The Government launches its White Paper on the Amsterdam Treaty on Monday which concerns itself with employment, decision-making, justice, home affairs and foreign and defence issues in the EU. Because of the McKenna judgment, it will be a document unlike any other. Unable now to take a position or recommend a course of action it will, an Iveagh House mandarin said, explain rather than advocate.
One Eurocrat expressed displeasure that the Government, having negotiated a treaty in good faith and secured the best deal - which the Irish people should accept - must now, in canvassing the treaty's merits, also point out its faults. The McKenna judgment - in the case taken by Green MEP Patricia McKenna - means that public money for a referendum campaign must be given equally to both sides of the argument. Thus, when the Minister for Foreign Affairs, David Andrews, presents the paper to an invited audience in Iveagh House on Monday morning he can probably say what he likes - but, since his document is paid for from the public purse, his document can't say what he and his department would like - at least, not without giving the contrary view, too.
The European Commission office in Dublin believes it is similarly bound by the stricture and is confining itself to a large-scale information role, including weekly debates.
So, how will the Government get the treaty, which is generally uncontentious in that it merely takes matters a few steps further, passed in the referendum? Well, it has the support of all the main Dail parties, although Democratic Left has yet to decide. A three-person commission comprising a judge, a communicator and a consumer activist will inform all and sundry of the matters involved. And Ministers and politicians of all hues will have to traipse around the country with the pro-treaty message; they can talk, but they can't spend.
The pro-treaty people are full of confidence, sure their treaty is the right thing. Others are not so sure. EMU and currency matters, with which the Amsterdam treaty is little concerned, may nonetheless have an influence: apathy and confusion are always dangers and the farmers are threatening to act up over CAP and enlargement.