After years of speculation, I am happy to announce the title of J.K. Rowling's next book. It is to be called Harry Potter and the Treaty of Nice. Rowling was so impressed by the labyrinthine nature of the EU that she has decided to base her next novel there. The possibilities are endless - masses of confusing details, claims and counter-claims, shady dealings and some very threatening bullies, writes Breda O'Brien.
But the real clincher is the impressive talent those who frame the treaties have for shape-shifting. There is no reference to an army in the treaties of Maastricht, or Amsterdam, or Nice. Yet, abracadabra, and poof! Over here we have a 60,000-strong force that somehow is not an army. Pretty impressive shape-shifting, don't you agree?
Rowling's only hesitation is the possibility that it may not be truly magic, but conjuring tricks and illusions, requiring a lot of rapid patter and smoke and mirrors and focusing of attention on anywhere but the real action.
After all, the dazed reaction of most Irish people to the fact that what had looked like toy money was actually going to take up permanent residence in their purses and wallets, was to ask, "When did we vote for this?" The answer, given in tones usually reserved for the particularly dim, was Maastricht. That experience has meant that the electorate is at least faintly suspicious about what rabbit will be pulled from the hat named Nice. We have also had some very nifty sleight-of-hand at home. Take the vote on inserting a clause into the Constitution which will not allow our Government "to adopt a decision taken by the European Council to establish a common defence". The magic word is "adopt".
The sleight-of-hand lies in the fact that the decision to have a common defence requires unanimity among all the nation states. So in order for such a policy to exist in the first place, the Irish Government will have had to have voted for it. So having voted for it, they will then return home to us and the patter will go something like this.
"Ah, lads, it took them so long to frame this policy and they wouldn't be doing it unless it was absolutely necessary and it will be awful if Ireland takes a decision which affects 450 million people in a way which reflects badly on us and shows that we are not good Europeans, and we will be taking ourselves out of the heart of Europe and for God's sake would ye stop embarrassing us and vote Yes! And if ye don't we'll have another referendum 'til ye see sense."
Presenting this clause as something which copperfastens neutrality when in fact a referendum can only happen if our Government has already abandoned neutrality is a first-class trick.
Of course, military matters are not the only impressive disappearing trick.
Anyone might think that there is an elephant on the table in the form of a democratic deficit, but no, that one has disappeared, too. In an especially torturous piece of patter, we are assured that voting No to Nice once was good for democracy, because it shook them up. They have accelerated their process of framing a Convention on Europe which, of course, is not a constitution for a superstate but a means of making Europe more accountable.
BUT although the treaty has not changed a whit, voting No to Nice twice would be disastrous for democracy. For those scratching their heads and wondering how countries losing a commissioner enhances democracy, there is an additional puff of smoke and exploding cracker, which turns this into a major concession on the part of bigger states, because they will occasionally lose a commissioner, too.
Sadly, some of the conjuror's assistants are more inept than others, and some are in danger of letting the cat out of the bag entirely.
For example, Mr Jean Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's Prime Minister, was quoted recently in the Economist on the subject of what he called the European Union's "system": "We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens," he explained. "If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back."
Such candour is akin to that lad who made television programmes showing how conjuror's tricks are done, much to the disgruntlement of his fellow illusionists. Secrecy amounting to omerta is central to the success of the act.
This stems in part from the fact that a massive political experiment is well under way. As pointed out in the same Economist article, the EU " is busy acquiring many of the characteristics of a nation-state, while actually creating . . . a political model which would challenge traditional assumptions about government all over the world". One of those traditional assumptions might well be that governments govern with the consent of the governed.
As Mr Junckers exemplifies, in the EU that ain't necessarily so. The same Economist writer claims that Mr Juncker and friends are trying to "drown opposition to European federation in a mass of technical detail, to bore people into submission". But you can't tell the audience that, because they might get restless and start hissing and booing.
A No to Nice is being presented as a sulky, flouncing rejection of participation in the EU. In fact, far from being a rejection of the EU, it might be its salvation.
John Bruton, who, to give him his due, is operating out of a sense of commitment and idealism, has said that a second No to Nice would provoke an "existential crisis in the EU". If that is so, better to have the existential crisis now, rather than having revolts and uprisings later on, as peoples right across the Union realise just how much of their autonomy has been usurped by an unaccountable entity. The time to address the democratic deficit is now, before any further treaties are ratified. But like all good illusionists, the Yes people are saving their best trick for last.
They assure us that if we vote No, our voice will be silenced in Europe, all the time knowing that if we vote Yes, we will have forfeited our independent voice, and will have meekly silenced ourselves.
bobrien@irish-times.ie