Salvaging the Lisbon Treaty

The European Union summit held last week has given Ireland four months to come up with a solution to its rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. Not surprisingly EU leaders did not come up with any answers at their meeting, but instead asked Ireland to present proposals at the EU's next summit in October.

There are clearly no quick or easy answers on how to deal with the 'No' vote by the Irish electorate in the country's referendum - a very disappointing result - but not the end of the world. Strictly speaking, the Lisbon Treaty should be dead because it requires the endorsement of all EU member states, however it is not as simple as that.

A re-negotiation of the treaty is out of the question - enough time has been wasted on institutional reform - but at the same time the treaty (or at least certain aspects of it) is needed to allow for further enlargement of the bloc, to make the EU more manageable and to give the EU a stronger say in international affairs. So some sort of compromise will have to be found, and the incoming French presidency is going to be very busy indeed.

Ireland's 'No' vote seems quite incredible - how can the EU's greatest success story, which received about €40 billion from Brussels since it joined the bloc, reject such a treaty and create such a crisis for the union? Commentators have pointed out that Irish voters have acted in an ungrateful manner by voting 'No' and this is certainly an understandable conclusion. However, Ireland remains one of the most pro-European members of the EU and the referendum result was not an anti-EU vote.

The rejection of the treaty shows how easy it is to put together a 'No' bloc through scaremongering, and how difficult it is for the 'Yes' camp - and Brussels - to explain to voters in simple, comprehensible language why the treaty is in Ireland's interest, why it is needed for the EU to progress, and the consequences of a 'No' vote.

The Irish vote also highlights the fact that referendums are not exactly the ideal way to resolve complicated constitutional matters. Why, for example, did the treaty have to consist of 346 pages - most of it written in legal jargon - when its main thrust was about institutional reform, such as the creation of an EU President, more majority voting, the strengthening of the EU's foreign policy arm, more powers for the European Parliament and the creation of an EU diplomatic service?

It is not surprising, therefore, that most Irish voters did not understand the treaty, and coupled with the fact that the 'No' camp argued that the Lisbon Treaty threatened Ireland's neutrality, low business tax rate and its ban on abortion - which is certainly not the case - all these issues are important to us in Malta - voters rejected the treaty.

I have always argued that when debating the pros and cons of various EU issues it is always easier to be negative and engage in scaremongering than to be positive, especially if one is talking about long-term goals, and this was certainly the case in the Irish referendum. (We heard the same arguments in Malta's EU accession referendum).

It is also true that the slowdown in the Irish economy caused many voters to vote against the political establishment - which supported the treaty - and the treaty was rejected by 53.4 per cent of the electorate.

So where does the EU go from here? The decision by the EU to continue with the ratification of the treaty - 19 countries (including Malta and Britain) have already done so - is the right thing to do - and should the rest of the EU member states approve the treaty (although there seem to be political and legal problems with ratification in the Czech Republic, Poland and Sweden) it would put tremendous pressure on Ireland to come up with a solution.

There are a number of possibilities which could allow the EU to move forward. One is to attach a protocol to the Lisbon Treaty specifically stating that the treaty in no way infringes upon Ireland's right to determine its own laws and policies in relation to neutrality, abortion and tax rates - which is already the case but which will be clearly stated in simple plain language.

This is what happened after the Irish rejected the Nice Treaty in 2001 and the Danes rejected the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. In both cases the electorates voted for a second time and approved the treaties - the Irish were given a protocol on neutrality attached to the Nice Treaty and the Danes were given various opt-outs from Maastricht.

Of course, another referendum presented to the Irish would be risky because a second rejection would almost certainly kill the treaty. Another possibility, therefore, would be to put Lisbon on hold and salvage the important parts of it that can be utilised without having to resort to a treaty - which will not require Ireland to hold a popular referendum as it is constitutionally bound to do in the case of a treaty.

What EU leaders need to do in the meantime is to re-evaluate their public relations strategy, look into why so many people are suspicious of these grand treaties, make a huge effort at marketing the EU for what it is - a huge success story, stop EU-bashing to appease populist elements within European societies and focus on things that really matter such as climate change, energy security, terrorism, the Middle East, relations with Russia and the world food and oil price crisis, to name a few.

What the EU should not do is try to re-negotiate the Lisbon Treaty - too much time was spent on that already.