Voters should say Yes to the Treaty of Amsterdam in the referendum this Friday. It will contribute to closer co-operation between the governments and peoples of Europe. It will lead to further pooling of sovereignty. It will enhance the welfare of the Union and will prepare it for enlargement in coming years. Despite competing attention from the referendum on the Belfast Agreement there has been sufficient information and public debate available for citizens to make up their minds on the treaty. It contains important safeguards to protect this State against involuntary incorporation in schemes that do not meet with the Government's or the people's approval, notably in the fields of foreign policy, security and defence or military neutrality. Voters are not deciding to join a military alliance in this referendum; any such decision would have to be put to another vote after a future negotiation. Passage of the referendum would reinforce Ireland's role at the centre of the European Union's decision-making when such a positioning is crucially important to protect changing Irish interests within it. Rejection would throw the EU itself into crisis, jeopardise this State's positive reputation within the EU from which it has so often benefited, and lead to a very uncertain and probably unfavourable renegotiation.
This newspaper has been critical of the decision to hold the two referendums together for fear that attention would be deflected by an overwhelming concentration on the Belfast Agreement. But the ground has been usefully made up during what has been an increasingly vigorous campaign, by the activity of the Referendum Commission and by greater media coverage - not least in the pages of this newspaper.
An important issue has been brought into the open concerning the nature of European integration. As critics have pointed out, it is an incremental process. The treaty gives some new powers to the European institutions and makes the EU more effective in tackling a range of subjects, including employment, the environment, equality, social exclusion and foreign policy. These issues were repeatedly flagged politically and in the media during the course of the formal negotiations from March, 1996, to June, 1997, and in the work of the Reflection Group before it. Much of the treaty was drafted during the Irish EU presidency from June to December, 1996.
The argument that these were secretive negotiations conducted far from the public eye is hard to sustain in these circumstances. There was ample opportunity during them to take up contentious issues. Undeniably, the EU suffers from a lack of political accountability, but this is to some extent addressed in the treaty outcome by strengthening powers of the European Parliament and liaison with national legislatures. One important reason for the apparent lack of public interest is that there was no singular focus for the treaty, especially since its principal objective - to prepare the EU for a continental enlargement - was postponed for another Inter-Governmental Conference in four or five years time. Ireland and Denmark, as the only member-States having constitutional referendums on the treaty, may well have proposals to make as to how such exercises in the future should be conducted closer to the citizens whose lives they will increasingly affect.
This is, therefore, a more modest treaty than originally envisaged. But it is clearly pitched at everyday concerns. On the evidence of repeated referendums, opinion polls, and the continuing process of negotiations, the Irish people are relatively satisfied with the integration process and happy that their interests and identity are adequately protected within it. They would be further developed by passage of this referendum.