Keeping our commissioner without Lisbon
I’ve just arrived back from an EU foreign ministers meeting in Sweden where it was clear that everyone is getting very nervous about the second Lisbon treaty referendum.
I interviewed Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt- president of the European Council- on the fringes of the meeting where he admitted that the Swedes are working on a contingency plan in the event of a no vote. He also gave a frank assessment of what is likely to happen if we deal a final death blow to the Lisbon treaty. (interview here)
According to Reinfeldt, a no vote would be respected by the Union and the Nice treaty would prevail. And, contrary to some of the exaggerated claims of yes campaigners, the sky wouldn’t immediately fall on Ireland’s head. It is the EU as a whole that would be damaged as the endless navel-gazing EU institutional debate continues to divert attention from other important issues such as climate change.
But it was his comments on how to cope with the stipulation in Nice- that the number of commissioners must be less than the number of states in the next EU executive- that were most interesting. He said a “26 plus one” plan is favoured by diplomats and the probable solution. This would see 26 states retaining their commissioner and the 27th state getting the plum job of EU foreign affairs chief instead of a commissioner.
The political reality, according to Reinfeldt, is that no member state wants to lose its commissioner even if Lisbon cannot enter into force and the EU must continue with the Nice treaty. The “26 plus one” plan is likely to fly in the event of a no vote as many states would agree to swap their right to a low profile post in the EU executive, such as commissioner for multilingualism, to obtain the high profile foreign affairs job.
Another interesting comment from the Swedish prime minister was that the political deal agreed last December on the size of the commission to allow all member states to retain a commissioner may not last forever. “We might in the future get back to this discussion. What if we keep on enlarging?” admitted Mr Reinfeldt, who warned that the question of the efficiency of the commission will re-emerge when there are 30 states or more in the EU.
Reinfeldt is right on both counts, of course. But his Swedish frankness may not go down well with the Government, who are running their Lisbon campaign on a theme of “vote yes to keep your commissioner”. Revealing four weeks before polling that there is likely no immediate threat to an Irish commissioner, even if we vote no to Lisbon, is the type of honest political assessment so rarely displayed during referendum campaigns in Ireland.
Scaremongering is emerging as a key tactic on both sides of the second Lisbon debate with yes campaigners arguing Ireland’s entire economic and political future is at risk while no campaigners warn Lisbon will introduce abortion and lead to a deluge of migrants. If only we could import a little bit of Swedish rationalism to our debates surely the quality of our democracy would be much higher.
2:17 pm
But surely the problem is that the Yes side do not actually want a debate. The plan really was quite simple after the last referendum. Smear the No side with accusations of “lies” (while never specifying actually the detail of the supposed lies and who actually told them). Set up straw men and knock them down, using words and claims never actually made by anyone. And then make sure that the media would give less coverage to the No side by such spurious claims. Debate is debate. In the early 90s in the UK, those who claimed that the Maastricht opt outs might be threatened later were described as “liars”. Those opt outs were threatened within months. Opinions as to what might or might not happen as a result of handing over more power to the EU are not lies, just opinions. And it may well be that if the No camp made a similar claim to the Swedish Premier, they might be accused of “lies” and Irish state radio and tv asked not to give them coverage…
Comment by Damian Hockney