The extent to which some of the opponents of the Nice Treaty are willing to mislead voters was vividly displayed by Tony Coughlan at a debate in which I participated in University College Cork last Monday, and also on the letters page of this paper on Wednesday, writes Garret Fitzgerald.
In that speech and a letter he quoted selectively from an article of mine in this column on May 27th, 2000, in which I drew attention to ideas on the further development of the EU then being floated on a personal basis by the German Green Party Foreign Minister, Joshcka Fischer, and by Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister of that time, proposing new institutions for the EU.
If implemented, these suggestions could have posed a dilemma for Irish policy-makers, for they would have divided the Community into two opposing camps - Germany and France versus Britain - whereas we have interests that link us to both the Continent and Britain.
By a startling trick Tony Coughlan in his speech and letter has sought to apply to the Nice Treaty my comments 2½ years ago on a hypothetical future EU structure, pretending that the treaty actually embodies the ideas of these two statesmen - whereas, of course, their ambitions found no place whatever in the Nice Treaty.
That treaty deals with relatively minor changes in the membership and voting arrangements of the existing institutions, designed to make room for 10 new members. It proposes a change in the procedure for the already existing "enhanced co-operation" - a process that provides for the initiation of new policies by a group of eight or more countries.
Tony Coughlan has presented this "enhanced co-operation" arrangement as being designed to provide a means of implementing the kind of objectives set out by Fischer and Jospin, deliberately hiding the fact that at Nice any such abuse of "enhanced co-operation" was firmly blocked off by the stringent conditions laid down in this treaty.
In his frequent alarmist and misleading statements about "enhanced co-operation" Tony Coughlan has been careful to omit any reference to these conditions, imposed by the Amsterdam and Nice negotiators on the uses to which this procedure can be put. Earlier restrictions on the use of Article 43 of the EU Treaty were strengthened in the Nice Treaty in order to ensure against abuse of enhanced co-operation.
The conditions provide that any move by eight or more countries under "enhanced co-operation" must be, and must remain, open to all other member states and must also: respect the acquis communautaire, [the existing body of Community legislation]; not undermine the internal market or economic and social cohesion [the Community's processes for assisting its less well-off countries and regions]; not constitute a barrier to trade or discriminate in trade between member states; and not relate to defence or security matters. And it must respect the competences, rights and obligations of non-participating states.
But significantly, the Amsterdam Treaty, as amended at Nice, imposes two other stringent limitations on the use of "enhanced co-operation": it must also remain within the limits of the powers of the Union or of the Community and must not concern the areas that fall within the exclusive competence of the Community; and it must respect the single institutional framework of the Community.
These two provisions specifically prevent "enhanced co-operation" being used in the manner suggested by Tony Coughlan, viz. as a means of creating some new kind of federation of a minority of states within the Community. For any such move would clearly go beyond the powers of Union and the Community, and would not respect the single institutional framework for the Community.
The Nice Treaty has in fact restricted "enhanced co-operation" to the development of new Community policies - something that Ireland, as the consistent beneficiary of such new policies, strongly favours, and in respect of which our interests require the use of qualified majority voting, lest in an enlarged Community constructive future policy initiatives be blocked by some other state's veto.
I should perhaps add that at a UCC debate in University College Cork last Monday, attended by 600 students, when I exposed Tony Coughlan's attempt at the meeting to mislead the audience on this issue by omitting any reference to these tightly-drawn conditions, the students at the end of the debate voted by a large majority in favour of Yes to Nice.
I believe that the nationwide campaign of recent weeks has shifted the ground substantially towards a Yes vote. In the last referendum the failure of the Government and the Opposition parties to campaign left the No campaigners free to mislead the electorate about many aspects of the treaty. Moreover, in the effective absence of a Yes campaign, the electorate was not motivated to vote on that occasion. As a result, whilst in June last year there was a turnout of almost 65 per cent of those No voters who, according to a prior poll, were very likely to vote, barely 40 per cent of intending Yes voters went to the polling stations.
By contrast, the Irish Times poll several weeks ago suggested that on this occasion the Yes voters are at least as likely to vote as those who oppose the treaty. Indeed the canvass suggests there may be a somewhat stronger commitment by Yes than No voters this time.
There is thus every likelihood of a larger overall turnout on this occasion, and of a vote reflecting more accurately what has appeared from both polls and canvassing to be something like a 60-40 majority in favour of ratifying the Nice Treaty.
I can also say that the canvass is consistently showing some swing to a Yes vote on the part of people who voted No 18 months ago. Apart from those who are annoyed at having been mislead by the No campaign, there are quite a number who frankly say that their No vote on the last occasion was a protest against the failure of the Government to mount any serious campaign on that occasion, and that they recognise that the right thing to do at this stage is to vote Yes.
However, among a minority a negative factor remains of some resentment against the holding of a second referendum. This is commonest among people who are still unaware of the fact that on this occasion the neutrality issue is actually being addressed in the text of the quite different constitutional amendment on which they are now being asked to vote.
There is also the reaction of people who are dissatisfied with the Government for one reason or another and who irrationally see this referendum as a way of lodging a protest - clearly unaware of the dangers to our national interests of alienating our partners in Europe by blocking enlargement for such a domestic political reason.
It is in order to counter this attitude that I have canvassed with two Fianna Fáil Ministers - in Tullamore with Brian Cowen and in Cork with Micheál Martin. For this is far too important an issue both for the applicant countries and for us in Ireland to allow it to become bogged down in party politics.
gfitzgerald@irish-times.ie