Voting Yes for Nice Treaty would do a great deal for Irish business

As soon as you hear any discussion about the vote on the Nice Treaty, someone somewhere will tell you it is about numbers: a bigger EU but fewer Irish MEPs, more trade opportunities but bigger threats. The net effect of this was shown in the recent Irish Times poll that indicated the number of people who confessed to knowing little about the treaty and the vote on it.

So what about the numbers? The treaty agreed by EU governments in Nice last December aims to put in place a process through which a number of other countries could join and so increase the size of the union. A practical consequence of this is that we must change the way our European Parliament, EU Commission, Councils of Ministers and Court of Justice operate so we have institutions that remain democratic without being unwieldy. That is the issue, pure and simple.

More numbers. There are 375 million people in the EU and Ireland makes up about 1 per cent of that. Because of our Constitution, we are the only EU state that actually needs to vote on this treaty; the other 99 per cent of the EU population can let their governments or parliaments approve it.

Why am I voting "yes"? I believe in free trade. An enlarged EU provides a larger stage on which a self-confident Ireland can compete freely. Since our joining other nations of Europe in 1973, we have at every step vigorously supported the deeper integration of Europe and we have seen benefits accrue.

What are the benefits in numbers? There is not the slightest doubt that this little economy has flourished as markets have opened up. We have competed and succeeded in an EU market of 375 million people, developing trade with our bloc partners of €67 billion (£52.8 billion).

When the candidates come on board, the EU's population will rise above 500 million. Despite this, our trade with these countries is a mere €2 billion or so per annum, or about 3 per cent of what we do with our EU partners.

For those who see a direct link between free trade and Irish prosperity, surely this is the clearest possible indication of the potential that will open to Irish business. There are other reasons behind my desire for a larger EU. At the heart of the Treaty of Rome agreed by the original six members of the European Economic Community was the desire to build a Europe at peace. We have enjoyed the longest period in recorded history free of war between western European nations. As the Union has deepened, it has also developed institutions and practices that secure individual liberties and, indeed, fair business practices.

Irish employers have been strongly supportive of the EU insistence that, by the time of entry of new states, we will have achieved the internal reform needed to function as a Union of 27 plus. This is what the complex reforms to the institutions, as provided for in the Nice Treaty, are ultimately all about.

The anti-Nice Treaty lobby looks like an old-style anti-enterprise, anti-modernisation, anti-almost-everything lobby, which repeatedly predicted doom and gloom after earlier EU treaty referendums. Yet again, they introduce unfounded distractions and fears:

Jobs will not be threatened. Listening to the many sectoral groups and associations within IBEC, a clear concern uniting them all is that we have labour shortages. Government estimates set out in the National Development Plan predict that 350,000 vacancies will arise by 2006, and more than 200,000 of these will need to be filled by people from overseas;

Exaggerations about military matters are cynical attempts to confuse and frighten Irish voters. The Nice Treaty provides for little more than a continuation of the Rapid Reaction Force's peace-keeping activities, limited to the UN-sanctioned activities Ireland has been laudably involved in for decades;

This treaty will not bring about a two-tier Europe. What we have now is a two-tier structure between East and West. A vote for this treaty is a vote to shift from helping the East through aid to helping them through trade.

The issue on June 7th is a larger EU. We should have the confidence to see that the larger the free trade area, the more we will prosper. Having achieved extraordinary economic advance during three decades or so of EU membership, does Ireland with its 1 per cent of EU population really want to go down in history as the State that denied similar opportunities to our Eastern neighbours?

Turlough O'Sullivan is director general of the business and employers' organisation IBEC.