Whistling in the dark

[earl]

The risk that the Irish will vote No to the Lisbon treaty is rising

IF IRELAND votes No to the European Union's Lisbon treaty in a referendum on June 12th, it will become a “pariah”, says its Europe minister. A No vote would drive the Irish from the centre of the EU, leaving them “whistling out in the dark”, declared Bertie Ahern, shortly before stepping down as taoiseach (prime minister) this week after 11 years in office.

In Brussels the mood is equally stern. It is common to hear that a No vote in a small country cannot be permitted to interfere with the smooth running of the EU. In February the European Parliament voted down a (symbolic) amendment undertaking to “respect the outcome” of the Irish referendum. The Irish, it is said, should remember what happened when they said No to the Nice treaty in 2001: they were simply invited to vote again. The second time round, they said Yes, thanks to a higher turnout, more energetic campaigning by a chastened government, and a protocol stating that Irish neutrality was unaffected by plans for EU defence. A veteran pro-EU campaigner in Dublin predicts that a No to Lisbon would end the same way. “A second vote is doable, we could always magic up a protocol,” he suggests.

Yet these arguments—that a No spells doom for Ireland, but a mere hiccup for Europe—are the wrong way round. It would be absurd to punish Ireland for voting No. The Irish government is the only one in the EU to have called a referendum on Lisbon. If they were honest, the 26 others would admit that they would struggle to secure a Yes vote, too. The treaty exists only because the EU constitution was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. The new text amounts to a repackaging of the constitution, specially crafted to be ratified by national parliaments (uniquely, Ireland must hold referendums before ratifying any big treaties).

Instead, it is the EU that would face a nasty crisis if the Irish said No. As a veteran politician says, an Irish rejection would release a “very cold shower” over the European parade planned by President Nicolas Sarkozy for the second half of 2008, when France holds the rotating EU presidency. Talks on a new EU president and a beefed-up foreign-policy envoy would be halted: the posts cannot come to life without Lisbon.

Ruairi Quinn, a former finance minister, heads the main pro-Lisbon campaign. He says that it would be “virtually impossible” to make the Irish vote again on a tweaked version of the treaty. Lisbon is already “the inside-out version of the constitutional treaty.” Or, as Eurocrats put it: Lisbon is already Plan B.

A No vote would not be an Irish rejection of Europe. All referendum campaigns are muddles, but this one is odder than most. It is bombarding voters with 101 contradictory reasons for saying No. Some are rational: Lisbon scraps several national vetoes and will mean that Ireland does not have its own member of the European Commission all the time (this is true for everybody, but a small country may benefit more from having a commissioner). Some are less credible: playing on Irish concerns about being dragged into other people's wars, leading No campaigners accuse the EU of becoming a “militarised” power, capable of deploying thousands of troops round the globe in days. (If only: ask refugees in Chad, who had to wait for months as the EU dithered about sending peacekeepers.)

No campaigners also claim that Lisbon will pave the way for the EU to meddle with low Irish taxes on business—an argument that works only if you think Irish sceptics have spotted a threat to tax sovereignty that the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, has missed (an unlikely thought, for anybody who knows Mr Brown). Some claims are, frankly, mad: a leaflet given out in Cork claims that Lisbon would let the EU bring in a Chinese-style one-child policy. The only parliamentary party campaigning for a No vote is Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the IRA, which has puny support in Ireland. What is more, Mr Ahern's resignation (amid allegations of rum dealings with a property developer) has removed a “big problem” for the Yes camp, says Mr Quinn. The referendum might have become a protest vote against the long-serving taoiseach.

The European Commission is trying to help. It has postponed several contentious initiatives until after the Irish vote, notably a debate on the EU budget that might have focused on farm subsidies, and a plan to harmonise the calculation of company taxes. This week the commission announced that it had dropped a discrimination probe into an Irish law that allows bodies like religious schools to favour believers when hiring staff.
Farming the vote

Yet the referendum is not in the bag. A poll on April 27th showed support for a Yes vote dropping sharply to 35%, with the No vote rising to 31% (and 34% undecided). Irish farmers are a wild card. Recently, the main Irish farmers' union brought 10,000 farmers to protest in Dublin, demanding that high import tariffs be maintained on foreign beef to protect Irish exports—or they would vote No. The farmers have no problem with Lisbon as such, admits Padraig Walshe, the union's president. The referendum is merely “a means of applying pressure” on the European Commission, during world trade talks in coming weeks. A big trade union has just come out for a No, claiming that the Lisbon treaty harms “workers' rights” in favour of “big business”.

The Irish remain strongly pro-European. But in Brussels, anxious Irish officials confess that they have started booking flights home to vote in person. “I think it's 50-50,” said one Eurocrat. “I don't want to be blamed if it's a No,” added another, after buying his ticket home. The pro-Lisbon camp faces a dilemma. Hinting that voters will suffer if they reject Lisbon is an obvious way to boost turnout—and a high turnout is key to securing a Yes. But it is hardly a positive argument. True friends do not become pariahs just because they disagree with you. If nobody can find more convincing arguments in favour of the Lisbon treaty, the EU as a whole may yet find itself whistling in the dark.