The Yes side needs to focus on what the treaty offers Europe, writes Ciarán Toland
FOR THOSE of us who support the Lisbon Treaty, we owe it to the Irish people to present a better argument than "Vote Yes if you approve of the EU". Over the past fortnight, various Ministers have said it is impossible to be pro-European and against the Lisbon Treaty. This is a dangerously partisan argument designed to pigeonhole serial anti-treaty opponents, but with the result that ordinary citizens are told there can be no genuine debate on this issue.
If it means anything, being pro-European means having the courage to debate European issues on their merits.
Similarly, those on the Yes side often ignore the treaty at hand to talk of 50 years of peace and stability, and 30 years of growing Irish prosperity, because of the EU and Ireland's membership of it. By illogically justifying change solely on the basis of the status quo, the Yes side sails close to arguing that we have no alternative but to vote Yes.
In the Nice Treaty debate, the Yes side spent a lot of time falling into a debate framed by the No side. That debate is about fear: in its responses, the Yes side spends its time stressing what Europe can't do to Ireland, scouring the treaties for vetoes, emergency brakes, opt-outs and declarations.
Instead of fantasy threats to Irish sovereignty, the debate we have in Ireland should be about altering European treaties to meet the challenges we in Europe face. Deeper co-operation is necessary to enable Europe to act more efficiently in areas in which we have had an overwhelmingly positive experience of co-operation.
Unlike previous treaties, the Lisbon Treaty has no big new idea to drive the EU forward - no common market, no single market, no single currency, no enlargement. Like all agreements between 27 countries, each with very different internal debates on the future of Europe, the Lisbon Treaty - like its predecessors - is an imperfect compromise. However, if we reject the treaty, we reject much that has the potential to make a good union stronger and more efficient.
The argument for altering the current treaties is that we in Europe have challenges which a continental institution is best equipped to address. Four million people in Ireland can turn off all the lights, but we won't make a blind bit of difference to the global threat of climate change.
Tens of thousands of people, and many thousands of tonnes of drugs and arms, are still trafficked in Europe each year: crime remains despite current levels of co-operation - it is pan-European, and we need greater co-operation, not hampered by the vetoes in the existing treaties. Here, the Lisbon Treaty delivers.
The great challenges Europe faces over the next quarter of a century are these: we need to build an economy capable of withstanding demographic change and the rise of India and China; we need to bolster Europe's influence in international trade; we need to secure Europe's energy supply; we need to commit ourselves and convince others of the European standpoint on climate change; we need to negotiate as equal partners with the United States on issues of global conflict; we need to secure democracy and the rule of law in Romania, Bulgaria and in states bordering Europe; we need to ensure stability in wider Europe in the face of growing threats from Russia; and we need to deal with serious cross-border crime, such as human and drug trafficking.
The main argument in favour of the Lisbon Treaty is the potential it creates. The potential that if the right president and foreign representative are chosen, we will see some major developments in the key areas mentioned; the potential that a Charter of Fundamental Rights could provide a spur to better rights protection in the EU; the potential that the commission president may become the choice of the people of Europe in the elections to the European Parliament; the potential, by removing the veto in many areas including crime, that Europe will begin to act more quickly in areas of concern to us all; the potential, by giving the European - and indeed national - parliaments more control over decision-making, that legislation will be better scrutinised and debated in national media.
So the question which remains for those who oppose deepening co-operation is, do they deny those challenges exist? What alternative systems of co-operation do they propose to deal with those challenges? What is so wrong with the EU, with Lisbon, that justifies rejection of the proposals before us?
Will Lisbon definitely make a difference? No institutional change ever can. The right decisions only happen when our elected representatives make them.
But has the Lisbon Treaty the potential? Without question, yes.
Ciarán Toland is a barrister specialising in EU law and was chairman of Ireland for Europe during the second Nice referendum