Small states like Malta or Cyprus could have a veto on developments affecting Ireland if the EU was enlarged without the provisions of the Nice Treaty, according to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell. He also said that Ireland needed the degree of flexibility that the "Enhanced Co-operation" provision of the treaty would bring.
The Minister was representing the Progressive Democrats at a meeting of the Forum on Europe in Stranorlar last night, which was also addressed by Mr Anthony Coughlan of the National Platform.
Mr McDowell said he agreed with Mr Coughlan on a number of issues, particularly that there should be a fair debate without the State allocating resources to one side. He added that he had represented him in his challenge to the constitutionality of RTÉ's allocation of time to the different sides in the debate in a previous referendum. "He has been consistent in his opposition to the EU. But he has been consistently wrong. In his pamphlet of 1972 he predicted that Ireland would become an economic desert. Events have proved him wrong. The same arguments about Enhanced Co-operation were made about qualified majority voting 15 years ago. They were wrong then and I believe that the No side are wrong once again about the Nice Treaty."
Mr McDowell said no-one was going to bully Ireland into decisions not in its interests. It had been agreed that Ireland would not be forced to be part of any military alliance, and it had also been agreed that Ireland would continue to decide its own tax policy, contrary to what No campaigners had claimed.
Mr Coughlan said it was a "constitutional scandal" that the Irish people were being asked to vote again on exactly the same treaty rejected last year. When they voted on other referendums on the same issue, like abortion or PR, at least a decade had elapsed since the last vote, and a new generation was looking at the issue. This was not the case now. "The Government is putting pressure on the people to change their minds." He said he agreed with the criticisms by former attorney general, Mr John Rogers, of the Government when it did not go to the EU following the last vote and say that the Irish people had significant reservations about the treaty. "Instead they rolled over," he said.
Mr Coughlan said that the Enhanced Co-operation aspects of the Nice Treaty were not originally in the remit of the Intergovernmental Conference preparing for enlargement, but were inserted later on the insistence of France and Germany, to allow the big states establish "an inner political directorate to maintain their hegemony over the EU", and prevent them being outnumbered by a lot of smaller states.
With the removal of the veto some states would be able to go ahead and pursue their own agendas outside the framework of unanimous agreement. "This is our last chance. If we lost the veto the next treaty coming down the tracks will not require our assent," he said.