WORLD VIEW:IN HIS poem The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost tells how he had to choose between two roads that diverged in a wood, was sorry he could not travel both since they appeared so alike and chose the one that seemed more grassy and less worn. He kept the other for another day, writes Paul Gillespie
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way/I doubted if I should ever come back
The poem concludes:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less travelled by
And that has made all the difference
Ireland has chosen the road less travelled by voting No to the Lisbon Treaty. Frost elegantly explains how such choices matter because one way leads onto another, requiring further choices, with little prospect of retracing steps.
Debate on the decision has been stimulated by a growing realisation that it has major political consequences, many unforeseen during the unsatisfactory campaign on the treaty. Costs and consequences were underplayed by the Yes side for fear of intimidating voters, while they were for the most part disregarded on the No side.
Events since then, including in Georgia, have brought them home. But as Stephen Collins acutely observed in these pages on August 2nd, the Government's softly-softly diplomatic line and advice that EU partners should tone down their responses means voters have "no idea of how much damage has already been done to Ireland's standing and have no comprehension at all of the consequences down the line. All it has done has been to confirm the claims of the No campaigners that a rejection of the treaty would be a consequence-free decision."
Collins's belief that this makes a second No inevitable and that the Government should therefore legislate the treaty and put opt-outs from some of its provisions to a later referendum does not as yet command much political support, but certainly stimulated a useful debate and is being explored with the Danes.
The political realism required to recognise these consequences was expressed by Minister for European affairs Dick Roche at the Humbert Summer School in Ballina and in subsequent interviews this week. His personal conclusion that this could mean a second referendum is needed to avoid Ireland being repositioned as a Eurosceptic state with Britain and a loss of the goodwill built up over 35 years, and to retain our role at the centre of EU affairs, has been more publicised than his supporting evidence.
He reminded his audience that the treaty's seven-year gestation means it was never going to be casually set aside or renegotiated. In fact it has already been ratified twice by many states and in its Lisbon version many have continued to do so with huge parliamentary majorities after the Irish vote without any significant domestic protest - just as seven states did with the Constitutional Treaty after it was rejected in the 2005 French and Dutch referendums and several did after the Danish rejection of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.
Thus the No vote is not commonly regarded as a veto. Nor is there significant support elsewhere for the view that Ireland's referendum should trump parliamentary ratification because it is a superior form of democracy. In fact governments, parliaments and peoples support it, with a tally of referendums since 2006 showing 3.8 million more voting for the treaty than against it. There is no political appetite elsewhere for a new round of negotiations along the lines implied by the catchy slogan "Vote No for a better Yes". Ireland faces isolation this autumn, as 26 other states want to go ahead with the treaty. Simply holding out and saying No is difficult because the sheer variety of reasons why people voted No makes the result hard to explain coherently - although research commissioned on the result may clarify matters.
But, as Noel Dorr told the Humbert gathering, a Government refusal to talk would lead over time to growing indignation and bad feeling, and political conclusions that such Irish behaviour would be contrary to the partnership required of EU member-states. That is a slippery slope towards semi-membership or eventual self-exclusion.
Is all this what No voters wanted, or did they not foresee it?
Quite aside from reactions to the Irish result, political events in Europe this month are also likely to impel other states towards ratification. Lisbon is ambitious on the EU's external relations, consolidating existing treaty commitments on foreign policy, security and defence into a more holistic framework, and spelling the existing rules out more fully.
The EU is not united on its response to the events in Georgia. Central and eastern European member-states look to Nato and the US, not the EU, for protection from Russia and demand sanctions that are resisted in France and Germany, which rely on Russian oil and gas.
Notwithstanding these disagreements, which will be aired at Monday's special European Council, such disarray will strengthen the desire to put the new arrangements in place. Lisbon would not in itself repair this disunity, but it would provide a more durable set of institutions capable of creating more consensus on issues such as a long-term agreement with Russia. The treaty's political logic drives EU leaders towards more effective policy outputs - "consequentialism" in the policy jargon - to legitimate their co-operation with voters. They will be all the more determined to grasp it because of this crisis.
Ireland must therefore decide whether the under-estimated consequences of choosing this road are too costly. Does this justify a retracing step before they travel along it much more?
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pgillespie@irish-times.ie