Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, looks at the revised White Paper on the Treaty of Nice, launched yesterday
Readers who failed to keep their copies of the last White Paper on the Treaty of Nice can now request the revised version from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Issued before the last Nice referendum, the "first edition" had a dark cover with a satellite-style photograph of the European continent, including the so-called "enlargement" countries.
The new version features a relief map of Europe, highlighting the continent's natural features, as though making the point that there is mountain to climb in the second referendum.
Instead of black, the new cover is coloured an inky midnight blue which shades into a lighter, duck-egg blue on the inside pages. The stars that symbolise the European Union on the cover are, strangely enough, centred on Norway, which is not an EU member-state.
The content of the Nice Treaty has not changed, a sore point with the No campaign, but there are some new features in the updated White Paper.
Under the heading, "Developments since June 2001" we are given a summary of relevant events since the last poll.
These include the establishment of the National Forum on Europe which has published two reports "confirming a consensus in favour of enlargement while identifying a range of public concerns". We are told that new arrangements have been put in place for enhanced scrutiny of EU business by Leinster House politicians.
The White Paper notes that the Government made a declaration at the Seville European Council last month, "reaffirming Ireland's continued attachment to its traditional policy of military neutrality". A declaration from the European Council confirmed that this was in "full conformity" with all EU treaties, including the Treaty of Nice. The texts of the declarations are also provided.
It is also pointed out that the new constitutional amendment proposed in the coming referendum includes a provision to exclude the State from automatic participation in the event of a European common defence pact.
A chapter on enlargement brings us up to date on the "decisive progress" made in negotiations with the leading applicant countries: Cyprus, Malta, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. "The negotiations are now entering their final phase."
The objective remained that these countries should participate in the 2004 European Parliament elections as full EU members. Apart from that, the content is substantially the same as last year's White Paper, with some minor rewriting for the purposes of clarity in the pages that give the details of the Treaty of Nice.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 copies of the updated White Paper are being printed for distribution to schools, colleges and libraries. Some 1.3 million copies of a shorter, pamphlet-style summary of the Treaty will be distributed to every household in the State.
At yesterday's launch in the Government Buildings press centre, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said the total cost of producing the White Paper was "in the region of €100,000". The publication and distribution of the shorter information guide would cost "around €650,000".
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said: "Four hundred million people on the continent of Europe are eventually going to find a way to do what is the great desire of the great majority of people of Europe, and that is to allow the former Warsaw Pact states, in particular, their right to their full fulfilment as democratic states participating in Europe, and some way or another that's going to happen, and Ireland runs the risk of being seen as the member-state which is most hostile to that enterprise."
This statement was seized upon by the Green TD, Mr John Gormley, who attended the press conference and issued a statement later in which he "welcomed the statement by Mr Michael McDowell that enlargement would proceed even if Ireland voted No".
The Minister for Foreign Affairs was challenged about the statement on page 3 of the White Paper that "the Treaty is designed to provide the necessary legal framework for the enlargement of the European Union . . ."
When it was pointed out that the President of the European Commission, Mr Romano Prodi had stated that the Treaty was a political, rather than legal, necessity for enlargement, and that the president of the Convention on the Future of Europe, Mr Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had expressed similar sentiments, Mr Cowen responded that these "ad-hoc comments" did not have the same standing as the conclusions of successive European Councils on this matter. Secondly, it was "beyond argument" that Nice was necessary if the agreed timescale for enlargement was to be met.
He insisted there was no question of encroaching on the responsibilities of the Referendum Commission with its €3.5 million budget to provide factual information and encourage people to come out and vote. "The Government has a duty itself to inform. We have a political view on this," he said.