Vincent Browne's advice yesterday to vote No in the next Nice referendum was a muddle of misunderstanding and double-think, asserts John Palmer
The debate on the Nice Treaty and the future of Europe disconcertingly throws into intimate liaison the most bizarre and unlikely of bedfellows. In the cacophony of opposition to closer European integration, one can hear voices simultaneously deploring both the speed of integration and the lack of it, those who bemoan the overbearing role of the big EU states and those who defend "national sovereignty", those who advocate and those who oppose a more democratic, federal and parliamentary Europe.
Vincent Browne's compendium of reasons for voting No in the Nice referendum this year, which he detailed in yesterday's Irish Times, embodies this contradictory approach in one person. Surprisingly many of his points rest on an inadequate understanding of the European Union and the evolution of its institutions.
Vincent sets out by seeking to outstrip even the most ambitious proposals for the enlargement of the European Union. He would have us go well beyond a continent-wide unification of Europe to include parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Fair enough. But how is this to be squared with the fact that rejection of the Nice Treaty will make it legally impossible to admit more than five new Member States - only half the number who already expect to be admitted in Copenhagen in just a few months time?
He makes a powerful case against a secretive and unaccountable Council of Ministers running EU affairs. But the Nice Treaty extends, not reduces, the role of the directly elected European Parliament in European Union law making. So to vote No would be to move the clock back to a less accountable system. It also seems that Vincent is unaware of the fact that only last weekend in Seville, EU governments took (for them) the dramatic step of making most of the legislative process completely open to the public in future.
Of course this is not enough. Democratic federalists believe the Council of Ministers should act as a senate or upper house of the European Parliament with all the transparency which normally accompanies national parliamentary law-making processes. We also want to see an elected, not appointed, Commission President.
In the Irish debate it is frequently said the Nice Treaty strengthens the power of the large countries against the smaller ones. This refers to the fact that, in future, the votes cast by each Member State in the Council of Ministers will more closely reflect differences in national population size - even though the bias will still be in favour of the small countries.
Vincent is a democrat par excellence. Would he tolerate a situation where each vote cast in Dublin South, for example, was worth 10 times a vote cast in Galway West? That is still the present situation as between Luxembourg and Germany, for example, in the Council of Ministers. The debate about EU security and defence policy is important and complex. I challenge anyone to say how the Nice Treaty abrogates Ireland's military "neutrality" (neutrality between who by the way?) to the slightest degree.
The real issue is more straightforward. Should the European Union undertake peacekeeping missions like those in Macedonia (requested by the Macedonians) or not? Should the EU accept or reject the request by the United Nations to undertake policing operations in Bosnia to help rebuild a multi-ethnic democracy?
If Yes, the EU has to have the means to do so.
If, in future, the EU is asked to share responsibilities for supervising a peace agreement in the Middle East should we say "let someone else do it?" I do not believe this will be the attitude of the Irish people for one moment. Of course there is an alternative. We could say: "Let the United States and George Bush run the world." I think not somehow.
The fact is that the so-called national veto, far from being a democratic safeguard, is a recipe for paralysis in the European Union. And paralysis will inevitably open the door to a Europe which risks falling back under the hegemony of the bigger states. The Nice Treaty fudged too many of these issues which counterpoint a 19th century view of Europe as a club of nation states with a vision of Europe as a trans-national democratic polity.
That is why we need a transparent, simple and democratic constitution. That, I hope and believe, will be the outcome of the present Convention on The Future of Europe. With the mobilisation of public opinion we can even hope to see such a constitutional treaty adopted by what will probably be 25 Member States in 2005.
Ireland should - by the force of its history - stand with those who want to build a democratic, decentralised, federal and united Europe as part of a world which functions under the rule of law not the law of force. The first step is to open the way for a united Europe by voting Yes.
John Palmer is director of the European Policy Centre in Brussels