The enthusiasm for the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights manifested in the Dáil on Wednesday by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was welcome and has provided some reassurance that Ireland will not seek to dilute its application in this jurisdiction. Mr Ahern insisted that Ireland's formal reservations on protocols to the charter, which it registered last weekend in the mandate for the negotiation of the EU treaty, were merely precautionary and intended to give lawyers a proper chance to look over the effect late-night British textual additions might have on our legal system. "We have no difficulty with the scope and application of the charter," he told TDs.
Although the charter - despite its broad sweep of fundamental rights - is intended to cover only the work of the EU and its institutions, albeit in the member states, the British government had become convinced that the European Court of Justice and its own courts might use its provisions to extend workers' rights to organise and strike in workplaces generally. The charter's place in the new treaty was thus one of the red line issues on which Tony Blair had set out to do battle in Brussels. He had hailed as a huge success the summit acceptance of a special British protocol providing that the rights enumerated in the charter would not be enforceable or justiciable in the UK unless already provided for in domestic legislation.
A footnote to the protocol recorded that "two delegations reserved their right to join in this protocol". The Irish Times reported two days later that the two were Ireland and Poland. An anonymous Irish reservation was also appended to a less controversial declaration on the scope of the charter and sources now suggest it was done in error.
Any normal reading of the words "join in" would suggest that Ireland was contemplating seeking the same opt-out as Britain to prevent the charter provisions from being enforceable in Ireland. That prospect caused alarm bells to ring in the trade union movement for whom, as we report today, the issue of union rights, particularly the rights to organise and recognition, will be key in the next round of partnership talks. Indeed, some European trade union leaders argue that the charter should and will be interpreted broadly by the courts, as the British suggest, and welcome it precisely for that reason.
Given the Taoiseach's assurances to the Dáil, however, an explicit acknowledgment by the Government that the summit conclusions misstate the Irish position in two regards would be a more appropriate response than suggestions that those who raise concerns are scaremongering.