Task is to overcome the wave of apathy

Ignorance, indifference and dissatisfaction emerge from recent opinion polls as the predominant Irish attitudes towards the European Union. They are all the more remarkable considering the simultaneously high number of people who regard the EU as a good thing and believe Ireland has benefited from it.

This paradox is mirrored elsewhere and lies at the heart of the task the Laeken EU summit is setting itself today by setting up a convention to consider the future of Europe.

The Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt, in one of his early drafts of a declaration on the subject, said that "after 50 years, the weaknesses of the European structure are plain to see".

This formulation is considered too pessimistic by his colleagues, partly because they feel it frames an over-ambitious solution to the problem. But all of them are concerned to address the EU's deficit of democratic legitimacy as it intrudes more and more on the everyday lives of such disenchanted citizens. How that should be done will be identified in the declaration to be adopted here and in the work of the convention.

In a speech last week in Dublin Mr Verhofstadt recognised the concerns of Irish voters who rejected the Treaty of Nice, saying that "voters are never wrong. Voters do not usually vote for what was achieved in the past, whatever successes the past stands for.

"They vote for what is on offer for the future. And it may well be that we failed on that point". He said European citizens think the EU's structures are far from clear and transparent, that it regulates too many things, that its democratic credentials are too weak and that it has no clear-cut engagement or profile on the world stage.

This is the core agenda of the convention and the inter-governmental conference to follow it, possibly concluding during the Irish EU presidency in the first half of 2004.

Mr Verhofstadt went on to offer an inspiring vision of an enlarged EU, probably double its present size, uniting the continent voluntarily under the rule of law for the first time in its history.

This is a post-imperial vision, based on objectives of peace, democracy, equality and cultural diversity, not conquest or dynastic succession in the fashion of Caesar, Philip II, Napoleon or Hitler.

For that to happen, he insisted that the Nice Treaty was politically necessary.

The same point was made this week in Dublin by Mr Pierre Moscovici, the French Minister for European Affairs. For the governments which negotiated it, the functional institutional arrangements it makes for representation are an indispensable condition of enlargement.

If that is so we can expect a second referendum on the treaty next year, as the Taoiseach hinted in the Dβil during the week, although he was loath to say so explicitly.

De Gaulle once remarked that the problem with referendums is that the people do not answer the question asked. On the next occasion they are likely to be asked not only whether they approve the treaty (with or without amendments and additional arrangements for better parliamentary scrutiny of EU affairs), but also effectively whether they want to remain in or out of the mainstream of European integration.

Increasingly that question is being posed, when a second No is contemplated. It is sufficiently important to merit the most profound reflection on Ireland's existing and preferred position within this larger and more united Europe.

That opportunity is presented by the overlap between the debates on Nice and the mandate on the future of Europe to be decided here.

But will it be taken up by the political class in an election year?

There is plenty of evidence that leading organisations in Irish society are sufficiently alarmed at the prospect to guarantee that it breaks through the fog of ignorance and indifference identified in the opinion polls.

They are beginning to realise that a second No would put the State's economic and political well-being in jeopardy and isolate it. Addressing the Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs and the National Forum on Europe, Mr Moscovici participated frankly in Ireland's debate on what to do about the referendum result, while avoiding too intrusive an involvement.

This was skilful - and all too rare in the new political space between domestic policy and international diplomacy opened up by the developing European polity. He paid the forum a tribute, saying he was impressed by the quality of its debate on Thursday, from which other states could learn as they discuss the future of Europe.

The declaration of Laeken is expected to pose a series of questions on that subject, including what the EU's objectives and competences are, how it can be made more democratic and efficient, how its instruments can be simplified and how it can be strengthened internally and externally. Broadly, there are three sets of answers to these questions. Those who believe in an inter-governmental EU would repatriate most of the sovereignty-sharing that makes it so distinctive and original in the international arena.

They would reduce the powers of the European Commission to initiate and police legislation, thereby making the EU more subject to domination by its larger and most powerful states. Their argument is that democracy can operate only at national level.

Secondly, federalists believe these questions should be answered by a clearcut division of competences, a decentralisation of power and a European constitution with a set of fundamental rights, a bicameral parliament and an elected government.

It would take account of the dual legitimacy of the EU as a union of states and peoples. This, like the first option, is an unlikely outcome from this process.

More likely is a third outcome, summarised under the heading of a "federation of nation-states". This recognises that there are federative aspects in the existing EU - such as the Commission and the European Court of Justice - and that there can be federalism without a federation.

The EU is a hybrid non-state polity which respects the identity of its constituent nation-states and recognises that they gain mutual power and influence by pooling their sovereignty.

But in order to render it less prone to citizen indifference and dissatisfaction it will have to clarify, simplify and streamline its structures and powers.