Lenihan rules out Lisbon renegotiation

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said today that renegotiation of the Lisbon Treaty was not an option if it is rejected by the Irish electorate in next week’s referendum.

He also warned that a rejection would leave Ireland “marginalised diplomatically” within the European Union.

The treaty will only come into force if it is ratified by every one of the 27 EU member states. Ireland is the only member state putting it to a public vote.

According to the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll, the number of people intending to vote No has almost doubled to 35 per cent in the past three weeks, while support for the Yes side has declined to 30 per cent.

Mr Lenihan told a Fianna Fáil press conference this afternoon “there is no Plan B” if Ireland votes no. He said Lisbon is, in effect, Plan B, as Plan A was already rejected by the French and Dutch electorates.

“[Lisbon] was the best effort of the European leaders to come to an agreement among the 27 countries that they believe would secure our common goal in Europe for the future,” he said.

It was necessarily a “complex” treaty because it goes to such lengths to protect the interests of all states. “One of the reasons the provisions of this treaty are so detailed is that all of the member states had factored their specific concerns into the draft and seen to it that they are safeguarded,” he said.

The Minister said it was his “considered opinion” that there will not be a second referendum on Lisbon, as there was on the Nice treaty.

Mr Lenihan said the Nice treaty, which he described as a short framework agreement on the enlargement of the EU, was easily amended. However, Lisbon, by its nature as a detailed consolidating text drawing together all the previous EU treaties, would be "exceptionally difficult" to renegotiate, he said.

Therefore, rejection of Lisbon “may well” spell the end for the document.

“Even if we did secure protocols, on matters that are crystal clear in any event, we would still be met with a No campaign based on the proposition that we were entering a military alliance when we weren’t, that we were bringing in direct taxation when we weren’t, that we hadn’t stopped the other countries having nuclear power stations. Where does this end?" Mr Lenihan said.

He pointed out that Lisbon was drafted while Ireland held the EU presidency, meaning former taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his successor Brian Cowen were “pivotal” in securing the agreement.

“We’re not going to be in the pivotal position in the renegotiation of the treaty,” Mr Lenihan said. “We’re going to be marginalised diplomatically and we’re going to have a very weak negotiating hand, and other countries will reopen issues that we believed were closed. That’s the reality.”

He insisted the Government would continue bringing its message to the electorate to push for ratification.

“I certainly intend to fight and fight and fight again for the next week,” he said, calling on all those advocating a Yes vote to “pull together, unite and take every opportunity that we can to convince the people that this is good for Ireland”.

Earlier, Mr Lenihan argued that Ireland was facing an economic crisis and it was vital to maintain export growth to create jobs. The most important market for Ireland is in Europe and to reject the treaty would send a bad signal to our European trading partners, he said.

If Ireland votes No, “we will do incalculable damage to this country, because the signal we’re sending to our biggest market is that we are not interested in it,” he warned.