Yes `It is another small step towards European integration which is good for Irish business. Decision making will be quicker and sharper'
No `Despite all the rhetoric in the treaty on the issue of unemployment, it is very short of concrete proposals to tackle the problem'
The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed is calling for a "no" vote on May 22nd, it says, because despite all the rhetoric in the Treaty on the issue, it is very short of concrete proposals to tackle the problem.
"The Amsterdam Treaty says unemployment is a national issue rather than a EU issue, yet EMU is taking control of monetary policy away from the member states", according to Ms Kate Ennals of the INOU. "This actually removes power from the member states to do anything about unemployment, yet the Treaty gives them sole responsibility to deal with it."
She said employment generation policies in the EU appear to be all about "supply side" measures such as increasing the employability and flexibility of workers. "There are no new measures to stimulate the demand for labour."
The policies the EU intends to continue to follow on employment will bring a 12.5 per cent unemployment rate by the year 2000, and 15 per cent by 2005 according to projections based on current figures, she said. "Our call for a `no' vote should not be seen as opposition to the European Union, but a statement that we are not happy with how Europe is being built."
The Regional Secretary of the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union Mr Mick O'Reilly says he opposes the Treaty because he believes it weakens Irish neutrality. "I know people argue that it doesn't, and that there are some pro-neutrality organisations which have been able to go along with it, but I think there are contradictions in that.
"We are being pulled away from neutrality in a series of small steps and this just another chip at it. It's ending neutrality through a salami slicing exercise - taking small pieces away over time until eventually it is gone."
IBEC's Director of European and International Affairs, Mr Peter Brennan , is an enthusiastic supporter of what he sees as "another small step towards European integration which is good for Irish business".
The Treaty contains no big issue for business and contains many technical amendments to matters agreed at Maastricht in 1992. However he says there are a number of changes which will benefit Irish business.
"Improving competitiveness has now been defined as a task for the EU," he says. "A lot of uncertainties in the area of social policy are gone because of the end of Britain's opt out of the Social Chapter. The European parliament has been given more power, and the Treaty has tried to extend the competence of the European Commission to negotiate in the World Trade Organisation.
"The very cumbersome decision making process in Brussels has been tidied up, so decision making will be quicker and sharper. There is no big issue, but it is all part of moving towards a single, large market which is good for business."
The Treaty may turn out to have an important role in improving the working conditions of members of the Defence Forces, according to Mr John Lucey, the General Secretary of PDFORRA which represents over 10,000 enlisted Defence Forces personnel.
"The Government places a blanket exclusion on the application to the Defence Forces of measures on working conditions", according to Mr Lucey. "Our only chance of getting the Working Time Directive, health and safety measures and other measures on conditions of service applied to us is through lobbying the EU."
To that end he welcomed the strengthening of the social provisions in the Amsterdam treaty. "We are seeking to get the defence forces included under social legislation. A soldier is a citizen in uniform and should be excluded from measures on working conditions as the exception rather than as the rule."
Trocaire's Director Mr Justin Kilcullen said that while there were proposed changes to allow EU foreign ministers to decide on common strategies, these strategies should be informed by human rights and humanitarian values. "Instead what we have seen is an incoherent approach among member states to fundamental issues such as arms sales which has meant that no code of conduct on arms has been implemented even though the Council of Ministers agreed eight criteria for this back in 1991-92."
He said that since then conflicts throughout the world had been fuelled by EU arms since then, and that France had sold arms to Rwanda during the genocide there.
Mr Kilcullen also called for greater examination of the foreign policy role of the EU in terms of how it addresses the social, political and economic problems that were at the root of many conflicts.
He also criticised a protocol to the Treaty that suppresses the right of EU nationals to seek asylum in other member states, except in exceptional circumstances. "The EU by denying such rights within its borders undermines its credibility in speaking out on abuses of human rights internationally."
The Heritage Trust Professor of Environmental Studies at UCD, Dr Frank Convery, says he is a "reluctant yes voter". He will support the Treaty only because he is a Europhile, but finds its provisions on the environment very disappointing. "They have gone for fluffy symbolism rather than any serious pan-European effort to deal seriously with the issues," he says. The globally fashionable concept of "sustainable development" is mentioned explicitly in the Treaty, he says, but there are no concrete measures to allow for real action.
"The key problem is the fact that the `polluter pays' principle seems to be subsidiary to practically everything else. Fiscal measures must be taken by unanimous decision, and this makes it impossible to introduce, for example, a carbon tax or other measures to implement the `polluter pays' principle." This problem has not been addressed in the Amsterdam Treaty.
In addition, he says, if one member state wanted to introduce a carbon tax, single market regulations would prevent it, as it would be seen as making businesses in that state less competitive. On environmental protection, he says, "the Treaty has not brought us backwards but it is not a forward step on the environmental front".
According to Senator Joe O'Toole, the General Secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation he is personally an enthusiastic supporter of the Treaty but would like the EU to begin developing a common education policy in the coming years. The Maastricht Treaty contained a section on education for the first time, and while there was no development of this in Amsterdam, he would like to see more emphasis on education policy in the future.
"The way the Treaties are written at the moment, Europe cannot interfere and change the objectives of the Irish education system," he says. "But we could begin by developing a lowest common denominator approach to, say, the school entry and leaving age and declare that all EU citizens have a right to education from age six to 14. Slowly the EU could develop a broad common policy on education." According to the Chairman of the Irish Consumers' Association Mr Peter Dargan, "everything in it is favourable to consumers. If they are half as good as their word it will be very good".
The Treaty places consumer protection as a main goal of the EU and states that all EU policies must be scrutinised for possible effects on the position of consumers.
"All consumer legislation in Ireland has come from the EU," Mr Dargan said. "We have been almost dragged into the 21st century in that regard." He said that ironically the BSE crisis had brought one good benefit to EU consumers, which was the transfer of responsibility for food to the Consumer Affairs Commissioner and away from the Agriculture Commissioner.
He said he would go on any platform on behalf on consumers to support the Treaty.
The umbrella group for Irish language organisations, Comhdhail Naisiunta na Gaeilge welcomes the improved status given by the Treaty to the language, but has not taken a stance on the Treaty overall. According to the body's deputy director Mr Padraig O'Ceithernaigh, the new provision allowing citizens the right to write to any EU institution and receive a reply in Irish is an important enhancement of the language's status.
However the organisation is trying to provide both sides of the argument for and against the Treaty in its entirety, according to Mr O'Ceithernaigh. It is organising public debates on the issues, he says, and there are other aspects of the treaty that worry some member organisations. These include fears of an erosion of neutrality and of cultural identity, he says, and all these matters will be discussed between now and May 22nd.