Now that the electorate has ratified the Treaty of Amsterdam, eyes turn to Denmark, which is to vote on Thursday and to Portugal, which is to have an advisory referendum in the autumn. The other 12 member-states are to ratify the treaty by parliamentary means. Denmark is much the biggest hurdle: assuming it is passed there, the treaty must be expected to be ratified elsewhere and to come into effect next year.
It is therefore worthwhile reminding ourselves of its content and of the wider European context and agenda within which it will operate. The significant shift of Irish voters from a no-opinion category as measured by the Irish Times/MRBI poll published on May 16th to vote No on the grounds that they did not have enough information makes this all the more necessary.
Their protest vote serves to underline a much wider European issue, the need for political elites to bring their populations along with them as they negotiate closer integration. Now that the EU encroaches on core matters of the political system such as money, political boundaries, crime, fundamental rights, defence and justice, there is a much greater expectation of involvement and accountability.
Ireland's opinion profile has been generally favourable to integration. The substantial No vote on this occasion should not be interpreted as a rejection of EU membership, but rather, as the RTE exit poll identified, an expression of dissatisfaction with the level of public knowledge (implicitly therefore with the nature of the campaign) and worries about security and neutrality.
The Amsterdam Treaty is a work in progress, consolidating issues left over from the Maastricht Treaty which introduced the single currency in 1992, such as common foreign and security policy, and amending other treaties to bring employment, social policy, the environment, consumer protection and justice and home affairs into the EU's remit.
Its one big idea, to prepare the EU for a continental enlargement by changing its institutional arrangements and balance, was not achieved because the member-states could not agree at Amsterdam. As a result it was more difficult for politicians to present the issues clearly, to distinguish the treaty's contents from their essential contexts and to explain the complexity of a document devoted entirely to amending other treaties.
This has been especially the case because of the campaign run against the treaty by those opposed to it on grounds of protecting Irish neutrality. They have asserted that the treaty is part of an incremental process intended to build a federal superstate with nuclear weapons. Such teleological reasoning takes a huge amount for granted and is not supported by much evidence from the treaty text. It buys completely into the most ambitious ideas put forward by a minority of professed federalists, which are resisted politically by most member-states and disputed theoretically by most academic analysts.
It will be up to leaders of the main parties to bring these truths more forcefully home to the electorate in future years. According to the Irish Times/MRBI poll, the great majority of Irish people are prepared to see Irish troops participate in the peace-making, humanitarian and peacekeeping tasks endorsed by the treaty. And the majority verdict indicates that most voters believe the undertakings given about safeguards to prevent greater military commitments being made by future Irish governments without reference back to the people.
Undoubtedly, however, Ireland's interests are changing within the EU system as prosperity increases and we come closer to net contributor status. Ireland has probably gained more from the single market than from EU transfers during the 1990s; the generalised benefits of peace, stability and extending markets in the decade to come as EMU is introduced and enlargement negotiated will tax the presentational and leadership skills of politicians with the electorate. The case for Ireland's close involvement at the centre of the emerging EU system must be much more political than they have been accustomed to argue, less dependent on economic benefits or transfers.
There will be domestic winners and losers as EMU is introduced, as the Common Agricultural Policy is reformed, as Agenda 2000 is negotiated over the next year and as enlargement is agreed.
There will be another Inter-Governmental Conference in four or five years' time to revisit institutional reform for an enlarged Union. This will be a difficult negotiation for Ireland, since it will deal with reweighting votes between smaller and larger member-states, representation on the Commission and a possible rebalancing of the EU institutions. A disadvantageous outcome could undermine the EU's legitimacy. Preparing for it will necessitate more strategic thinking by elites and a much more focused effort to bring electorates with them.
Because of the EU's legal system these IGCs must be seen as quasi-constitutional exercises, in which national law is overridden by that of the Union as a whole. Many believe it is time to re-examine the process involved, whether through much closer liaison with national parliaments, innovative techniques to allow citizen and NGO involvement and a much more vigorous political debate.
Proposals last week from Jacques Delors and other prominent figures to allow the main political groups in the European Parliament to put forward their own candidates for Commission president are a healthy straw in the wind. But they are by no means sufficient to the task of making up the democratic shortfall of this emerging political system.