PIERCE H. PURCELL,
Madam, - This Nice Treaty has me driven around the bend and up the walls. I want to vote Yes, and yet I've the firm conviction that I'm being codded up to my eyebrows (which are quite a distance from the ground) by both sides. Let's consider the main points.
1. The proponents: In the No corner we have an interesting coalition including Dana, Gerry Adams and Justin Barrett - definitely the best reason for voting Yes, until we consider the occupants of the Yes corner. Would any of us really be tempted to buy a second-hand car from Michael McDowell or Dick Roche, let alone that comic duo Ahern and McCreevy? I thought not, so let's forget about personalities, unless we're going to vote "maybe".
2. Enlargement of the EU: This is an interesting one. The No crowd say it doesn't make a blind bit of difference whether or not the Nice Treaty is passed. If the treaty is defeated, the 10 applicant countries can still become members - so they say. However, the Yes people are about as clear as mud on the enlargement question.Some claim that at best the accession of the applicant countries will be considerably delayed. I've actually read the Nice Treaty - not a pleasant literary experience - and it seems to me that only five applicants can get in, if Nice is defeated.
The weekend before last I attended a seminar at the RIA on Central and Eastern Europe. The speakers were mainly academics from universities in Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and so on. I was expecting clarification on all the main aspects of the treaty. Fat chance! When I asked the awkward question, "What happens to enlargement, if Nice is defeated?", they hadn't a clue. Afterwards three young pro-EU Estonians came up to me, very bothered indeed that my question had not been answered. To reassure them, I guaranteed them that if the Germans really want them in the EU in 2004, that's where they'll be in 15 months' time.
However, I don't really believe that, and I'm still looking for a clear answer. Is there anyone out there who can give me one? If there's not, then perhaps I should vote Yes. It would be scandalous if the applicants actually were kept out by an Irish No.
3. European Army and Rapid Reaction Force: Talk about red herrings! There's nothing in the Nice Treaty about these things. Anyway, if the EU is such a wonderful outfit, would it not be worth defending?
4. The danger of a European federal superstate: At the risk of being branded a heretic, let me ask: "Why not a United States of Europe?" When we consider our idyllic little republic with its sky-high prices, rampant corruption, rising crime rates, lousy health services and over-populated parliament, maybe we'd be better off ruled by the faceless bureaucrats in Brussels. Things could hardly be much worse.
5. The referendum, second instalment: If I were a dedicated No campaigner, this is the point that I'd be screaming from the house-tops. I find it very difficult to argue against the charge that this re-run is undemocratic, especially since the previous one took place so recently.
"If the Nice Treaty had been passed on the last occasion, even by a tiny margin and with only a minority of electors voting, would we now have a re-run?" the Noes ask. I'll pass that question over to the so-called experts, in the hope that they can convincingly legitimise the operation.
So, it comes down in the end to the lesser of two evils. I suppose I'll vote Yes, and try to ignore the slight whiff of intellectual dishonesty and the much stronger conviction that, whatever the outcome, things are going to go according to the plans of our ruling elite.
Of course the ASTI might solve my problem for me. Next Saturday the secondary teachers' union will hold a special convention to decide what to do about pay, benchmarking, supervision, substitution and new courses. If that exercise in democracy goes on long enough, it's just possible I won't get home in time to vote. - Yours, etc.,
PIERCE H. PURCELL, Clonmel, Co Tipperary.
Madam,- I found your series on candidate states interesting and informative. While, at a political level, the governments of these states are enthusiastic about joining the EU, the people in a number of them may not share the same enthusiasm.
In the case of Poland, your reporter tells us that only about 50 per cent of the people now support joining compared with 80 per cent a decade ago. Among the reasons given to him were "the fear that Polish land will be snapped up by foreigners"; "selling off on the cheap the independence \ won after a 2,000-year struggle"; and the fear that "decadent morals" would be brought to Poland by EU accession. I am sure there are others who are not happy with the Nice Treaty as it stands at the moment.
The Commission is driving a hard deal with the candidate states. The terms for entry for them will be much less favourable than ours were. One would have hoped that they might do as well as we did by their membership of the EU.
When the governments of the candidate states have agreed to the terms and conditions of entry, the issue will be put to the peoples in referendums. My concern is that the people of some of these countries may reject accession.
However, enlargement will proceed. In your issue of October 10th it was reported, according to European sources, that in the event of a second rejection of Nice, the EU will ask for a Dáil declaration backing EU enlargement. This would facilitate enlargement. In your issue of October 9th this view was supported by Czechoslovakia's (sic) EU entry negotiator, Mr Pavel Telicka, when he said, "EU enlargement would be delayed by a few months, but not more" in such an event.
Those on the Yes side of the referendum campaign claim that those on the No side are motivated by selfish reasons. As a consequence, if there is a substantial No vote, whatever the result, many are concerned that the image of Ireland in Europe will be damaged. However, I believe that the majority of those for campaigning for a No or for a Yes vote have legitimate and worthy reasons for doing so.
Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the Government, I believe, will have the responsibility of undoing the damage that it and others have done to Ireland's reputation by putting it abroad that those voting No were doing it for selfish reasons. - Yours etc.,
IVO O'SULLIVAN, Blackrock, Co Dublin.
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Madam, - As a Polish citizen I would like to express my disappointment, frustration and anger with the arguments of No campaigners - the Green party in particular - saying that they are actually doing all the candidate countries a favour by voting No to Nice. This is a cynical, twisted and dishonest argument.
The candidate countries, their governments and societies alike have worked very hard on their accession to the European Union for the past 10 years. It is a matter of the highest national interest for Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia to join the European Union and to do it on time. There is no alternative for us. Communism prevented us from joining the union of democratic and free European States. Now is the time to make up for 40 years of isolation from where we always belonged.
We are ready. The only obstacle in our way is the Irish No. I would like to appeal to the Irish public to show maturity and responsibility for all of Europe when voting on Saturday and vote Yes. We want to have our own say in Europe. As our own national referendums scheduled for the next year, we will take our own decision whether we want to join the EU or not.
I reject the "protection" and "patronage" of the Irish Green party in telling me what is good for me and my country. Let the candidate countries take care of themselves. - Yours, etc.,
MAGDALENA MAJKOWSKA TOMKIN, Dublin 1.
Madam, - When we entered the Common Market in 1972 we had 60,000 unemployed. We were promised that entering a market for our goods of 250 million soon we'd have no unemployed. Well, what happened? In a short time we had not 60,000 on theregister but a whopping 250,000.
Was that the end? Not at all. Up went the figure to 300,000. After a long, long time relief came. From where? Europe? No way. It came from America, and the Tiger ought to be called the American Tiger, because our people are just employees of foreigners.
I was reared on a small farm here in the West where we had everything we needed to live a healthy life - all grown on the little farm. Now my relatives, a lot of them, say they can't make a living on the land.
Many have leased their fertile little farms. Others say they must have a job or a bus or some other machinery they can hire to make a living. They will be voting No to Nice. - Yours, etc.,
DEIRDRE MANIFOLD, Dalysfort Road, Galway.
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Madam, - Peter Sunderland (The Irish Times, October 5th) refers to the moral aspect of the Nice Treaty. But what do we see as the record of the EU in moral matters?
1. Very recently, the EU (including Ireland to our shame) has voted to spend billions on embryo experimentation - something totally immoral, destroying human life at its beginning.
2. While millions of people in sub Saharan Africa will have starved to death by the end of this month (according to Trócaire), would not all those billions be better off saving life than destroying it? The tariff walls and quotas imposed by the EU add immensely to the misery of third-world countries. Morality?
3. The policy of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities supporting forced abortions in China caused the Holy See and the US to withdraw their contributions to UNFPA. But as soon as Bush did so, the EU announced it would make good the American $34 million continuing to bolster China's violation of human rights. Morality?
4. In July the EU Parliament voted that abortion should be freely available in all EU countries and applicant countries.
How can we give the EU even more power by voting for Nice? - Is mise,
Father TOM INGOLDSBY, Salesian House, Ballinakill, Portlaoise.
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Madam, - It seems very likely that the two referendums on the Nice Treaty will go down in history as the "red herring referendums". I have never read so much irrelevant rubbish before in my life: so many daft opinions, ignorant or mendacious, or both, scaring the voters down false trails into total bewilderment.
I suppose it was only a question of time before we received the Angela Macnamara wake-up call about the Nice threat to the European Christian Heritage (October 8th).
"An aspect seldom addressed", she writes, "is the. . .anxiety that the EU seems to have no appreciation of the ancient Christian heritage of Europe and does not seek to preserve its best aspects". She further asserts that "it seems clear that non-Christian rulings will, in time, be imposed on us without the agreement of the Irish people".
No serious person would deny the huge role that Christianity has played in the formation of European culture. But that culture is older even than Christianity, and Europe has a long memory, as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment attested.
In my view, one of the "best aspects" of the European heritage is Europe's long and successful struggle to disentangle what Jesus characterised as "the things of Caesar" from "the things of God".
The Nice Treaty is very much in this tradition. In short, it has nothing whatever to do with religion. - Yours, etc.,
COLIN BRENNAN, Nutley Square, Dublin 4.