputy Timmins. More than one third of the areas will apply to Ireland only if we opt in on a case-by-case basis. Sinn Féin has been asked repeatedly to publish its list of 173 changes but refuses to do so.
Another myth is that the new voting system halves Ireland's voting strength. Under the new procedures, as already mentioned, a proposal requires support from 55% of the member states, representing not less than 65% of the population of the EU, to be enacted. Sinn Féin and its fellow travellers in Libertas take into account only one element of the voting mechanism — population — in their criticism. This is like discarding the points scored in deciding who has won a hurling match.
The claim has been made that we will lose control over key decisions. This is also false. All of Ireland's key interests are protected. Taxation, defence and foreign policy will continue to require unanimous voting. Member states can veto any proposal by withholding support. We are retaining our protocol on abortion. The treaty does not give rise to any new barriers on Ireland's capacity to attract foreign direct investment.
Much is being made of the supposed loss of an Irish Commissioner. The members of the Commission have no national representative role — they give an undertaking to represent the interests of the EU only. Therefore, critics are telling just half the story in this instance. They omit to mention that this deal was struck in the Nice treaty, which the Irish people have already endorsed. I accept that the Commission will be smaller and more focused from 2014, but that is a good thing. Every member state will be treated equally when the Commission is being formed. The rotation system will be applied on the basis of strict equality. Under this treaty, all appointments to the Commission will be made on the basis of equal rotation among the member states. This is a demonstration of the equality of all member states. The myth that makes my cat laugh is that Sinn Féin is somehow pro-Europe. As I have already said, Sinn Féin has called for a "No" vote in every Irish referendum to date.
A huge amount depends on our decision, which will have an impact far beyond our shores. It will affect the lives of almost half a billion people across all 27 member states. The idea that we can "Vote No for a better Yes", which is a vacuous slogan, is a dangerous delusion, as is any suggestion that a "No" vote is cost-free. A "No" vote comes with a massive price tag. It would be seen in Europe as a rejection, serving no purpose, of almost a decade's work by the member states. If Ireland were to vote "No", we would not be kicked out of the European Union. The EU will not come to a halt in such circumstances — it will struggle on. The danger, however, is that a balanced treaty which gives huge benefits to small and medium sized states, will be lost. If we vote "No", we will squander the goodwill we have painstakingly built up since we joined the EEC 35 years ago. We will damage Ireland's reputation as the "can do" member state — the small country that gets things done. We will undoubtedly send what IBEC has called "a worrying signal" into the board rooms in which decisions on foreign direct investment are made and will continue to be made. That would have a dire economic effect on this country.
A further real danger, which has not been discussed very often, was identified in a recent series of perceptive articles in The Irish Times. I refer to the possibility, in the event of a “No” vote here, that larger member states will conclude that after ten years of trying to reform the EU, their efforts have produced no results. In such circumstances, stasis will stare the Union in the face. If such countries become frustrated, they may decide to fall back on bilateral arrangements. This would produce the two-speed Europe that small and medium sized member states fought long and hard to prevent when the Convention on the Future of Europe was being drawn up. One of the underlying themes within the convention was the need to create a Europe that is based on equality. Another concern that ran through the debate was the idea that a two-speed Europe might develop. Such an approach would destroy the “community method” and ultimately undermine the Union itself. The European project is underpinned by the essential principle that member states are seen to be equals and act as equals. To undermine that principle would have a high cost.
I believe this country will vote "Yes" for a variety of positive reasons. Not only do we want to avoid the pitfalls associated with a "No" vote, but we also want to show that we have a positive view of the EU. The Irish people will vote "Yes" because they value the peace the EU has fashioned on a continent that has frequently torn itself asunder with conflict. We recognise the generous role played by the EU in fashioning peace on this island. We will vote "Yes" because we value a more democratic EU that stands for the ideals and values we espouse. The Irish people are practical enough to vote "Yes" as a means of recognising that the best way to deal with major problems like globalisation, energy security, criminality and climate change is to pool our resources as we have done in the past. Above all, I believe Ireland will vote "Yes" because the vast majority of Irish people can see and are convinced that our development, our place as a nation and our future economic well-being are best served by keeping Ireland at the heart of the European Union.
Deputy Costello asked last night about the wording of the proposal to be put to the people on polling day. In essence, the people will decide on 12 June whether the wording contained in the Schedule to this Bill is to be included in the Constitution. I believe the answer to that question can, should and will be "Yes". Ireland has found its feet in Europe. Our future is in Europe. The best way to ensure that our future is good and positive is to vote "Yes" for Europe.
