WHEN EU leaders assemble in Brussels tomorrow for their informal summit it is likely that their ostensible agenda on competitiveness, Europe 2020, a successor to the so-called “Lisbon Agenda”, will now play second fiddle to the financial woes of Greece and other euro zone members. The leaders may produce a statement in support of Greece. If aid materialises eventually, which many believe inevitable, it will certainly not be telegraphed in advance. Meanwhile MEPs in Strasbourg yesterday voted overwhelmingly, 488 to 137, to endorse the new commission of president Jose Manuel Barroso, having forced him last month to replace the Bulgarian nominee for the aid portfolio.
Both events are important political milestones, reflecting the EU moving on from the traumatic ratification and enactment of the Lisbon Treaty to implementation of its provisions: on one hand, leaders flexing their enhanced economic supervisory role, presided over by council president Herman Van Rompuy; on the other, the newly configured commission with its “double-hatted” foreign minister, Baroness Ashton.
And Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin also reflected yesterday on the Lisbon transition in his annual “state of the union” address to the Institute for International and European Affairs. Importantly, the Minister insisted on the need to learn the lessons in Ireland of both referendums by taking action to replicate the successful bridging in the second referendum of the chasms of misunderstanding of the EU and its institutions. This should happen not just during referendum campaign drives, but all the time. It was a welcome and important recognition, if it is followed through, of the dangers of the fatal complacency that defeated Lisbon I.
A continuing information campaign will focus on those have least knowledge of the EU, the young and the economically deprived. Among welcome initiatives understood to be under consideration are changes to the school curriculum.
Mr Martin also spoke rightly of the need to develop within the public service a more sustained “joined up analysis and approach to advancing our interest”. He promised Cabinet proposals which will involve enhanced co-ordination of political and administrative structures at Cabinet and inter-departmental levels. And he pledged more work with the Dáil to make a reality of the Lisbon provisions for a scrutinising role for national parliaments.