WORLD VIEW:Member states will not lightly give up equally valid parliamentary ratifications, writes Paul Gillespie
'A REFERENDUM is the essence of democracy." This remark by Dermot Ahern yesterday goes to the heart of the issues facing the Government after the defeat of the Lisbon Treaty. The popular vote went against the strong advice not only of all the political parties in the Dáil bar Sinn Féin but of the major interest and media groups. It cuts across all the other 26 member governments of the European Union, which have decided to ratify the treaty through their parliaments. They believe representative parliamentary democracy, not referendums, best expresses the essence of democracy.
The political logic of this result requires a renegotiation of the Lisbon Treaty, which falls if it is not ratified by all member states. But will that be done bilaterally or collectively? At next week's EU summit in Brussels a decision will be made on whether to reopen the treaty negotiations on a collective basis after another period of reflection, or to go ahead with ratification of Lisbon in the other 26 member states and then decide how Ireland will be associated with that outcome.
We should be careful about insisting our ratification process is more genuine than the 26 others, or that it should trump them. Even when this was the constitutional treaty only a small minority of member states had a referendum on it - and while the French and Dutch people rejected it, the Spanish and Luxembourgers voted in favour. Most of the other states decided to ratify that treaty through their parliaments, and all of them did this with the Lisbon Treaty, largely because they believed it did not transfer enough sovereignty to merit a referendum.
The argument about representative democracy draws in another set of issues concerning the relationship between national and European elites and citizens. The assumed growing gap between them provided one of the principal justifications for seeking a new political legitimacy through the constitutional treaty. When that fell the argument shifted back to seeking a more efficient set of institutions through the Lisbon Treaty, capable of providing more effective outcomes for an enlarged EU - whether on climate change, energy, world politics and security, or economic prosperity.
But that solution required the political class here and elsewhere to convince voters they could deliver these outcomes. To convince, they should make their case in both national and European terms. But normal politics usually counterposes these levels rather than making them complementary. It is convenient to blame Brussels for unpopular decisions national governments have in fact helped to shape.
Clearly a convincing case was not made in this referendum. That reminds us of the growing gulf between political party leaderships and voters in this State, as revealed in research and polling findings and then graphically in this result. The lack of trust in leaders could even open the way to a reconfiguration of the party system - Sinn Féin has regained credibility and already it is being rumoured that Libertas might spawn a new right-wing party combining neoliberalism and neoclericalism.
Many on the No side want to see Lisbon ditched and renegotiated at EU level, not dealt with bilaterally between Ireland and the other 26 member states. They hope this will force other governments to reopen the treaty. Resisting such a course in the name of representative democracy and parliamentary ratification will be the immediate political response among most of the 26.
It falls to the incoming French EU presidency to orchestrate this process. They need this result like a hole in the head and will be unsympathetic to it on political and power grounds. That matters, and cannot be dismissed as more brow-beating.
Strategically, one question requires urgent attention from an Irish point of view: what are the assurances which could satisfy voters in another referendum? That will be asked persistently of the Government in the coming week. It will have to decide whether to answer it directly, or insist the whole treaty must be reopened. If the latter, it must formulate a view on what priorities to pursue. There could be support elsewhere for keeping national commissioners, for example; but that cuts across the deals done in the Nice Treaty, and all the effort made by the Irish EU presidency in 2004 to improve on it. This is not to mention how such a renegotiation would interrupt the results-based legitimacy other leaders crave.
There will thus be great pressure on the Government to accept a bilateral outcome. This is in keeping with the desire of other states to complete national ratifications. Those who resist this logic must ask why the Irish decision should be superior to others; since it is a collective process of national ratifications, is it not fair to see them completed before making a decision? An alternative process of advisory or mandatory European referendums would imply a much more federal entity than most No campaigners want to see.
Those who say the Irish decision should kill the Lisbon Treaty disregard its collective aspect. This may be an imperfect ratification process, but it does preserve national autonomy, which other member states are just as entitled to as us.
Alarming alternative scenarios now open up. In one, the other 26 decide to implement the treaty they have agreed and invite Ireland to negotiate a relationship with them in a new framework. In another, an inner core is formed without the checks and balances Lisbon brings. Yet another would see us joined on the fringes by an even more reluctant United Kingdom under a conservative government.
This decision is not without costs and consequences.