IT article: Dail asked to interpret 'Irish NO vote' if Nice Treaty rejected

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday October 11, 2002 16:19 by Phuq Hedd

Dennis Staunton in Irish Times reports on EU Commissions latest preparation for failure

Romano Prodi, the allegedly corrupt, Church backed president of the allegedly corrupt EU Commission (a body in whose election I had no voice and over which I will have less control if the Nice Treaty passes), has demanded the allegedly corrupt Dail to be ready to explain any possible NO Vote and to confirm that what the "Irish people" _really_ mean is that they want enlargement. Yet the "EU sources" admit that rejection of Nice does NOT stop enlargement (see last paragraph). So is someone trying to fool us?!

I include the text of Dennis Staunton's Irish Times piece below as the IT requires a login:

EU to seek Dail backing for enlargement if Nice rejected

The European Union will ask for a Dáil declaration backing EU enlargement if Ireland rejects the Nice Treaty next week, according to European sources, writes Denis Staunton, in Brussels

EU officials insist such a declaration would not remove all obstacles placed in the way of enlargement by a second rejection of Nice. But they hope it would neutralise complaints that, by proceeding with the admission of 10 new member-states, the EU would be ignoring the democratically expressed will of the Irish people.

"The idea is that the Irish should provide us with their interpretation of what the vote means, declaring that in the eyes of Ireland it is not a rejection of enlargement," one senior official said.

The European Commission yesterday recommended that 10 new member-states, mostly in central and eastern Europe, be allowed to join the EU in 2004.

But the Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, stressed that the Nice Treaty was a political requirement for enlargement to proceed.

The Commission and the 15 EU member-states have consistently stated that there is no "Plan B" if Ireland rejects Nice a second time. Enlargement may be legally possible without the treaty, according to most experts, but important political obstacles remain.

Officials are especially worried about the hazards of reopening complicated negotiations that took four nights in Nice to resolve.

"The legal situation would be messy but it's the whole Pandora's Box that would be opened that would be the biggest problem," one official said.

The proposal to ask Ireland for a declaration interpreting a second No vote was first mooted last month in the margins of an EU foreign ministers' meeting in the Danish town of Elsinore.

It was not discussed at the meeting itself and a spokesman for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said yesterday that the Minister had no knowledge of it.

The idea is attractive to Ireland's EU partners, however, because it would give them a green light to proceed with enlargement despite an Irish No vote.

"It could be a Government declaration but ideally it would be made by parliament, stating clearly that Ireland did not vote against enlargement," one official said.

The Enlargement Commissioner, Mr Guenther Verheugen, said yesterday that he did not know how enlargement could proceed if Ireland votes No next week.

But he suggested that, in the event of a second rejection of Nice, Ireland would have to explain the meaning of the vote. "If a treaty is rejected twice in a country and that country knows exactly that this treaty is a precondition for the conclusion of enlargement negotiations, the outside world cannot make the judgment whether the rejection means enlargement or something else." Therefore what I would like to know is how the Irish feel we could deal with such a situation. But that certainly cannot be discussed today. It must be discussed afterwards," he said.

European officials stress that any Dáil declaration backing enlargement would represent no more than a first step towards undoing the damage of a No vote.

They point out that some member-states are unhappy at the outcome of Nice and would welcome an opportunity to reopen negotiations on sensitive issues. Most believe that, although a second rejection of Nice would not stop enlargement, it could delay the admission of new member-states for months or even years.

See also pages 8 and 9

Editorial comment :page 17