Will you be voting on the Amsterdam Treaty later this spring? They are like secular holy days of obligation, these referendum days. And observance isn't all that it ought to be either. Is there a personal business case for the Amsterdam Treaty?
The Government will "put its case for the Treaty vigorously", as the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, said when he launched the Government's White Paper explaining the Treaty last week. Mr Andrews is anticipating a lively public debate, "one based on fact not fantasy". A lively debate will surely inspire No voters to fight against a misconceived threat to neutrality. It is hard to see what might similarly inspire Yes voters. They don't need to be inspired, the Government will growl, they just need to vote Yes. In a legal sense, this is not a referendum, "Yes" to stay in the EU, "No" to leave. A No vote would, in theory, leave things as they are. The trouble is that there are no immediately visible benefits of a Yes vote, and no familiar, cost-free effects of a No vote. The case for Amsterdam is obscure.
This is not what EU leaders wanted. It was to demonstrate the relevance of the EU to ordinary people's lives. It was to be a redesign of the EU as a citizen's union. But the Amsterdam Treaty was basically a let down. The treaty changes became complex and esoteric, despite effort to simplify them.
In fact, it is a mistake to look to the Amsterdam Treaty to demonstrate the relevance of the EU. In Ireland, a treaty should not be necessary to explain the relevance of our EU membership to ordinary people. It is not just farmers whose livelihoods have been, if not quite owed to, then heavily influenced by EU policy. If, as Dr Antoin Murphy wrote in this paper last week, the bulk of our recent growth is owed to multinationals, then it should be obvious to anyone who works for a multinational that his or her job is owed to EU membership.
Similarly, the IFSC's foundations are also built on the hard rock of EU membership. The IFSC wouldn't have a chance if we were not in an EU member state. Anyone who works in or around the IFSC should be able to see the relevance to next month's pay cheque of EU law allowing freedom of services.
There is all the difference between being an offshore aircraft carrier from which products and services can be launched and being an integral part of the mainland with a common legal and political infrastructure. And this is not to mention the benefit to our country, to real people, from projects under social, cohesion or structural programmes.
A rejection arising out of the determination of the No voters and the apathy of the rest would be an appalling vista for the Government. Interesting to speculate about, but it smacks of endangerment of jobs and the economy. If the polls indicate anything like that, the Government will go into overdrive for a Yes. IBEC, not quite in a vigorous Yes campaign yet, will throw in its weight. ICTU will lend its considerable support too, as long as the neutrality genie is back in the bottle.
No one should feel that Yes in 1973 tied our hands in every future referendum. If we have always voted Yes, it may well have been each change was negotiated by Ireland to be within the limits of acceptability to our voters. So, this time, no defence pacts, and we keep an EU Commissioner.
So why vote Yes? The Amsterdam Treaty is a small step towards a better functioning EU. That will be to our benefit, just as EU membership has been. It also maintains the momentum towards wider membership of the EU. Ireland would never have got in, if the original Six had kept themselves to themselves. We have never had the ability to be a standalone Switzerland or Norway. It is questionable whether those are superior models anyway. Ireland should give the EU, its labyrinth, jargon and all, another Yes.
Oliver O'Connor is an investment funds specialist.
