A second No vote on Nice would be a leap into the dark which would provoke an existential crisis in the European Union, writes John Bruton
I would like to make a special appeal to those who, after reflection, decided to vote No to Nice the last time.
One of the most difficult things in politics is to know when you have won your point, when you have achieved what is achievable and when continued negativity puts your own achievement at risk. I voted Yes the last time, but I acknowledge that those who voted No have given Europe the incentive it needed to make itself more democratic.
The Convention on the Future of Europe will now be putting in place a range of measures to democratise the European Union. We will have better protections against excessive bureaucracy, better consultation with the Dáil and a much more democratic system for selecting Commissioners. These can be attributed in part to Ireland's first No but, in my judgment, a second No would actually put at risk what the first one helped to achieve.
These are all judgments. No one can predict the future with certainty.
It is not "scare-mongering" to portray a possible negative scenario arising from a decision the Irish people might make in this referendum, so long as it is presented as a scenario rather than as a certainty.
We have to make the best judgment we can about what will happen if we vote Yes, or No. There are risks and opportunities in both scenarios and it is a question of balancing these off against one another.
In that spirit, one must look at the downside, as well as the upside, of each choice.
My worry about a second No vote is that it would change Ireland's relationship with the rest of the European Union radically for the worse.
Ireland would become a problem case because we would have demonstrated an ongoing proclivity to vote No in European referendums. A disruptor of enlargement, we would become a stone in Europe's shoe.
This would weaken our negotiating position and encourage other countries, if they could, to find a way of getting around Ireland rather than involving it, because of Ireland's demonstrated tendency to vote No. That would reduce our say in Europe - and we need a say.
For example, if Europe is to develop a European security policy that is not totally dependent on George W. Bush, it is better that Ireland has a say in that European policy. Our distinctive contribution would be important for everyone else's sake, as well as for our own.
In the Nice referendum, voters are being asked to be lawmakers for the rest of Europe. Our choice will affect the lives of millions elsewhere on our continent, at least as much as our own.
The details of the Nice Treaty are important. People should be familiar with them but, like all treaties, Nice is a political document and as such it has all the imperfections of any compromise. These imperfections can, however, be addressed in future treaty revisions and the Irish people will have the final say on these. On the strength of a Yes vote we should be ready to look for improvements.
On the other hand, a No vote would provoke an existential crisis in the European Union. That crisis would not be in Ireland's national interest. Ireland might be the one which would precipitate the crisis, but others would exploit it.
There are forces in the European Union who want more power for bigger states. Some want a directoire - a European directory - of big states. There are other forces who favour a Fortress Europe which keeps out other people and their exports. Few of the Irish people who voted No the last time support such malign forces.
An Irish No, however, would almost certainly be exploited by those forces. The No-vote advocates cannot guarantee that that will not happen and there would be no way back. A No vote is, therefore, a leap into the dark.
Of course, this is just a scenario but it is not an unrealistic one.
Taking all the risks and opportunities into account, the balance of advantage for Ireland lies in a Yes vote rather than in a No vote.
Many of the problems that the European Union has to grapple with - security, unfair competition and trade disputes - are inherently unpleasant.
Virtually every issue in Irish daily life is now affected by what is decided in the European Union: interest rates, stock-market developments, transport and the price of what sells on our farms and what we buy in our shops.
Being on the outside while others make the European decisions about these things, which will affect us anyway, would leave us with no protection. This is a particularly strong reason for farmers to vote Yes. A Yes to Nice will keep us on the inside where the real decisions on these things are being taken.
Nice is a good deal for small countries. It gives Ireland twice as many MEPs per capita of population as Germany and five times as many votes per capita on the Council of Ministers. Four million Irish are guaranteed the same right to a commissioner as 80 million Germans.
ASSUMING an Irish Yes vote, I am confident that the next European Treaty, now being drafted in the Convention on the Future of Europe, will radically simplify the European treaties. It will make Europe's system of government much more easily understood. It will, I hope, provide for the election by all the people of the president of the European Commission.
It will make the European system of government at least as transparent, if not more so, than government in member states and it will reduce deal-making behind closed doors. It may slow down European integration, but it will increase allegiance to the European Union among citizens. It will be a step forward for European democracy and the Irish people, through their initially questioning attitude, will have contributed to that.
The time has come for the Irish people, having made their point and been listened to, to put their shoulders to the wheel to build a Europe that provides a real structure of peace for all who live on this continent.
Former taoiseach John Bruton TD is Fine Gael's director of elections for the Nice Treaty referendum and a member of the praesidium for the Convention on the Future of Europe.