Warning against not reversing Nice vote

Ireland's position as a full member of the European Union will be questioned if the Nice Treaty referendum result is not reversed, former EU Commissioner Mr Peter Sutherland has warned. In a blunt speech to the Institute of European Affairs, Mr Sutherland accused both the Government and the Opposition of failing to offer leadership during the campaign.

"Let us be clear about the consequences of this," Mr Sutherland told the institute. "It seems to me that if we cannot remedy this situation, we will be faced with a stark issue. I think that a failure to reverse the No vote would directly raise the question of how we could remain as full members of the European Union.

"How could we honourably stay as we are rejecting a constitutional change, thereby denying to all the others who, unanimously, want it to happen? More specifically, how could 1 per cent of the EU population stop 99 per cent?"

Ireland had been "less than honest" about its EU ambitions, focusing largely upon the dividends from the structural funds and the Common Agricultural Policy. "Is it a coincidence that our ardour about the European Union is changing precisely at the time when both are under threat?" he asked.

Politicians here failed to recognise that the EU's internal market was much more important to the State's economy than either the structural funds or the CAP.

"It is surely time that we recognised that you cannot have even a common market without an acceptance that we have to share sovereignty in sensitive areas."

The Nice Treaty vote was "a shock", said Mr Sutherland, who remains an influential figure in EU circles and is a friend of the European Commission president, Mr Romano Prodi. "We should also recognise that \the No vote\ has changed the perception of Ireland by other member-states as well as the applicants in a fundamental way."

Most people, including himself, believed Nice did not go far enough. "The Danes, who consistently feature in polls as amongst the most reluctant Europeans, have not even felt obliged to submit it to a referendum."

The result mystified Ireland's EU partners. "So this is no trivial event, nor can it be blamed on anyone else. Apparently, a majority of those voting found the voices of a collection of politicians from the extremes of left and right, leavened by a few mainstream, more appealing than the combined Government and Opposition."

Blaming the electorate's "ambivalence and confusion" on the Supreme Court's McKenna judgment, he said it forced the Government to give equal weight "to a tiny minority of our elected politicians".

The "apocalyptic warnings" of anti-EU factions "have proved to be wildly inaccurate. The visions of imminent destruction of our values and identity that have been presented with such force over the years have been proved time and time again to be without foundation. And yet we seem to have been persuaded by the same siren voices.

"Perhaps the Eurosceptic arguments that one hears trumpeted so often in the United Kingdom media have finally also influenced us at home."

The Nice Treaty reforms should have gone further, Mr Sutherland said. "Unfortunately, \ only provides a minimal step forward but it is better than nothing and its rejection creates a crisis for everyone in Ireland that has been fastened on by those who would really prefer disintegration to integration."

Neutrality fears had given Irish anti-EU campaigners "a field day". "It is indeed time that our politicians, instead of re-emphasising neutrality until it has become holy writ, faced up to a real debate on what it means, if anything, in today's world."