The suggestion by No campaigners that smaller accession states to the EU would be grateful to Ireland if it rejected the Nice Treaty was "fanciful", Fine Gael TD and former taoiseach Mr John Bruton said yesterday.
Speaking at an Irish Alliance for Europe press conference, he said a No vote would unleash "destructive and hypocritical forces" throughout Western Europe aimed at stopping enlargement.
In addition, some applicant countries, including Slovakia, the Czech Republic and certain Balkan states, "might become so discouraged, and might feel such a sense of rejection in Europe, that their electorates would turn away from European Union membership altogether.
"This would be a tragedy, a tragedy for which we, the Irish people, would ultimately have to accept moral responsibility."
Describing a No vote as "a leap into the dark", Mr Bruton said if it occurred, one option might be to incorporate parts of the treaty into individual accession treaties for the 10 applicants. However, he said, this would lead to a "huge row" within the EU as to which parts should be included, and which should be left out.
"France, I believe, would insist that the provisions of Nice in respect of enhanced co-operation would have to go into any accession treaty. They would say, as they have done in the past, that in a union whose now very diverse membership has been increased from 15 to 25, a provision to enable a group of states to go ahead with certain aspects of policy would be essential in practical terms."
But, he said, if France got its way he believed the Supreme Court would rule that this represented a circumvention of Ireland's No vote, and that a comprehensive accession treaty, or all 10 accession treaties, would have to be voted on by the Irish people, thereby "raising the prospect of 10 more referenda".
Asked whether Mr Bruton had changed his view of the treaty since he criticised it in the Dáil in December 2000, he replied that part of his role as leader of the Opposition at the time was to point out deficiencies in any political compromise. Of his claim then that the treaty enhanced the position of the bigger states in decision-making to the detriment of the smaller ones, he said, "on closer reflection . . . the general statement I made was wrong".
Former taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald said if he was negotiating for Ireland after a No vote "I simply would not know what I could do". He said the reason behind such a vote would be far from clear, adding Ireland would face a "seriously upset" group of people from other member-states who would be reluctant to make Ireland any concessions.
His "nightmare" scenario, he said, was that other prime ministers would conclude that the only way ahead would be to create "an alternative EU" from which Ireland would be excluded.
Also addressing the issue of alternatives, Mr Noel Dorr, former secretary-general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, said "Plan B is something to look for. It is not something that exists."
He described as "highly speculative" the suggestion by EU officials, as reported in yesterday's Irish Times, that a Dáil declaration backing enlargement would provide a way forward in the case of a No vote.
Mr Dorr said he believed such a vote would result in "complete disarray" for at least a year or two.
