Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, offers a guide to the issues and the arguments
With the Nice referendum less than four weeks away, the campaign is beginning in earnest. The debate will focus on the controversial elements of the treaty as well as the desirability of having a second referendum at all. Interpretations of the text by the two sides are frequently coloured by their ideologies on the EU project.
Q. Why a second referendum?
A. Because the Government considers Nice so important for the future of the EU and Ireland's place within it. Anti-Nice campaigners say the treaty should have been renegotiated after last year's vote, but the Taoiseach told the Dáil it would have been wrong to interfere with the ratification process in other member states.
Q. What is the aim of the treaty?
A. The main purpose is to change the EU institutions before the admission of new member states. Pro-Nice campaigners say it is about minor, but necessary, adjustments to make the enlarged EU more manageable. Opponents see a deeper agenda at work, with the ultimate aim of creating a militarised superstate.
Q. Who will be members of this enlarged EU?
A. If Nice is ratified, 10 "accession countries" are due to be admitted in 2004: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta. Meanwhile, Bulgaria and Romania are waiting in the wings, and Turkey has been given candidate status.
Q. What institutional changes are proposed?
A. The main changes involve: the composition of the European Commission; decision-making in the Council of Ministers; make-up of the European Parliament; changes in other EU institutions. There are proposals on common foreign and security policy as well as human rights and social protection issues.
Q. What's this about Ireland losing its commissioner?
A. The Commission, which serves a five-year term, 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, 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 of the smaller Commission will rotate among the states on an equal basis.
Q. Will this State still have the same number of MEPs?
A. There'll be 12 instead of 15, but all existing member states will lose seats, except Germany and Luxembourg. At present there are 626 MEPs, and a limit has been set of 732 after enlargement.
Q. Has the treaty got any military or defence implications?
A. Nice gives a legal, treaty basis to the Political and Security Committee, already functioning and composed of ambassadors from each member state. It was set up to exercise "political control and strategic direction of crisis management operations" by the Rapid Reaction Force.
Ireland will 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", named after Schloss Petersberg, near Bonn, where these were first agreed in 1992. They are "humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace-making". The Government has said 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 RRF, the WEU has receded in importance and 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, without a further referendum, in a mutual defence pact, whereby an attack on one EU member state would be an attack on all. At the European summit in Seville last June, the Government and the EU leaders issued declarations re-affirming Irish neutrality. Critics say neutrality is still under threat - through membership of the RRF and NATO's Partnership for Peace - and that the declarations have no legal standing.
Q. Why did immigration become an issue?
A. The No side 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 a "flood" of immigrant workers, but the Yes side points out that similar warnings proved false when Spain, Greece and Portugal joined and that academic studies show the fears are groundless.
Q. How does Nice affect Ireland's position in EU decision-making?
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 for existing member states to 237, with Ireland getting seven. The weight of the larger states in the voting system has been enhanced to reflect their populations and compensate them for the loss of their second commissioner.
Votes have also been allocated to the candidate countries. For example, Slovakia gets seven, Slovenia four. When and if the EU reaches 27 members, the total votes on the council will be 345.
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 and the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Q. Won't it be 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 in most cases the right of individual member states to exercise a veto on the arrangement. Enhanced co-operation may not apply to military or defence issues or to the Common Agricultural Policy. But critics say it opens the door to a "two-tier, two-speed Europe".
Q. What happens if there is another No vote?
A. The treaty cannot come into force unless ratified in all 15 member states by the end of the year. All have done so, except Ireland, and another No vote would mean the end of Nice and a delay in enlargement.
There are unofficial reports of a "Plan B" involving individual accession treaties for each of the candidate countries, incorporating the less controversial elements of Nice, which would not necessarily require a referendum here. Other issues could be dealt with by the Convention on the Future of Europe, which is already meeting in Brussels.
Ireland would not be expelled from the EU for voting No, but pro-Nice campaigners say we would lose investment and jobs as well as diplomatic and political goodwill. The No camp dismisses this as "scaremongering".