Awaiting Ireland

Three years later, the referendum casts its long shadow over Europe. In Ireland citizens will be called to vote on June 12 to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. In this same period, in 2005, French (on May 29) and Dutch citizens (June 1st) with their respective popular votes knocked down the EU Constitution signed in 2004 and delivered a severe blow to the entire community structure. The reasons for the constitutional defeat have been debated at length. After that experience, the tool of the referendum, as relates to Europe, took on an inappropriate negative connotation. To the extent that since then, anti-Europeans have been vouching for its use as if it were a supreme and severe judge ready to hamper the integration of peoples and States. While this integration helped contribute to half a century of democracy peace and development in the Old Continent. In the past three years the European Union first tried to cushion the blow of the ‘Noes’. Having put aside the Constitution, strings were gradually pulled together after having marked a two-track process: the political one, entrusted to Member States, to Strasbourg’s institutions and to Brussels and that pointing to the progressive creation of a “European citizenship”, which envisages reducing the gap separating super-national institutions and citizens. In this case, it is widely believed that it is necessary to create a “Europe of results” which will enable Europeans to perceive the concrete advantages of Community integration. While the fact is that the eyes of 500 million EU citizens are set on Ireland, which also thanks to its Community adhesion in 1973 took many steps forward in the economic and social areas. At the same time, Dublin brought to the “common home” a convinced pro-European spirit, bringing evidence that “unity in diversity” is not only possible but also advantageous. The referendum voting is inscribed in the ratification procedures of the Lisbon Treaty, signed past December by the 27 and indicated as the “new fundamental legal framework” of the European Union. All Member States, except for Ireland, opted for parliamentary approval and 15 did in fact already give their ‘green light’. Thus, we are once again faced with the same situation witnessed in 2005: as had happened for the Constitution, on the eve of this referendum most Countries (and most citizens) already expressed their concrete support to the Treaty. If all should proceed smoothly and all ratifications were granted by 2008, the new “charter” would be enforced next year, on the eve of the Euro-Parliament elections (June 4-7 2009). Electors would thus be receiving a strong signal from a reliable and dynamic Europe, which is advantageous for all. However, we must use the conditional. The procedure lies in the hands of several million voters with a great responsibility which goes far beyond a mere ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a Treaty. The present and the future of the European Union are again in a precarious position, as is the dream of the ‘founding fathers’, whose progress from the after-war period to the present times was marked by high and low periods. Irish citizens are certainly free to approve or reject the Reform Treaty. The result of the vote will have a political bearing upon the entire Continent. This is why those who believe in European integration vouch their support to Ireland’s definitive “ayes”.