It seems certain that Irish voters have rejected the Lisbon Treaty.
According to RTÉ, the Lisbon Treaty has been rejected by the Irish people after yesterday’s referendum.
This is not a Maastricht-type rejection. It is not even a 2005-type rejection of the Constitution by France and the Netherlands. This is something completely different; it is a rejection stemming from the fact that during the process of drafting, approving and signing both the Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty, no one seemed to care what people think; no one felt that it is necessary to inform the public and include it in the decision-making process. The rejection of the Treaty by the Irish is underlined by and a testament of the hastiness and complete lack of proper planning in which the 2004 and 2007 expansions to Eastern Europe (the Nice Treaty), the Constitution and now the Lisbon Treaty took place: quick, hastened and with insufficient planning and analysis of its consequences to the EU as a quasi-political entity and a multinational organisation. Most importantly, with minimal public consultation on the topics that matter to everyone, with practically no public involvement whatsoever. It is no accident that most of the arguments of the No campaign in Ireland had to do with topics that people were concerned with, that the Treaty addresses, but which were not communicated to them by the authorities.
This is not a unique situation to Ireland. I’m pretty certain that if more referenda took place, there’d be much more dissent than expected; even from those in favour of a stronger Union. Those arguing that an Irish ‘No’ should be translated in an expulsion of Ireland from the Union, forget that — besides this being totally unrealistic — it could very well be the case that their country too, had it had voted in a referendum, might have said no. The French suggestion that during the French presidency all the ‘important’ parts of the Treaty would be ratified in an ‘ad-hoc way’ are indications that the result of the referendum are not only misunderstood, but ignored; the EU has managed to create a relatively dangerous deadlock and one that cannot — easily, within the existing frameworks and norms — be broken.
Most people in Europe are still unfamiliar with the text of the treaty; national media rarely provide reports — or even a discussion — of its content; most governments simply don’t care; after all, no country other than Ireland gets to vote in a referendum. The precedent of the second referendum in Ireland in 2001 regarding the Treaty of Nice and the fact that no other country had a referendum on Lisbon means that it will not be so easy to move on from here on; at least not in a transparent, acceptable way, even to the same politicians from the 26 member states that would have signed the treaty.
Sadly, since 2004 the EU as an organisation has undergone a vast geopolitical — almost cultural — change, while its organisational and institutional frameworks and structures remained unchanged. The Lisbon Treaty was about changing all that. It’s thus ironic that an Irish rejection (along with 26 approvals in the respective parliaments of the remaining EU member states) proves why the organisational restructuring of the EU should have preceded its expansion (if not evolution) into a 27-state chaotic entity.
Nevertheless, while really unfortunate for the EU, the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty — like those of the Constitution three years earlier — is probably going to be followed by a secondary solution, perhaps another referendum coupled with minor adjustments to the Treaty, a more opaque solution with a mini-Treaty with merely the absolutely necessary parts for the operational reform and an eventual ‘approval’ of a much larger treaty when the time is ripe. Still, it seems to me that today’s rejection should serve as a reminder that if the european project is to succeed, it really needs to include its most significant members: its citizens. Otherwise it won’t be long until the EU dissolves into a sad reminder of what could’ve been the most prosperous and democratic era for the continent and beyond.
You seem to argue that the Irish debated the ins and outs of the treaty and finally decided on whether they wanted to adopt it. This is not my feeling at all. It seems to me that the rejection coalition was formed from people all over the political spectrum with very different importatnt issues. The catholic part does not want many of the freedoms that the EU is proposing, such as abortion laws etc. The nationalists do not want others telling them what is right. The “libertarians” prefer the financial connections with the US and the UK and the left sees the usual “imperialist” laws taking over. Of course I might be exagerating, and be wildly off, but the notion that the rejection has something to do with the way the drafting of the Treaty happened is wildly off. I imagine a similar conclusion would be reached if there were a referendum in Hellas. People are not informed about these things.
On the contrary. What I’m arguing is that the Irish didn’t really know (let alone debate) before casting their votes — be it ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. (see second and fourth paragraphs). Most of the comments I read from Irish people on the BBC indicated that the ‘Yes’ votes were cast only on the basis that ‘the EU has done us good, we should repay them by voting Yes’ and the ‘No’ votes largely were cast by people that had no clue whatsoever what the treaty would actually achieve and were misguided by misleading campaigns against it.
Anti-EU feeling is to be expected throughout Europe by specific social groups and parts of the political spectrum. Ireland is probably one of the few places in Europe where anti-EU feelings should be minimal; it’s a country that has benefited immensely from the EU and is now more prosperous than ever, in part due to its EU membership. Nevertheless, the problem I’m highlighting is not that the Irish rejected the Treaty per se. The problem is that post the 2004 expansion, the EU has i) lost track of its direction, ii) evolved its geopolitical structure without adjusting its institutional, normative and legislative frameworks to cope with it. And to top it all off, it did all this without — at any point — engaging with European citizens directly (or in some cases even adequately informing them of what’s at stake and what’s happening).
I get your point, sorry for misrepresenting your view. An interesting point of view can be found in the economist who argues that had the enlargement not happened in 2004 it would not happen now. Of course the expansion could have been better handled.
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11436623
Ah yes, I’ve read the report. While I agree with the facts and arguments, I find most of the conclusions drawn wrong; the basis of whether the expansion would have been possible or not is the alleged ‘mass exodus’ that xenophobic, typically nationalist organisations put forth in an attempt to strike a chord with people’s ills and attain power. But it didn’t have to be this way.
Given that I do believe enlargement should have been part of the strategic EU policy, I draw the exact opposite conclusions from the facts: in my view, the European Union should have agreed upon a well-specified plan to bolster both the economic, but also the democratic institutions of candidate members, through the controlled and audited provision of economic assistance and through the provision of clear and rigid formal requirements with regards to corruption, freedom of speech, the democratic processes etc.
This should have been followed by the organisational/normative reform necessary in a 27 member Union. The whole process should have been transparent and involving for every European citizen.
After all this had been done, countries should be admitted to the Union, not before; as full members enjoying the benefits of the citizens of France, Germany, Spain or Hellas; that is, without the hypocritical restrictions people from Poland, the Baltic states and others faced in 2004-2005. And of course without the embarrassing corruption that the EU now has to tolerate from countries like Bulgaria (it’s not like the Eurocrats in Brussels had no idea), or indeed the embarrassing and dangerous deadlocks possible under the existing Treaties.
I’m pretty confident that the enlargement of the EU should not have happened in the way it did. Moreover, had it been planned properly it would probably not have happened as soon as it did. And that’d be good. But to argue that xenophobia and immigration are the reasons we should be done with enlargement as quickly as possible indicates complete ignorance of the reasons immigration and xenophobia exist, ignores the realities of organising a 27-member quasi-political and economic bloc and suggests no longterm solutions to the issues at hand. I won’t go on as this is slightly off-topic and I’ve already written some more on this matter on this blog before.
It is natural to draw different conclusions from the same data. I guess in this case, you and the economist (and the British more generally) see the EU from a very different perspective, that is, as to what it represents or stands for. Thanks for claryfiing your position, and sorry for my many typing mistakes, I have not set up lang support in ff3 yet.
Absolutely, I don’t think there’s any point comparing apples and oranges. Yet, that was definitely not the point of my response: it’s not the economist’s difference of opinion that leads to the fallacies of that report; it’s a lack of grounding in the conclusions it draws from the data that affect me. That has nothing to do with opinion.
As I said before, I am not one of those that argue against enlargement; many europhiles have considered enlargement to be an anglosaxon lever against the ‘european project’; i.e. a way to prevent a stronger Union from happening through the dissonance more voices would bring. I disagree with that opinion and I’d love to see an enlarged EU that works. Nevertheless, I cannot ignore the fact that today we’re at the worst possible point in the history of the Union, both in terms of organisational and political will and public opinion of its fundamental institutions throughout the continent.
I’ve written about this (see here [in Hellenic]) in 2006, expressing my concerns regarding the institutional and organisational well-functioning of the EU post enlargement.
I read that economist article too, and I must say that I agree in many ways. A strong Russia, wouldn’t let Bulgaria join the EU, neither Croatia would have start accession talks.
On the other hand, as this mentioned article states and Cosmix writes, organisational issues are harming the EU.
I’m quite positive that the Irish didn’t had a clue about the Lisbon Treaty, same goes (imho) for France and Netherlands in 2004. The voters in every case did vote in the strain of expansion fears and internal affairs. The EU is a *very* positive thing we should embrace that. Free market doesn’t mean no rules.
I don’t know what the future will bring but this one was bad. Let’s hope that European leaders learned the lesson.