Irish Voters Strongly Reject RU Membership Expansion

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source - The New York Times, June 8 2001

Irish Voters Strongly Reject European Union Expansion
By BRIAN LAVERY

DUBLIN, June 8 -- In a serious political embarrassment for the Irish
government, figures released today showed that voters had forcefully
rejected a treaty that would expand membership of the European Union.

"We have painted ourselves traditionally as good Europeans, as committed to
the process" of European enlargement, said Dr. Ben Tonra, deputy director of
the European Institute at University College Dublin. Now, he said, other
European leaders are likely to consider Prime Minister Bertie Ahern as one
of 'the Euroskeptic Irish."

A government spokesman declined to comment until final results are known.

By this afternoon, 41 of the 44 districts had confirmed "no" results, often
by majorities as large as 60 percent. Only two districts had reported "yes"
results. Even during the voting Thursday, interest groups that had
campaigned against the expansion were expecting it to pass by a 55 percent
majority.

With the referendum, the Irish government hoped to be one of the first
countries to ratify the so-called Treaty of Nice, which was negotiated over
four days last December. Of the 15 European Union members, only Ireland
requires a nationwide vote to approve such treaties.

Under the treaty former Communist countries like Poland, Hungary and the
Czech Republic would be admitted to the union. The group's structures would
also be reformed in line with the expansion plans.

Rejection of the treaty will not mean any immediate difficulties for the 12
countries, mostly in Eastern Europe, who are currently applying for
membership. Their applications are in the early stages and there is plenty
of time to renegotiate the treaty before the final stage of the application
process.

But it will add to the difficulties of the Irish government, which has been
at loggerheads with its European allies recently over issues like taxation
and budgetary policy. Ireland uses it corporate tax rate of 10 percent,
compared with more than 30 percent elsewhere on the Continent, to encourage
multinational companies to set up operations here.

The rejection of the treaty was principally linked to apathy on the part of
the voters. A June 2 poll showed that 50 percent of voters claimed to
understand the treaty only vaguely, or not at all.

While the government's "yes" campaign tried in vain to rally around "generic
abstract good will toward potential future partners in Eastern Europe,"
according to Dr. Tonra, it proved difficult to motivate the Irish public to
care about the treaty's complicated administrative changes in the structure
of the European Union.

Odd bedfellows such as Sinn Fein and the Green Party joined to fuel the "no"
campaign, around such issues as whether Ireland, traditionally neutral,
should take part in the union's military organizations, and whether the
treaty would move control over domestic policies from Dublin to Brussels.

In north Kerry, a rural southwestern county known for its fiercely
independent political tradition, the "no" side won with more than 60 percent
of the vote.

But that wide margin of victory was less surprising than the extremely low
voter turnout: fewer than 33 percent of the Kerry electorate went to the
polls and fewer than 34 percent were said to have voted nationwide, for the
lowest turnout in the five Irish referendums on Europe since 1972.

The vote comes at a time when Ireland will soon begin contributing to
European Union funds, instead of receiving European funds for agricultural
subsidies and infrastructure projects.

And the Eastern European countries on the verge of joining are likely to see
Ireland's rejection of the Treaty of Nice as a serious snub.

"Our money would be going to farmers, but it wouldn't be going to Irish
farmers, it would be going to Polish farmers," said Anthony Coughlan,
secretary of the National Platform, a group campaigning against the treaty.
 
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