The message from Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald MEP and the Socialist Party’s Joe Higgins to the summit leaders was largely the same. No means no, the people have decided, the treaty is dead, ratification should not proceed, we need a new treaty, they both echoed at separate press encounters in Brussels yesterday on the fringes of the European summit.
Coir’s anti-treaty message was also delivered here by their spokesman Richard Greene.
Ms McDonald said it was wrong to characterise what had happened as a political crisis – but a political crisis would arise if the public clearly saw that the “European Elite” was determined to ignore the people’s will and to press ahead with the treaty as it stood.
She insisted that “another deal is possible” and emphasised the “sensible achievable” programme of demands that Sinn Fein says can be the basis of a new treaty.
Speaking after her press conference she acknowledged that some of the demands relate to opt-outs or clarifications specifically for Ireland in terms of the familiar strategic issues raised by the campaign.
But she said that an important part of their concern was also the direction of European policy as a whole - changes which affect Ireland alone would not be sufficient. There would have to be new clauses on social policy, on services and defence, and she insisted that in any future EU military structures Ireland would have to retain its place in decision-making and veto on operations, whether or not it was willing to take part in them.
Mr Higgins, who confirmed that he will be contesting next year’s European elections, said that while the Sinn Fein list touched many of the common concerns shared by the Socialist Party, “no way will they be granted.”
The purpose of the treaty was to pursue the neoliberal project of deregulation and privatisation, and there was no way that the sort of assurances working people wanted would be met by the EU’s conservative governments.
“If the €80 billion poured into arms was put into social services and health care, that would be another matter. But it won’t happen,” he said, acknowledging that it was unlikely his party would find itself supporting a revised treaty..
Coir in a statement said that what was needed was “a new direction not a rehashed treaty”. The group argues that any new document should be put to all the people of Europe for a vote. It should substantially shift power back from the commission to member-states and should leave the right to decided workers rights, taxation and immigration policy at national level.
Coir also calls for the scrapping of the Charter of Fundamental Rights because “it does not recognise the right to life from conception or support the natural family.”
