The road to more European integration is at a juncture. The Irish rejection of the Lisbon treaty last June ended three long years of hard work that followed the French and Dutch rejection of the EU Constitution in 2005. Today, there is still no end in sight.
The initial response to the Irish No was that “the European project must go on”, as Commission President Barroso put it. It was true, the argument went, that to implement the treaty all 27 member States had to ratify, but one country cannot hold the others if they wish to proceed. In other words, the principle of unanimity is still in effect, but we are applying federal logic to the “problem”.
A month after the Irish ‘No’, the EU presidency moved to France and French President Nicolas Sarkozy was hoping to somehow have the treaty implemented before the June 2009 European elections. Echoing the French presidency, French MEP Alain Lamassoure urged the Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen to hold a second referendum “as quickly as possible”, preferably by the end of next March. In an interview with Europolitique in early September, Lamassoure, a Sarkozy confidant, said that the 26 other EU members “cannot accept that a second referendum take place after the European elections” because they cannot campaign without knowing whether the elections will be based on the Nice treaty or Lisbon.
But this cannot be the actual reason, because the new parliamentary configuration based on the Lamassoure-Severin Report, in which Malta is given the sixth seat, can be agreed in Council, requiring no referendum since it is a European institutional matter. So that is extraneous to the Lisbon Treaty; just as the Lamassoure-Severin Report was annexed to the Lisbon Treaty, it can be detached, decided and separately ratified.
Lamassoure has other reasons of course. If a second Irish referendum is not held before June 2009, he told Europolitique, it might as well not be held at all, because “the Lisbon Treaty will not survive the winter, for it would create problems in other countries.” Lamassoure was here referring to those countries that have not yet fully ratified the treaty – nine in all. “The Polish President may not sign the law ratifying the treaty,” he told Europolitique. “The Czechs could decide not to submit ratification of the treaty to their newly re-elected senate, and in the meantime British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who is worn out, may call an early election. If he is replaced by David Cameron, the latter might review the ratification of the treaty.”
Support for a second Irish referendum before June has dwindled among other member States. According to the Irish Times, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Claude Juncker warned Cowen that he should delay a second Irish referendum. In a speech to the European Policy Centre in Brussels on 17 September, Mr Juncker admitted that the treaty is not expected to enter into force before 2010. Mr Juncker argued that for the treaty to enter into force before June 2009, it would have to be ratified by all countries by February, which he considered unrealistic. Giving Ireland more time is the approach publicly favoured by Britain, Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic.
Incidentally, the Czech Republic takes over the presidency in January 2009, followed by Sweden in July. Both countries have yet to ratify the treaty, with the Czech parliament waiting for a pending constitutional case against ratifying the treaty. Meanwhile, Germany has not fully ratified because of two pending constitutional court cases.
Against this backdrop, Sarkozy’s hopes cannot be high. For even if the Irish are asked to vote again, no matter what opt-outs and guarantees they are given, the chances for another ‘No’ would remain high. Polls in late July indicated that a second referendum was opposed by 71 per cent and that an overwhelming 62 per cent would vote ‘No’.
It seems that the combined efforts of the European Council, Commission and Parliament are not enough to ignite enthusiasm for more integration. In Austria, a proposal to introduce into the Austrian Constitution compulsory referendums on future substantial changes to the Treaty of the European Union, gained a majority of votes in the Austrian parliament, only failing to clinch the required two-thirds majority after the Christian Democrats and the Greens joined forces against the proposal.
The apprehension towards the Lisbon Treaty can only increase as more people start to question the validity and efficiency of more European government. This change of heart is also evident in Malta. I will just quote Fr Serracino Inglott, who represented the Maltese government in the convention that drafted the Constitution. In a letter to The Sunday Times of 6 July, Fr Serracino Inglott wrote:
“The convention was called not to draft a Constitution, which we were bulldozed into doing by the Presidium, but in part to propose some institutional adjustments to cater for enlargement, and mainly to address the problem that is, in fact, the real cause of weakness of the EU – the yawning gap between the peoples of Europe and its institutional leaders, most especially the European Parliament.
This problem will be very greatly aggravated if the leaders of the European institutions repeat with regard to the Irish popular vote the same mistake that was committed with regard to the negative French and Dutch popular votes. The institutional leaders tried to foist on the peoples of Europe the same legal content that had been rejected in referendums.”
Indeed the peoples of Europe are not eager for another layer of federal government above their own government. Today, the idea of a United States of Europe does not sound as appealing as it used to. There is clearly a feeling, evident even in the European Parliament that now is not the time for “more Europe”. There might have been a small paradigm shift instigated, not as much by the collapsing US financial system, as the way the federal government colluded with the privately-controlled Federal Reserve to force congressional approval of an initial $700 billion bailout for Wall Street at the expense of the unwilling taxpayers. The sheer arrogance of the US federal government towards its citizens does not augur well for the European Union’s federal aspirations. Compared to the monolithic USA, the EU is a paradise of diversity. We need more cooperation and social interaction, not more integration, for the latter can only mean more federal government.
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Sharon Ellul-Bonici is a prospective MEP candidate with the Malta Labour Party and currently works in the European Parliament.