What is the Nice Treaty all about? What are the main bones of contention between the Yes and No sides? Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, offers a guide to the treaty debate
Controversy abounds on the meaning of the Nice Treaty and its implications for the future of Europe, Irish neutrality, the position of small vis-à-vis large states, and whether it is primarily about enlargement or a deeper agenda for full European integration.
Different interpretations often reflect fundamentally opposed views of the European project.
Q. When is the Nice referendum taking place?
A. No date has been announced as yet, but it will be some time between mid-October and early November.
Q. Why are we having a second referendum?
A. Because the Government considers the Treaty of Nice to be extremely important for the future of the European Union and Ireland's place within it.
Q. What is the aim of the treaty?
A. The main purpose of the treaty is to change the institutions of the EU prior to the admission of new member-states. The Yes side claims that the changes are necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of an enlarged EU; the No people claim it is really about creating a two-tier Europe.
Q. Who will be members of this enlarged EU?
A. Mainly the former communist states of central and eastern Europe. The 10 "accession countries" at the head of the queue are: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta. Meanwhile, Bulgaria and Romania are waiting in the wings, and Turkey has also been given candidate status.
Q. What institutional changes are proposed?
A. The main changes are: in the membership of the European Commission; the decision-making process in the Council of Ministers; the make-up of the European Parliament; changes in other EU institutions. The treaty also contains proposals affecting the Common Foreign and Security Policy as well as human rights and social protection issues.
Q. What's this about Ireland losing its commissioner?
A. Currently, the Commission has 20 members from the 15 member-states; the largest five states have nominated two each. Under Nice, each state gets to nominate only one commissioner. When and if the EU expands to 27, the member-states lose their automatic right to nominate a commissioner. EU leaders will decide, unanimously, how many commissioners there should be, but there must be fewer than 27.
Membership will rotate among the states on an equal basis. The thinking behind this is that a 27-member Commission would be unmanageable, but there have been suggestions that this provision of the treaty might not be implemented. Nice would allow the President of the Commission to allocate portfolios and carry out reshuffles, not unlike a prime minister.
Q. Will Ireland still have the same number of MEPs?
A. No. The treaty provides for a reduction from 15 to 12. But all the existing member-states will lose seats, except Germany and Luxembourg, which remain the same. At present there are 626 MEPs, and a limit has been set of 732 after enlargement, otherwise it is considered that the Parliament would become unwieldy.
Q. What, if any, are the military implications of the Nice Treaty?
A. Nice proposes the setting-up of a Political and Security Committee, with representatives from each member-state, to exercise "political control and strategic direction of crisis management operations" by the Rapid Reaction Force. Ireland has agreed to contribute 850 troops to the 60,000-strong RRF, which proceeds regardless of what happens to the Nice Treaty and is expected to be ready for action next year.
Its remit is based on the Petersberg Tasks: "humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace-making". The Government has said that it will only approve participation in operations mandated by the United Nations.
The Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 envisaged a key role in EU defence for the Western European Union, founded in 1948 to promote defence and security co-operation (Ireland has observer status). But, with the development of the Rapid Reaction Force, the WEU has receded in importance, and it is effectively sidelined by Nice in favour of the Political and Security Committee.
Q. How has the Government responded to concerns about neutrality?
A. The proposed constitutional amendment to ratify Nice now includes an additional provision excluding Ireland from participating in a European common defence without a further referendum. At the European summit in Seville last June, the Government and EU leaders issued separate declarations affirming Irish neutrality. The critics claim our neutrality is still under threat.
Q. Why has immigration become such an issue in this referendum?
A. The No side has highlighted the fact that, after the rejection of Nice in June 2001, the Government told the candidate countries that free movement of their workers into Ireland would be permitted as soon as they joined the EU.
Most EU states have reserved the right to restrict access for up to seven years. Some anti-Nice campaigners claim there will be "floods" of immigrants, but the Yes side points out that similar warnings proved false when Spain, Greece and Portugal joined and that academic studies have shown that severe distortions of the labour market are unlikely.
Q. How does Nice affect Ireland's position in the EU decision-making process?
A. The Council of Ministers consists of ministers from each member-state and makes all the major EU policy decisions, sometimes in conjunction with the European Parliament. The faces at the table vary, depending on the area of responsibility: Brian Cowen attends if it's Foreign Affairs, Joe Walsh for Agriculture, and so on. Each member-state has a specific number of votes, weighted to reflect population. Currently, Ireland has three votes out of 87, the same as Denmark and Finland. Nice increases the total number of votes to 237, with Ireland getting seven.
Votes have also been allocated to the candidate countries. For example, Slovakia gets seven, Slovenia four. When and if the EU reaches 27 member-states, the total number of votes on the Council will be 345. The weight of the larger states in the voting system has been enhanced to reflect the size of their populations and compensate them for the loss of their second commissioner.
Q. Will we lose our veto on key EU decisions?
A. Some decisions of the Council of Ministers must be unanimous; others may be taken by Qualified Majority Voting (QMV). At present, 62 weighted votes out of a total 87 are required for a proposal to be carried. If Nice is ratified, this will become a total of 237 votes, with 169 required as a "qualified majority". In an EU of 27 member-states, 255 weighted votes would be required out of 345.
Nice proposes to extend QMV to 30 new areas of decision-making, such as the appointment of members of the Commission. But there are some areas where unanimity will still be required, e.g. taxation, which the Government regards as critical to our economic success, and the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Q. Won't it be very difficult to reach consensus in an enlarged EU?
A. Enhanced Co-operation (also known as "flexibility") allows a limited number of member-states to proceed together on a particular issue, using the institutions of the EU, where others are unwilling or unable to participate for the time being. Nice proposes that the minimum number of member-states required, even after enlargement, would be eight, and it removes the right of individual member-states to exercise a veto on the arrangement in most cases.
Enhanced Co-operation may not be used on military or defence issues, although anti-Nice critics claim that it opens the door to a European "superstate".
Q. What happens if there is another No vote?
A. The treaty cannot come into force unless it is ratified by all the member-states, including Ireland, and another No vote would mean the end of Nice. There are unofficial reports of a "Plan B" which could involve individual accession treaties for each of the candidate countries, containing some elements of Nice. Other issues would probably be dealt with by the Convention on the Future of Europe, which is already meeting in Brussels.