OPINION:THERE ARE stronger reasons to approve the Lisbon Treaty than there were last June. It is now more obvious that the EU would benefit from there being a permanent president of the European Council and a permanent high representative on foreign and security policy, writes Vincent Browne
The rotation of the European Council presidency between member states every six months is a nonsense. It means changes in agendas; little follow-through on initiatives of previous presidents; and diminished continuity, for instance, in dealing with the present global financial crisis, or energy crisis, or world food crisis.
On foreign and security policy, surely it makes sense to end the present triumvirate whereby there is a commissioner responsible for external affairs, a special representative on foreign and security policy, and then the rotating president of the Council of Ministers, the foreign minister of the state holding the EU presidency? It is claimed, for instance, that there was a delay on the part of the EU in responding to the crisis in Georgia over the summer.
Okay. These are better arguments advanced in favour of the Lisbon Treaty than were around last June.
The point about Ireland losing its commissioner for five years, every 15 years, was a significant factor, I think, in persuading people to vote No. It seems likely that this can now be rectified by the EU heads of government agreeing to exercise discretion under the Lisbon Treaty to retain a commissioner for each member state henceforth, although there would be nothing to prevent the Council from agreeing otherwise (by unanimity) at a later stage to change that.
The anxieties about abortion were always off the wall, and declarations by the heads of government can possibly assuage these. Also, conscription was another off-the-wall issue.
So things are looking up, aren't they, especially given the indications in The Irish Times poll from Monday, showing that a majority would vote for the treaty now if the issue went to referendum again. Is this not all the more so, especially since many people seem alarmed by the claimed loss of influence the No vote has cost Ireland within the EU? There is reason to be cautious about this, very cautious.
The EU which we and everyone else joined is founded on the basis that there can be no change to the treaties (ie the constitution of the EU) without every member state ratifying the changes. That's at the core of the deal on the EU. But the smart boys and women of the EU don't want to be bothered with that. Immediately following the rejection by Ireland last June, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the commission, was on television screens throughout Europe saying the ratification of the treaty should proceed in all other member states.
The plan was to contrive a situation whereby every other member state would have ratified the treaty, bar Ireland, thereby putting Ireland in a corner and browbeating it into changing its mind. That is in clear violation of the contract at the heart of the EU - that all changes to existing treaties have to win the ratification of every member state. This, in itself, is a powerful reason to vote No again if it comes to that, without there being substantial changes to the treaty.
We can expect to be told that if we fail to ratify the Lisbon Treaty a second time around, we will be "left behind" by the other 26 member states. This is entirely false. For us to be "left behind", without our willing acquiescence, there would have to be further changes to the treaties which, in the absence of our acquiescence, could not happen.
I can anticipate the rejoinder to that: yes, that may be true legally, but politically it is different - we would be left behind. The rejoinder is founded on the supposition that it is possible to proceed politically in a way that is not legally permissible. Manifest nonsense.
Aside from the imperious dismissal of the significance of the Irish rejection by Barroso and others (for dismissal is what it was), there remain two powerful reasons to vote No, irrespective of any declarations or promises or "international treaties" (the Sarah Palinesque contrivance of the Green Party).
The first is the cynicism in devising a treaty that is unintelligible to anybody but its legal drafters or lawyers who are paid €700 an hour to decode it, and doing it to avoid referendums in several member states.
But, for me, the second, crucial issue, is the European Defence Agency. For the first time it is proposed that an agency arising from the European arms industry - the manufacturers of the instruments of terror, maiming and slaughter - is to be brought into the institutional framework of the EU. These armaments corporations manufacture arms only incidentally for peacekeeping operations.
Their main purpose it to manufacture instruments of war for the main agency of war nowadays, the US, and for many another such agencies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
The produce of these corporations has contributed to the slaughter of millions in Congo now and since 1998. The EU is funding research into more efficient and deadly instruments of death.
A vote for Lisbon is a vote for the agents of war.