EUROPEAN DIARY:Ireland's partners will want to ensure that guarantees do not mean renegotiating the treaty, writes JAMIE SMYTH.
THE GOVERNMENT’S quest to secure guarantees to the Lisbon Treaty moved a step closer yesterday when it began bilateral talks with its EU partners.
Swedish diplomats were among the first batch of officials in Brussels to hear how the Government and the council of ministers’ legal experts plan to meet public concerns about the treaty. Several other states will also get their first briefing today while further briefings will be held on Friday as the talks enter a diplomatic endgame set to conclude at next month’s EU summit.
The broad thrust of the clarifications has been known since last December when EU leaders agreed to provide Ireland with “legal guarantees” on taxation, defence and ethical policies such as abortion and family life. They also agreed to make a declaration stating the high importance the union attaches to workers’ rights and member states’ competence over public services.
In return Taoiseach Brian Cowen pledged to hold a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty before the mandate of the current European Commission runs out on October 31st. A Yes vote in this October referendum would probably enable Lisbon to enter into force in January 2010, while a No vote would consign the treaty and eight years of negotiations to oblivion.
For all member states the stakes are incredibly high. But for Ireland securing a Yes vote is critical to avoid the inevitable blame that would be attached to a state that held back a key reform of the union. It’s hardly surprising therefore that the process of drafting the legal guarantees has been cloaked in secrecy with only a few key diplomats party to the negotiations.
The big EU states – Britain, France and Germany – have been briefed on talks between the council of ministers’ legal services and Irish officials already but for smaller states this week will be their first chance to discuss the wording.
All Ireland’s partners will be anxious to ensure the guarantees do not amount to a renegotiation of the treaty or highlight sensitive domestic issues that could cause political problems back home. British prime minister Gordon Brown made this point crystal clear in December when he objected to a seemingly innocuous passage in the conclusions, which appeared to offer Ireland legal guarantees on social and workers’ rights.
This issue is hugely sensitive in Britain, which has fought for a decade to maintain opt-outs from key EU social legislation such as the working-time directive. During the drafting of the Lisbon Treaty, London also insisted as one of its red lines on obtaining an opt-out from the charter of fundamental rights, which for the first time categorises social rights as EU primary law.
Brown feared offering a legal guarantee to Ireland on workers’ rights could negatively affect Britain’s own opt-out from the rights charter, which aims to prevent the European Court of Justice from enforcing charter rights when considering British law.
The Government is now asking its EU partners to agree to a declaration that attaches high importance to: social progress and the protection of workers; public services; member states’ role in delivering education and health services; and local government’s role in providing services. But unlike the other Irish guarantees, this declaration will not be legally binding. In other words, it will not be written into the text of the EU treaties when an Irish protocol is finally ratified by all 27 EU states sometime in the future.
Nevertheless, diplomats involved in the negotiations say the declaration on workers’ rights remains an extremely sensitive issue as they seek to mollify Irish trade unions without prompting concerns in Britain or central Europe. The legal guarantees on taxation, neutrality and ethical issues such as the right to life, education and family are unlikely to cause as much unease among other countries because they will be specific to Ireland. Many legal experts also argue the Lisbon Treaty and the accompanying charter do not affect the status quo in these particular areas.
For example, one of the main claims pushed by No campaigners during the first referendum was that Lisbon would enable the EU to harmonise corporate tax rates. This isn’t true. In fact, one of Ireland’s big successes in negotiations on the EU constitution – and the subsequent Lisbon Treaty – was to persuade its partners that tax should remain a national competence.
So it is unlikely that anyone will object to a guarantee stating that nothing in the treaty makes any change to member states’ competence over taxation.
The same goes for Irish guarantees on neutrality and abortion, which have already been enshrined in the EU treaties via the Maastricht and Nice treaties. Most foreign diplomats consider these legal caveats a price worth paying to assuage the Irish public’s paranoia about future EU intentions.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for the Government is finding agreement among its coalition partner the Greens and the Opposition on the domestic measures that will go alongside the guarantees at EU level. There is still no agreement with the Greens on Ireland’s membership of the European Defence Agency, while Fine Gael and the trade unions are complaining they haven’t yet been consulted on the legal guarantees.
The guarantee on right to life, education and family life could also prove controversial given the recent domestic debate on religious schooling and an as yet unpublished civil partnership Bill. The wording of this guarantee must try to allay the fears of religious conservatives to prompt them to back the treaty without alienating a more moderate majority. No easy task.