Forum Meeting 5th February

I went to the meeting in Dublin Castle of the Forum on Europe last Tuesday, 5th February.

I was particularly struck by the point made by Eamon Gilmore that most of the arguments against the Reform Treaty of Lisbon were based on aspects of EU policy that the opponents of the treaty did not like. In other words, they were looking for a treaty which would move EU policy in the preferred direction, either leftwards in the case of most of the opponents or presumably rightwards in the case of Libertas.

Thus they were not opposed to any particular change included in the new treaty, but rather they wished for other changes which would move EU policy in the preferred direction. They were looking for more Europe rather than less Europe.

A particularly striking example of this was shown by Patricia McKenna who focused her short contribution on the inclusion of climate change among the tasks added by the new treaty and she related this to the clause in the treaty which provides for the continuation of the Euratom treaty. She apparently felt this was a Trojan horse which would lead to to the expansion in the number of nuclear power stations. However this line of argument would seem to ignore the obvious fact that, even if the reform Treaty of Lisbon is rejected, Euratom will in any case continue under the existing treaty.

There were more pointed questions about the foreign and defence policy provisions of the new treaty. However the Treaty's opponents all seemed unwilling to take account of the small print which had been added at every point, no doubt in response to the concerns of the Irish negotiating team during the Irish Presidency of 2004 which successfully concluded the draft Treaty on the Constitution. One can imagine that these Irish negotiators were specifically anticipating each and every one of the objections raised in the Forum, since they had heard them all before during the debates on the referendums about the Nice Treaty.

One of the ironies about this referendum campaign is the way in which those who furiously opposed the Nice Treaty now wish to preserve the status quo brought about by the ratification of that treaty. One can of course understand that those who are opposed to the whole idea of the European Union wish resist to every step on the way to "ever closer union".

Interestingly, the draft constitution treaty did not include that phrase "ever closer union" in its preamble. This is presumably because it was intended to provide for a stable situation, the mood was "this is as good as it gets ".