The German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, is at the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin on Monday, to deliver a lecture on the future development of the EU. Fischer is a Green, but unlike our Greens, he is so in favour of Europe that he thinks the Nice Treaty doesn't go far enough.
Our Minister, Brian Cowen, will be responding to his address. The two had a bilateral meeting in Berlin a few weeks ago, so Fischer is well versed on the referendum worries facing the Government here. But his pro-EU views, which are shared by Greens throughout Europe, are unlikely to influence the Irish Greens, whose objection to the treaty concerns the military aspects, not EU enlargement. Of the major political parties, only they and Sinn Fein are opposing the Nice Treaty. The Greens plan meetings, leafleting and as much air time as they can get to urge a no vote. Sinn Fein, although tied up with Northern elections at the same time, plans a full campaign against the treaty, with Gerry Adams to address anti-treaty rallies. The pro-Nice parties are also gearing up their campaigns. FF, FG, Labour and the PDs will all be vigorously campaigning for a yes vote. Unlike
other referendums, however, none of them will be getting any money from the Exchequer. The Government decided that, as the McKenna judgment bound it to give an equal amount of money to both sides of the argument, it would give out none at all - to prevent the no lobby getting funds vastly superior to its support. So, Quidnunc asks, how is the Referendum Commission going to spend the £5.5 million allocated to inform the public on the four questions - the Nice Treaty, ratification of the International Criminal Court, the abolition of the death penalty and the regulation of judicial conduct?
The impartial dissemination of information is the answer, but this is the sort of boring explanation that turns people off voting at all. Considering there is no argument on two of the questions - the court and the death penalty - and only Labour is opposing the judicial conduct clause on the grounds that it will make it more difficult to impeach errant judges, it's an awful lot of money for an information campaign. The bulk will go to printers to produce explanatory documents and suchlike, and much of the rest will go on ads in the media.
