THE GREEN Party will hold a special convention of its membership before deciding whether to support a Yes vote in a second Lisbon referendum.
A two-thirds majority at the convention will be required before the party can campaign in favour of the treaty. At a previous convention, held in Dublin last January, the leadership narrowly failed to secure the necessary support to enable the party to campaign for a Yes vote in the first referendum.
No date has been set for the Green convention. However, The Irish Times has confirmed from sources on the Fianna Fáil wing of Government that details of any final agreement with the other EU member states will not be available prior to the European elections, which are due to take place in early June.
Any member of the Greens can attend a special convention. The January meeting drew an attendance of just over 300. A similar convention in June 2007 approved Green entry into Government. Party membership is estimated at 2,000. The key issues in securing a two-thirds majority of the Greens to campaign for the treaty are neutrality and workers' rights
"We wouldn't even think about putting the treaty to a convention unless we had a clear package," Green Party sources said last night. "We would have to see the detail of any agreement with the other member states."
The surprise emergence of workers' rights as a prominent issue at last week's European summit in Brussels is understood to be the result of Green Party lobbying inside Government.
The issue caused some difficulty with the British government. In contrast with taxation, defence and abortion, there were no legal guarantees for Ireland on workers' rights in the conclusions adopted at the summit. Green Party sources admitted to some "disappointment" over this but insisted they would continue to pursue the matter with their Fianna Fáil partners.
However, neutrality is an even more important issue for the Greens who remain concerned at the use of Shannon airport by US troops on their way to and from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Background discussions have been taking place on the issue between the two parties and are expected to continue over the coming months. Some of the Green Party's concerns have been publicly expressed by European affairs spokeswoman Deirdre de Búrca, who suggested in the run-up to the summit that "a social progress clause or protocol" be attached to a future EU treaty.
"I am concerned about the fact that most of the informal discussions between the Government and our partners to date have focused on the issues of taxation, the commissioner, neutrality and sensitive social issues," Ms de Búrca said in a statement at the time. "The issue of workers' rights has not appeared to feature in these discussions," she added.
