"Pure" Democracy In Action

"Pure" Democracy In Action: Europe In Turmoil After Irish Vote
Referendum Defeat Dashes Plans For A Stronger EU On The Global Stage;
Or, Cutting Off One's Nose To Spite One's Face.

By Marc Champion and Charles Forelle, WSJ | 14 June 2008

In a blow to the ambitions of the world's largest economic and political union, voters in Ireland derailed plans aimed at making the European Union a stronger global player, poll results showed Friday. Irish voters rejected the so-called Lisbon Treaty by 53% to 47%, in the only popular vote that will be held on the treaty by any EU nation. Because all 27 EU countries need to ratify the treaty, Ireland's "no" vote risks killing it.

The defeat jeopardizes changes that EU leaders have been working to introduce for a decade. The treaty calls for the EU to appoint its first president, create an EU diplomatic service under a single foreign-affairs chief, and win greater powers to legislate in areas such as immigration. Lisbon would also make it easier for the bloc, which has grown to 27 countries from 15 in 2003, to make decisions, by reducing the number of policy areas that require unanimity.

Loss of the Lisbon Treaty would have little impact on monetary policy, competition, tax or trade policy— areas where the EU already has become an important force in global business. But Ireland's vote is a major setback for the geopolitical ambitions of the EU, often derided as economic giant but a foreign-policy weakling.

EU leaders will decide what to do next when they meet for a regularly scheduled summit next week. To rescue the treaty, they must first ensure that the other 26 countries go on to ratify it. One possible course is then to ask the Irish to vote again. Another is to seek some way to have the document ratified by Ireland's parliament, without a referendum. But that would be politically hazardous and subject to legal challenge.

"The government accepts and respects the verdict of the Irish people," said Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen. He added that he would work with other EU leaders to find a way forward and that "Ireland has no wish to halt the progress" of the EU.

Ireland's dissent stems from a range of grievances against the EU. Some Irish feared that the treaty might force the prosperous country to raise the low corporate tax rates that have helped it attract investment. Farmers were angered by the EU's free-trade stance at global trade talks, complaining that cheap food imports would devastate Irish agriculture.

Most of those concerns actually had little to do with the treaty, which wouldn't affect issues such as taxes or farming. But the treaty's unwieldy nature— it amounts to 356 amendments to existing EU agreements, as well as assorted declarations, protocols and annexes— made it a fat target for opponents of closer union. The U.K. parliament is set to press ahead with its ratification of the EU treaty, despite intense domestic pressure either to abandon the treaty or grant Britons a referendum, too.

"We still think the treaty is good for the U.K. and good for Europe," said a spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "We feel the treaty has been debated in great detail by both houses (of parliament), and both houses have voted positively on it." French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a joint statement Friday they hoped the remaining countries would continue the ratification process. "We are convinced that the reforms contained in the treaty of Lisbon are necessary to make Europe more democratic and more efficient," the statement said.

Rescuing the treaty could prove difficult. This is the third time in as many years that voters asked to approve the EU's most important plans have refused. French and Dutch voters rejected the EU's draft constitution in 2005. Those defeats forced EU leaders to strip the text of state symbols (including an EU flag), rename it a treaty instead of a constitution, and try again. Led by Mr. Sarkozy, EU leaders agreed to seek ratification of the revised document through parliaments, avoiding the risk of a further public rebuff. Ireland, however, was the exception. Its constitution required a referendum.

"This is a cry for democracy, accountability and transparency to the heart of European government," said Declan Ganley, a high-tech executive who was the most prominent Irish treaty opponent. "We need them to go back to the drawing table." Mr. Ganley, whose anti-treaty organization chartered a "battle bus" for cross-country roadshows, complained that the treaty handed too much power to a Brussels government he called undemocratic. He said Irish voters were particularly put off by the provision that the EU president be appointed, not elected.

Legally, the EU's major institutional reforms— the new president, the new foreign minister, the changes to the structure of the commission— are dead. They need unanimous consent, legal experts say. There is some possibility for the 26 other countries to proceed on minor matters without Ireland. Jean-Luc Dehaene, a former Belgian prime minister who was one of the leading figures involved in drafting the original constitution, said the Irish vote shouldn't be allowed to derail the treaty. "Parliament is the heart of representative democracy, not referendums," he said in a phone interview Friday.

The defeat is apt to have immediate diplomatic ramifications. Without the treaty, the EU's further expansion into the Balkans, Turkey and the ex-Soviet Union is on hold, according to a senior German official. The treaty's loss would also be likely to revive efforts at creating a "two speed" Europe, in which an inner core of countries integrate at their own, quicker speed, and allow others to follow, politicians and analysts say. The EU has developed in a delicate compromise between countries led by the U.K. that want to focus on trade and expand to include more countries, and others, such as France and Belgium, that want to deepen the EU as a political union. Rejection of the constitution, and now the Lisbon treaty, makes progress in either direction difficult.

Mr. Sarkozy will be particularly hard hit by the Irish rejection. France takes over the EU's rotating presidency next month. Mr. Sarkozy has ambitious plans to secure a new EU pact on immigration, name the EU's first president, and make a breakthrough in efforts to consolidate the EU's inefficient defense sector. That project is strongly supported by U.S. President George Bush— a dramatic change from the days of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the U.S. showed little interest in a more unified Europe that was potentially hostile to U.S. policy.

U.S. officials, however, now stress the value of encouraging the EU to squeeze greater military capabilities out of declining budgets, allowing the EU to take on a bigger share of security tasks, from Afghanistan to Africa. The U.S. also sees value in a united EU position on issues such as pressuring Iran over its dual-use nuclear-fuel program. Ireland accounts for just 1% of the EU's 490 million people, but it was the only country to offer its electorate a vote on the treaty. That has given the vote an outsized significance.

"No one asks for our opinion," said Hassan Gassama, a Parisian who voted against the EU's draft constitution in 2005. "At least [the Irish] ask for their opinion and they can give it for all of Europe." Also sharpening the blow is that, unlike the British, the Irish generally aren't hostile to the EU. Regular opinion surveys rank Ireland top among EU nations when asked whether they have benefited from the EU. Since joining the EU in 1973, the island nation has gone from one of the poorest in the bloc, to the second richest in per capita terms, behind the banker's haven of Luxembourg.

"Fundamentally, the question this raises is: Does Europe know what story it wants to tell? What's this [the EU] all for? Why do we need these institutions?" said Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at Oxford University. The treaty's defeat wouldn't threaten the existence of the EU itself, politicians and analysts say. They note that even since the French and Dutch rejections of 2005, the bloc has continued to function. Within the past 10 years, the EU has launched the euro, opened up internal borders for free travel, and expanded to include 10 countries from the former communist bloc.

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