OPINION:The Lisbon Treaty is a political document, therefore it is up to the politicians to drive it, writes Tony Kinsella
WE HAVE gotten ourselves into a right mess over the Lisbon Treaty. The research findings published last week paint a picture of confusion and frustrated ignorance among voters. Forty five per cent of undecided voters made up their minds in the last days of the campaign and of those who abstained, 46 per cent blamed a lack of knowledge for their inaction.
The Government, possibly unnecessarily, placed a treaty composed of rule amendments before the electorate and then failed to either develop or deliver supporting political arguments.
Voters waited for the major political parties to actively campaign on their doorsteps, but the canvassers never arrived. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael failed to provide political leadership. This abdication of leadership left the field wide open for a variety of claims and assertions from an amazing rainbow cocktail of No campaigners. Some of these claims were simply untrue and many of them had more to do with campaigners' own agendas than with the treaty itself.
Around half of those who voted No said that the creation of a European army and the possibility of conscription influenced their decision, although the Lisbon Treaty proposes neither a European army, nor conscription. Compulsory military service is in any case being phased out by most EU member states.
History illustrates the dramatic impact which interaction between an arrogant presumption of leadership and conscription can have. Two hundred and sixteen years ago, on September 20th, 1792, French revolutionary forces, described by the Times of London as "a very motley group", defeated Prussian, Hessian, Austrian and French royalist troops at the village of Valmy in north-eastern France. The French Republic was proclaimed in Paris the following day.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who had just turned 23, was with the Prussian forces and wrote of the battle that "From this place, and from this day forth begins a new era in the history of the world."
Europe's monarchs instantly understood that the French revolution threatened them every bit as much as it menaced their Bourbon cousins in Paris, at a time when monarchy was the standard form of government. They dispatched their forces to crush the upstart citizens of France and restore its king. These armies were commanded by professional aristocratic officers who personified one of the founding arguments for the existence of a hereditary aristocracy.
An essential raison d'être for aristocrats was their allegedly unique ability to defend their territories and peoples. The "art of war" was held to be a prerogative of noble birth, an argument based on the nobles' ancestral buccaneers who had conquered the territories in the first place. Common folk had a role to play as cannon fodder, but the ability to lead and command was a birthright of the nobility.
France's revolutionary armies were indeed a motley group brought into being through a leveé en masse, or early form of conscription. These citizen soldiers responding to rousing cries of "Aux armes citoyens . . ." not only defeated the invading armies, they also shattered the claim of hereditary qualifications for leadership.
Goethe understood the historical impact of Valmy. If leadership is not a birthright, it becomes something that must be earned. Leaders who fail to validate their claims to lead place their mandates at risk.
Ireland's leadership, in the broadest sense of that term, must now demonstrate that it is equal to the challenge of cleaning up the mess which its abdication of responsibility before the Lisbon referendum created. This involves the Government breaking its addiction to political outsourcing. While it may sometimes make sense to transfer operational responsibility to specialised agencies, this cannot be a universal panacea. Compare and contrast the performances of the Industrial Development Authority and the Health Service Executive.
The Lisbon Treaty is a political document amending the basic EU rule book. It was negotiated and approved by the Government. It is therefore up to that government, not the Referendum Commission nor the officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs, to defend the treaty politically.
Certain elements of the Lisbon Treaty may, and it is important to note this, have constitutional impacts. The leadership body democratically empowered to rule on this is our Supreme Court. It is therefore essential that a mechanism is found to place the treaty before the court. An eventual court ruling should clearly illustrate which aspects of the treaty require a referendum.
A referendum on those specific aspects, rather than the amorphous amending mass of the text, could then be held. Our political leaderships would have to fully assume their responsibilities in such a referendum campaign. This would involve negotiating with our 26 EU partners, most likely involving the retention of one commissioner per member state and obtaining a specific, if superfluous, acknowledgement that no form of European conscription is envisaged.
It would also involve Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael offering real political leadership by setting out their arguments in favour of adopting the specific constitutional amendments proposed. Eamon Gilmore was unique in his defence of Lisbon using principled European arguments. While the validity of some Sinn Féin arguments against Lisbon is open to debate, the party's acceptance of EU membership suggests a more modulated approach to specific future referendums.
Our Lisbon mess is going to divert considerable time, effort and resources from tackling the urgent economic, ecological and security challenges facing our country, our continent and our planet. Valmy has witnessed many deaths since 1792, with over 50,000 French, German and US troops having been killed in the area in the first World War alone.
The recent announcement that French military posts around Valmy are to be closed bears witness to one of the successes of the EU. The lesson of Valmy for leadership groups who fail in their duties is also clear.