EU reform treaty campaign will start in January

Journalism congress:An information campaign on the EU Reform Treaty referendum will begin in January after enabling legislation is passed, Bertie Ahern said at the weekend.

The treaty is "not a sweet document", the Taoiseach told reporters in Dublin Castle at the annual Congress of the Association of European Journalists.

He would have preferred a single document like the constitution negotiated during Ireland's EU presidency in 2004 because it was very easy to understand, a "very clear, coherent document".

But the reform treaty contained 95 per cent of what was in the constitution.

For the first Nice Referendum "the national debate was about everything except the referendum", he said, and the political system "did not engage sufficiently during the first referendum. We do not plan on a repeat of that." The Taoiseach said a low turnout would favour those against the treaty because they were "passionate" and always turned out.

Reiterating that the referendum was likely to take place in the first half of next year, he said that Ireland needed parliamentary ratification "but we also have to have people ratification".

The Taoiseach said "a Europe of 27 cannot operate in the same way as a Europe of six or 12". He told journalists that the US, Russia, Japan and others did not understand how every six months the presidency changed so it made sense to have a president of the Council of Ministers.

Martin Territt, director of the European Commission Representation in Ireland, referred to the anti-EU "naysayers" and asked, "do they want to engage in pernicious isolationism that is being shrugged off in almost every quarter of the globe?"

He said the EU Reform Treaty "is no beginner's guide to the EU", but, "warts and all, this is what is on the table".

"This is what the member states representing nearly 500 million people are being asked to ratify according to their own traditions, cultures and constitutions."

Maurice Hayes, chairman of the Forum on Europe, believed the referendum "is going to be more difficult this time". He asked "how much apathy and other concerns will play a part".

Brian Crowley, Fianna Fáil MEP for Ireland South, stressed "nobody will talk to one small State any more and even America has to create alliances at regional level to achieve success" when dealing with other powers.

George Lee, RTÉ's economics editor, said he believed "capital is the key", and predicted a "very significant oil crisis over the next five or six years". The RTÉ journalist said "big families can be very impressive when they move together". Families could get into fights and rows that could go on forever.

The EU Reform Treaty was "not about dividing the spoils but about facing up to challenges in the outside world - and we have to pull together".

Alan Dukes, director of the Institute for European Affairs, said that small states "have greater need than big ones" in the EU and "if you're not at the table you're on the menu".

He said politics was as important as capital and if countries only operated on an economic basis, Ireland, Spain, Greece and Portugal would "never have been allowed into the EU".