A letter to our Irish friends

For a Frenchman, to know Ireland is to love it. As a child, to me it had the unsettling charm of the indomitable Maureen O’Hara in “The Quiet Man”. As a student, I learned about the ‘fighting spirit’ on rugby fields with the Irish teams and my bedroom was decorated with some photos of John and Bob Kennedy. As a father, I named my eldest son Patrick: March 17th has become our family’s celebration day.

By chance, I first became involved in European matters when Ireland joined the Community: I will never know if the European adventure was worth it before, but to me it has always come with the sound of an Irish ballad.

Has Ireland gained from its EU membership? Only you can answer. Seen from the continent, Europe’s former poorest country is now wealthier than the UK, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries, per capita. No longer does Ireland see its sons and daughters leave, it attracts its neighbours’ sons and daughters. It has made the most of the common agricultural policy, of the European regional fund, and of its membership to the euro while the British remained attached to their insular currency. The European family has accompanied and assisted each step of the long-lasting course of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Lastly, everyone knows, in Ireland and elsewhere, why the worldwide financial crisis did not have the same apocalyptic consequences in Dublin as it did in Reykjavik.

Thanks to the quality of its representatives, Ireland’s influence in Brussels and in Strasbourg is more than proportional to its population. At the European Commission, Peter Sutherland was at the root of the European competition policy, Ray McSharry reformed the agricultural policy, and today Charlie McCreevy reigns over the single market with an iron grip; the post of Secretary General of the Commission has become almost an Irish monopoly with Catherine Day succeeding David O’Sullivan. At the European Parliament, Pat Cox has been the only President who did not come from one of the “big” countries. Nowadays, among the 13 Irish MEPs, Brian Crawley has been elected President of one of the six political groups, and six others chair, or vice-chair, some important Committees or delegations. As for others, Gay Mitchell is the Rapporteur on the EU emergency aid for developing countries hit by the crisis, Proinsias de Rossa is the Rapporteur on the European social model and Avril Doyle is leading for Parliament on the energy-climate change package, three key issues for the Union’s future! It is the former Taoiseach John Bruton who represents the European Union in Washington while, in the Darfur sands, the most ambitious peacekeeping operation of the European Union has been entrusted to General Patrick Nash who headed the French blue helmets of the 1st parachute regiment along with the Irish 98th infantry Bataillon.

Finally, as a crowning achievement, Gaelic is now one of the Union’s official languages, just like French or English.

In six months, we will all be called on to elect the Parliament that represents 500 million European citizens. It can be, it has to be, an historic moment: for the first time, this Parliament will have full legislative power and, through it, the citizens will elect “Mister” ou “Mrs” Europe, the European Commission President, just like the Irish themselves choose the Taoiseach. It is what all our governments wanted when signing the Lisbon Treaty. Its ratification should be complete in 26 out of the 27 countries within a few weeks.

Today, the continuation of the European adventure relies on Ireland. Either the citizens seize power in Europe, like they do in each of our countries, and Europe will have a leadership that will be strengthened by its democratic legitimacy, or the European Union will remain a complex political system, paralysed by the unanimity rule, deprived of democratic control, condemned to an on-and-off life depending on the quality of the six-month presidencies. At this very moment, when we find ourselves vulnerable to several crises, bankruptcies, ecological challenges, terrorism, and threats of nuclear proliferation arising round the world.

In France too we have gone through some moments of doubt about the European project and even through some negative votes. Our experience might be of some use, not for you to copy it – your problems are not the same – but for you to integrate it to the search for a solution which is entirely in your hands.

According to the Irish Government, and all the polls confirm it, last June’s negative vote does not express a refusal of the content of the Lisbon Treaty but rather some questions, some fears, over the possible consequences of the text, and the need for more guarantees.

One way to go would be to complete the Treaty with one or two interpretative declarations, this option seems to be recommended by the relevant sub-committee of the Oireachtas and, of course, it would be the simpler one. This is what was done in 2002 for the Nice Treaty.

In the longer run, to make sure that the Irish feel completely at ease in the Union, as we all do, why don’t they add to their own national Constitution the guarantees that they need? This is what we ourselves did in 1992 before we submitted the Monetary Union Treaty to a referendum that we knew would be difficult. The French were then worried about their cultural identity and their national sovereignty: a new article in our Constitution has introduced the protection of the French language as a symbolic compensation to the disappearance of the French franc. Another amendment specified that, for France, the European Union membership only meant partial and reversible transfers of competencies. The same year, the Danish did the same by specifying that the Kingdom’s powers could only be “delegated” to international authorities rather than transfered.

This constitutional path is not completely new to Ireland itself: since 2002, article 29, paragraph 4-9°, of the Constitution prevents the Republic from taking part in a common European defence that could be decided on by implementing the Nice Treaty.

Could the Lisbon Treaty opportunity be seized to simplify this article 29, which is hard to understand for the people, while completing it by introducing, once and for all, the guarantees that seem essential to the Irish and that are compatible with the spirit and the wording of the Community law ? The draft text could be something like:

“The State is a member of the European Union established by the Treaty signed at Maastricht on the 7th day of February, 1992, and the amending Treaties duly ratified (….)

As a member of the European Union, the State retains its full sovereignty/competence on matters related to life and family law, defence policy, taxation law except indirect taxes linked to the functioning of the internal market (…)”

It is this amendment to the Constitution that could be subject to a new referendum, in accordance with article 46. Once the Constitution is amended, the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty could be authorised by the Parliament, in accordance with article 27.

The benefit of this kind of wording would be to submit to the Irish citizens a very short text, asking a very simple and fundamental question that could be summarised as such: “Do you want Ireland to take part in the EU with the following guarantees to which we are historically attached?” instead of asking approval for a Treaty that is impossible to understand for the non-experts. A “yes” would put Ireland back at the vanguard of a Europe that would finally be ready to face the 21st century. A “no” would express a will to be an island again, and only an island, free from the constraints of the European family but also free from its assets and from its support. Our Irish friends must know that no-one, absolutely no-one on the continent, is hoping for that.

Alain LAMASSOURE, November 24th 2008