FORMER EU commissioner Peter Sutherland has said that the treaties of Nice and Amsterdam failed in their attempts to achieve a sustainable institutional architecture for the EU.
A number of failed attempts over the course of 20 years had created an “understandably high level of treaty fatigue”, he remarked.
Mr Sutherland, chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs International, yesterday said the Lisbon Treaty would provide the requisite durable architecture that was required in an enlarged and more integrated Europe.
Speaking at a Fine Gael meeting to mark Europe Day 2008, Mr Sutherland set out the choices facing Ireland in next month’s referendum.
“There is no escaping the fact that Ireland is facing a moment of choice that will have dramatic consequences,” he said.
“We are about to make a decision as to whether we continue to favour the course of European integration that has been the core policy of Ireland for some 40 years . . . If we vote No we reject continuing integration. I would argue that we also reject the continued efficiency and effectiveness of the EU itself,” Mr Sutherland added.
The event, in the National College of Ireland in Dublin, was also addressed by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, and by the party’s MEP for Dublin, Gay Mitchell.
In the course of his speech, Mr Sutherland was critical of the debate on the Lisbon Treaty to date.
“It has been uninspiring and intensely negative. It has also been bedevilled by inaccuracy and cynicism.”
The treaty’s objective was to bring the EU’s governance into the 21st century, and would allow it function as a union of 27 states, he said, adding that the provisions directly connecting the European Union to its member citizens would improve its democratic credentials.
Mr Sutherland referred more than once to what he contended was the overwhelming support for the treaty from other parliaments and from all the parties in the Dáil – with the exception of Sinn Féin.
Addressing the objections of the No side, he said that it was “demonstrably false” to argue that Lisbon would facilitate tax harmonisation or affect inward investment to Ireland.
He also said that claims it would affect Ireland’s neutrality was “the other great canard”.
Mr Kenny, in his speech, focused on the benefits that Ireland had derived from Europe over 30 years.
“I believe passionately that, at this time of great economic uncertainty, both in Ireland and abroad, our vital economic interests are best served by remaining at the heart of the European process.
“In a Europe of 27 members, the Lisbon Treaty will streamline decision-making,” he said.
Dr FitzGerald said there were three strong reasons for supporting the treaty. Firstly, he said there was a need to deal with a situation where the community had moved from six members to 27 members. Secondly, he referred to provisions created by the treaty being more democratic than any other international agreement. Finally, he added that to reject Lisbon for reasons “that are in some cases deliberately distorted” would lose Ireland a lot of goodwill internationally.
“For us to turn it down would be the most utter absurdity at this stage,” he said.
“The objections made to it, many are totally false,” he also argued.
Garret FitzGerald: page 16