INSIDE POLITICS:The Taoiseach took a major risk by insisting on a protocol enshrining legal guarantees to the Lisbon Treaty
BRIAN COWEN’S luck finally turned in Brussels yesterday. Not only did he get what he was looking for at the EU summit, he got it after a battle with the British and some high stakes brinkmanship.
The bit of drama injected into the European Council before agreement on the protocol giving effect to the Irish legal guarantees was just what the Taoiseach needed to kick off the campaign for a Yes vote in the autumn.
The fact that Gordon Brown was apparently trying to block the protocol mechanism on which the Taoiseach had set his heart made the outcome all the sweeter.
Irish officials hotly rejected the notion that the drama was contrived for political effect. One way or another, the image of “Brian battling for Ireland” against the old enemy and ultimately getting what he wanted was the fillip he needed to get the referendum campaign off on the right foot.
He took a big risk by sending a strong letter to all other 26 heads of government the day before the summit insisting that he could accept nothing less than a protocol enshrining the Irish legal guarantees. If the gamble failed and he had to leave Brussels without getting what he wanted, the Yes campaign would have been seriously handicapped from the start. In his letter the Taoiseach emphasised that the media debate in Ireland was already focused on the form of the legal guarantees and he insisted that there was a strong political imperative that he get the protocol promised by French president Nicolas Sarkozy last December.
“I want to emphasise sincerely that this is necessary if I am to call, and win, a second referendum,” said Cowen. There was an implicit suggestion that if he didn’t get what he wanted he might not be able to proceed with a second referendum on Lisbon.
The Taoiseach had a one-to-one meeting with the British prime minister at the beginning of the summit and again yesterday morning. His principal message at those meetings was that a protocol containing the Irish guarantees would not require Brown to go back to parliament with the Lisbon Treaty.
The mystery is why this ever loomed large as an issue because since last December, when Sarkozy first raised the protocol issue, it was clear that it would be attached to a future accession treaty and would not reactivate the Lisbon ratification process in any EU country. There were suspicions that the British objection might be a ruse on their part to get concessions on a new EU financial regulation regime which the City of London doesn’t particularly like.
One way or another whether the British objection was genuine, or a feint designed to achieve some other objective, the tussle did Cowen a power of good. After an appalling 12 months, that began with the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish public, he has achieved a political victory worth boasting about.
Of course it will all be for naught unless he follows through and carries the referendum this time around. The omens are good but he will need to put in a strong and convincing campaign in order to translate the broadly positive attitude of the Irish people towards the EU into a Yes vote.
Given the Government’s unpopularity, a lot will depend on a strong and effective campaign from Fine Gael and Labour.
Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore were also in Brussels for the gatherings of their wider European parties which precede EU
summits. Both strongly backed Cowen’s objectives at their respective meetings and emphasised later that they intended to campaign hard for a Yes vote once the guarantees were agreed.
On the face of it there is a strong wind behind the Yes campaign. Opinion polls since the beginning of the year have shown a consistent two to one majority in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, assuming the guarantees were agreed and each state retained an EU commissioner.
One note of caution is that polls six months before the first Lisbon referendum also showed a two to one Yes majority but the big difference first time around was that more than half of voters were in the undecided camp until very late in the day.
This time 80 per cent of people already have a firm view on the issue.
The failure of Libertas founder, Declan Ganley, to get elected to the European Parliament and the fiasco of his attempt to launch a pan-European movement has put quite a dent in the No campaign.
On top of that, the fact that two anti-Lisbon MEPs, Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin and Kathy Sinnott, lost their seats was another blow to the No side even if one prominent anti-EU campaigner, Joe Higgins, did make it to the European Parliament.
There is some irony in the fact that the Irish electorate, having rejected the Lisbon Treaty last year, then went and rejected three of the leading No campaigners in the European elections.
It is as much of a commentary on the electorate as it is on the anti-Lisbon forces that this happened and it is why the Yes side can take nothing for granted going into the campaign.
The guarantees agreed at the summit effectively amount to a Lisbon Treaty for slow Irish learners. In the last campaign a majority of voters were prepared to swallow a malign view of the EU that bore no relation to the reality of our membership.
This time around all those who believe in the benefits of Irish membership will have to campaign hard to ensure that the country’s long-term future is protected and some credibility restored to our battered international reputation in the process.