Catherine Reilly continues her coverage of the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. You can read the rest of the series here, here, here, here and here.
Catherine Reilly (Dublin, Metro Éireann): Ireland’s farmers have been encouraged to vote ‘Yes to Lisbon’ by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA). Irish prime minister (Taoiseach) Brian Cowen has apparently assured the farmers that his Government will veto a deal on world trade reform, if it’s unfavourable to Ireland.
With the 12th of June voting day drawing near, it’s a significant development coming at a time when, to my mind, anti-Lisbon feeling has been on the rise. Aside from contributing to a feeling of ‘everyone’s on board’, the IFA has over 80,000 members, which, when combined with their family members, is a significant voting bloc.
Peter Raber of Salzburg, Austria, won’t be happy. This week, he wrote a letter to the newspaper I work for - Metro Éireann, a multicultural weekly - powerfully setting out what he feels is the disenfranchisement of the people of Europe. And irrespective of which side of the fence you’re leaning on, it’s difficult to disagree with that point (for the record, Peter Raber of Salzburg, Austria is against the ratification of the treaty, citing concerns over sovereignty and neutrality).
It got me thinking further about a) the inherent unfairness of the treaty not being put to the people of Europe and b) the fact that Ireland quite enjoys the spotlight of being the only EU country to have a referendum on the treaty.
Back in December, I interviewed the former president of Latvia, Vaira Vike Freiberga. She had been speaking at Ireland’s National Forum on Europe on a variety of issues connected to Latvia, Ireland and the EU, though my interview would be less about EU matters and more about issues relating to Latvians in Ireland. During the Q and A after her address, Freiberga, responding to a question on why the Lisbon Treaty was not being put to the people of Latvia, responded that Latvians had already approved the substance of the constitutional treaty in the context of Latvia’s referendum to join the EU. Looking back, it was a somewhat flimsy answer from the otherwise impressive Freiberga, not least because the EU Constitution - the precursor to Lisbon - was only finalised in June 2004 during Ireland’s presidency of the EU. Of course, Latvia held its vote to join the EU in September 2003.
Vike-Freiberga said that Latvians viewed the Lisbon Treaty as a “pragmatic document”, and that “we see it as a mechanism for making the EU work so it does not become too unwieldy”. She added: “We get passionate about other things but not about the treaty.”
Sure enough, neither the EU immigrant populations in Ireland, including the Latvians, nor overseas campaigners, have made much impression on the treaty ‘debate’ here. But some would argue that the right to be disinterested, and to be proven to be disinterested, is an important one. If the polling booths open, and people vote with their backsides, at least democracy will have been done - and be seen to be done. Latvians, like the rest of Europe, bar Ireland, will never really have the chance to prove that they are “passionate about other things”
But there is one silver lining in all of this. While the Irish Government sweats it, significant proportions of the Irish people are enjoying Europe’s soft focus lens. People assume that entering Dustin the Turkey into the recent Eurovision Song Contest was a means of lambasting the competition for what it has become. Perhaps, but not really. Some may forget, though Irish people won’t, that Ireland holds the record for most Eurovision wins, and despite diminishing interest in the ‘contest’, the last few years on the Eurovision front have been a bit hard to stomach. Dustin the Turkey was an attempt to gain attention once again, but failed miserably. Now we have the Lisbon Treaty, and all of Europe’s eyes are watching -before they move, quite rightly, to the stadia of Austria and Switzerland.
