POLITICAL IMPACT:THE MAJORITY of Irish politicians are "too parochial" to understand the European Union, or the Lisbon Treaty's benefits, former Irish European commissioner and head of the World Trade Organisation, Peter Sutherland, has said.
Speaking in London, Mr Sutherland said: “I think politicians are obviously living through a very difficult economic environment, but I don’t think that they ever in many instances – certainly not all – ever got to grips with the substance of what Europe is, or what the treaty is.
“In many ways, our political class have been far too parochial. Only those who have been exposed through council membership [of EU ministers meetings], and what have you, have enough of a handle on this to make a real contribution to the debate.
“The result is that the old adage that all politics is local is so much the case in Ireland that it has damaged our capacity to take on bigger issues such as this,” he told The Irish Times.
Urging a Yes vote, Mr Sutherland said a rejection of the Lisbon Treaty “might ultimately lead to a decisive split. We would definitely diminish Europe’s voice in the world.”
Strongly criticising the No campaign, Mr Sutherland, who is chairman of BP, said that “far from improving in terms of the legitimacy of the arguments it is putting forward on the last time, it has, if anything, deteriorated”.
The Yes campaign “is better organised independently outside the political sense than it was before, but, unfortunately, the hijacking of the debate by illusory arguments has distorted the presentation of what this is really about. There has been so much time necessarily spent fire-fighting against absurd arguments which are frightening and threatening and, therefore, particularly dangerous at a time when people feel vulnerable.
“Some of the fundamental arguments about Ireland’s interest, and Europe’s interests are being forgotten. Nobody seems to care about everybody else’s interests, as if the whole logic behind the European Union is about self-interest.
“I have no doubt about our self-interest in this, but surely we are a bigger people than to focus exclusively on that aspect and not to recognise the fact that what we are potentially doing is putting a road-block on the development of something that is to many people a wonder of the world: that a continent mired in conflict for a 1,000 years is actually getting its act together, however tentatively and however spasmodically, is an amazing phenomenon. Others have tried to copy our example. None of them find it easy.”
He rejected arguments that a No vote will leave the EU untouched: “Those who say that a failure of the Lisbon Treaty doesn’t jeopardise the European Union are living in a fool’s paradise.
“It will have a very serious effect. That is why the Eurosceptics and their influence on this referendum in Ireland is directly focused the Irish referendum. They know that their best opportunity of destroying the substance of what the EU is about is by creating the tempestuous consequences of a failure on Lisbon,” he added.
Small countries in the EU have always been its strongest supporters, particularly those who suffered most in the second World War: “They have recognised that there is no advantage in being alone and having a voice that nobody listens to.
“The only reference to Ireland in 50 years time in history book of this time should not be ‘Ireland stopped the EU in its tracks while contending that it believed in European integration’,” Mr Sutherland added.