Ambassador's Corner

WEEKLY MESSAGE FROM AMBASSADOR JOHN BRUTON

April 4, 2008

The Lisbon or EU Reform Treaty – why Ireland should vote “yes”

I was back in Ireland last week with my family for a holiday but I took the opportunity to address two meetings on the Lisbon Treaty, which the Irish people must ratify if it is to come into effect.

I told my Irish audiences that the European Union is the most advanced form of voluntary integration between sovereign states in history. It is followed with great interest in the United States, as is the debate on the Lisbon Treaty.

I said that the Lisbon Treaty is a unanimous agreement that emerged from over five years of intense public and private discussion between democratically elected representatives of the 27 European Union countries representing 500 million people. Unlike any previous European Union Treaty, most of the content of this Treaty was the subject of a consensus in a Convention, which consisted of opposition as well as Government Deputies from National parliaments, of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) of all parties and of all the democratically elected Governments of all the EU Member States.

It can only come into effect if every one of those 27 countries later formally ratify what their elected representatives have thus agreed. The Irish people now have the full power to reject or accept the Lisbon Treaty, and if they reject it, it will not come into effect, even for the other 26 States who may have ratified it. The Nice and other previous EU Treaties will remain in force, with their deficiencies unaddressed.

That is the way the European Union is established. Each country has a right to veto Treaty changes, and will continue if Lisbon is accepted to have that right on any Treaty changes that might be proposed in future.

The Lisbon Treaty also says explicitly and for the first time, that a country has the right to leave the European Union, something that has always been so under international law, but which has not been formally stated in a European Treaty before. That right to leave is the ultimate expression of the continuing, individual, sovereignty of each of the 27 EU States, including Ireland. The states of the United States of America do not enjoy that right, as was discovered when South Carolina attempted to secede in 1861. This, I stressed, underlines the fact that the EU is a voluntary union of states.

Under the Lisbon Treaty, as under previous EU Treaties, individual Member States also have the right to block any enlargement of the European Union to bring in further Member States.

Given that all members must agree to take in a new member, it is truly remarkable that the EU have been able to get all the existing members to agree at each stage to enlarge their Union from 6 to 9, from 9 to 10, from 10 to 12, from 12 to 15, from 15 to 25 and most recently from 25 to 27 Member States.

The world’s only voluntary multinational democracy

In so doing, the Member States of the European Union have created the largest, and indeed the only, voluntary multinational democracy in human history.

It is voluntary Union because states are free to leave it, and because they all joined it originally without any compulsion.

It is multinational Union in that it encompasses 27 very different Member States.

It is a democratic Union, in that EU laws must be approved by a Council of the 27 democratically elected Governments, and in almost every case, EU laws must also be agreed by an institution that is unique in global terms, the directly elected European Parliament. No other multinational institution has a directly elected Parliament working coequally with Governments and diplomats. None of the United Nations bodies, none of the other regional economic pacts like NAFTA, and indeed no other international institution is democratic in the way the European Union is. None of them has a directly elected, multinational parliament like the EU.

And Ireland, and the Irish people, have had a direct hand in creating that unique achievement of international statesmanship – a voluntary, multinational democracy. Nothing like that existed in human history before this anywhere in the world. The European Union is, in this sense, one of the great achievements of twentieth century political leadership, in which I am proud to say Irish people played a prominent part.

Why nation states need a European Union

That said, why do we need a European Union anyway? Apart from the uniqueness of it creation and construction, what benefits does it confer?

These are not stupid questions. They are questions that it is only right to ask about any human institution from time to time.

I believe European states need the European Union now more than ever, because these states and their peoples have become so interdependent with one another that even the biggest state is too small to protect all its interests on its own.

The lives and livelihoods of the citizens in each European state are affected by what happens in other European states, and membership in the EU gives their Government some influence on events outside their own borders elsewhere in Europe.

Take the example of Ireland. Ireland is more dependent for jobs and prosperity on the goods and services it sells abroad than is almost any country in the world. It is therefore in Ireland’s interest to be a full voting member of a democratic body like the EU, that guarantees that its closest export markets will stay open to it, on a basis of free and undistorted competition, and gives that guarantee as a right, not as a favour from a powerful neighbour. Indeed, that is one reason many other European countries, including much bigger countries, want to be full voting members of the European Union too.

There are other things that cross borders as well as exports. Money does. People do, and pollution does.

If we want the money that many European people and companies have invested in very large quantity in other parts of Europe to be as safe as if it was invested at home, we need a body like the European Union that can make rules that guarantee compliance with contracts, the enforcement of court judgements and respect for property everywhere in the EU.

Given that the world’s financial system is so inter-linked, we need a body like the European Union that is big enough to act against cybercriminals who might attack our bank accounts from the safety of another country.

How the European Union guarantees freedom as well as security

One of the really important things about the European Union is that it guarantees that all EU citizens will have the right to live and work in any other EU state.

But if people can cross borders, so too can criminals. So too can illegal drugs. So too can terrorists. So too can illegal arms.

That is why the Lisbon Treaty has been drafted to help the European Union to develop more rapidly rules to enable Member States to work together against crime, by sharing intelligence, by sharing evidence, by apprehending accused persons, and by recognising penalties imposed by courts of other EU states. But this is a two-way street. The EU is also developing rules to protect people who might get in difficulty with the law in other EU countries, perhaps while on holiday, by developing common EU rules on legal aid and on rights of accused persons.

And The EU is doing all this by an open democratic lawmaking process, rather than by closed door diplomatic negotiations of the kind that are the rule in other international organisations working internationally on law enforcement.

The Lisbon Treaty, in particular, will help improve this by introducing majority voting in place of the current rule, which requires all 27 Member States to agree before the EU can do almost anything. The problem of cross-border crime, including the drugs menace, is too urgent to await unanimity. I believe this change is one of the most important reasons we should pass the Lisbon Treaty. It will help make our streets safer.

Lisbon also makes provision for a possible, unanimous, decision to create a European public prosecutor to pursue cases in local courts where EU funds are being ripped off by fraudsters. In some localities, local law enforcement may be a bit lax, especially when it is EU, rather than local, money that is involved and there may even be local political interests in covering up or minimising what is going on. Ireland will soon become net contributor to EU funds. So it is in its interest to ensure that its money is protected.

Not only do money and people cross borders, pollution crosses borders too. As an island nation, climate change could affect Ireland dramatically. Ireland cannot tackle it on its own. Europe cannot tackle it on its own either. We are too small, and the problem is too big. But together in the EU, the 27 EU States can wield sufficient diplomatic and trade muscle to ensure that all the countries of the world act together on climate change.

The European Union changes relationships between big and small states

Being in the European Union changes the way a country can look at the world and at itself. One is no longer sitting on the stand at a game complaining about the players’ mistakes. One is on the field oneself, making the plays, winning sometimes, losing sometimes, but most importantly being part of the game at all times. Contrast Ireland’s position with the position of Switzerland or Norway. Because it is a member of the EU, Ireland does not have to implement EU rules without having a vote on them just to get access for Irish goods to EU markets, but non EU members like Norway and Switzerland have to do so.

Being in the EU changes the way a country looks at itself and at its neighbours. EU membership certainly changed Ireland’s relationship with Britain. The first official visit of a British Prime Minister to meet a Taoiseach (Prime Minister) in Ireland rather than in Britain did not take place until 1974, a year after Ireland and Britain had both become equal members of the EU. That was no coincidence. Common membership of the EU enabled the two countries to develop a more mature relationship. They both found they needed one another’s help in the wider arena.

European Union membership has also helped take the drama out of other relationships between small countries and their bigger neighbours. It enabled them to reduce longstanding historical tensions and complexes, by putting them into proportion. The relationship between Netherlands and Germany has improved, as has the relationship between Hungary and its neighbours because of the common membership of the European Union.

How the Lisbon Treaty will enhance European Democracy and help smaller states

But what about the Lisbon Treaty itself?

The Lisbon Treaty will enhance democracy in EU lawmaking by requiring that all future EU draft laws be first discussed in the 27 Parliaments of the Member States, so they can give their opinion on whether the subject of the draft law is one that should be dealt with at EU level at all. This will happen before these draft laws go to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers for the formal legislative process.

This change could have a dramatic effect. If a national parliament does its work, and if that work is properly reported in the media, it will mean that people will be able to debate and understand the issues about which the EU is proposing to legislate much earlier and in a much more informed way than is now the case.

It should also mean that the EU will have better legislation, because it will be better informed of conditions in Member States.

That provision on its own is, in my opinion, a sufficient reason for voting for the Lisbon Treaty. It is a dramatic improvement on the Nice and other existing Treaties, which will otherwise be what we will be left with if Lisbon is voted down, and which do not contain effective guarantees of consultation with national Parliaments.

Another improvement that the Lisbon Treaty will make on Nice is that it will explicitly subject all EU lawmaking to a code of human rights. At the moment, Member States are explicitly bound by such a code, but the EU is not. Lisbon will remedy that. It will be easier to appeal against EU laws on human rights grounds than it is now.

The Lisbon Treaty will enable the European Commission to do its work, as the motor of the EU and guardian of its prerogatives and its funds, more efficiently. It will do this by limiting the Commission’s size, while giving all states, big and small, equal representation.

By any standard, that is an exceptionally good deal for smaller EU states. For most of the EU’s history, big states have had more of their nationals members of the Commission than smaller ones have had, two Commissioners instead of one.

I had to fight very hard, when I was member of the Praesidium of the Convention that drafted this Treaty, to ensure that equality between states, regardless of size, in the number of nationals on the Commission be enshrined in the text the Convention produced. I am glad that it has now survived into the final text of the Lisbon Treaty.

I do not think Ireland would do a better deal in future by rejecting this one, and throwing the whole issue of the composition of the Commission up into the air again. Smaller states could do much worse then. If nationality is to be used in deciding the composition of the Commission at all, big countries with a bigger population can, after all, make a case for more places on credible grounds such as non-discrimination. Equality regardless of population is a real diplomatic success for all small EU Member States.

A more coherent foreign policy

Finally, the Lisbon Treaty will enable the EU to be more effective in foreign relations. The EU will get a "legal personality" enabling it to conclude treaties. Its foreign relations will be put under the unified management of one person although foreign and defence policies will still have to be settled by unanimous agreement of all Member States.

There is a lot of interest in the European Union in the United States. Americans see the EU as a new way of conducting international relations and of harnessing the power of economics to achieve the political goal of bringing diverse peoples closer together. Americans ask me why and how Ireland has done so well since it joined the EU. From a distance, they can see the big picture.

It is important that Ireland also sees the big picture too when it casts its vote on the Lisbon Treaty.

Resignation of Bertie Ahern

Just as I was leaving Ireland to return to the United States, I heard the news that my successor as Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, had announced he will resign next month. Bertie Ahern lives for politics, so this was not an easy decision for him. Like any good politician, he especially enjoyed constituency work. His ability to cultivate personal relations enabled him to finalise the vitally important 1998 Belfast Agreement, which eventually started to function durably last year. He also applied these skills effectively during the Irish Presidency of the European Council, and in promoting agreements between trade unions and employers in Ireland.

Please send me your comments about this or any of my weekly messages or other EU matters. I look forward to hearing from you!


 

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