In addition, the Irish government secured legal guarantees from its EU partners on the issues that most concerned voters who voted No or abstained in the first referendum. These compromises state that nothing in the treaties will affect Irish prerogatives on abortion, military neutrality and taxation. The government also secured EU-wide agreement that, rather than reducing the size of the European Commission, Ireland will be allowed to retain a permanent place at the commission table. This negotiating success has provided the government with considerable breathing space in which to conduct a more effective referendum campaign.
This combination of legal guarantees and changed economic circumstances is helping to mobilize a majority in favor of the treaty. Opinion polls conducted in recent weeks indicate that the Yes side commands a strong majority of 62 percent to 23 percent, with 15 percent of the electorate undecided.
But the picture is far from clear-cut. Surveys indicate that the Irish are strong supporters of EU membership and the integration process. The problem is that these favorable attitudes vary considerably in intensity and constitute a “soft bloc” of support for the EU. In last year’s referendum, this soft bloc crumbled in the final week of the campaign.
It seems clear that a second rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish electorate would plunge the EU into a renewed crisis and threaten to derail the considerable gains in both democratic legitimacy and collective decision-making capacity deriving from the new treaty. Everything indicates that voters now look set to approve the treaty. But nobody should take Irish voters for granted in the final days of the campaign.
John O’Brennan lectures in European Politics and Society at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and is a founding member of the Centre for the Study of Wider Europe COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
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