The ambitious plans to enlarge the EU to the east are in trouble after Irish voters rejected the Nice treaty in a referendum marked by apathy and apparently mounting hostility to deeper EU integration.
Just as EU leaders were hailing British Prime Minister Tony Blair's second term in the expectation that the prime minister would hold a British referendum on joining the single European currency next year, the news from Dublin threatened to delay or derail the biggest project ever undertaken by the union. Nearly 54 percent of the valid votes in the referendum were cast against the treaty.
Every one of the EU's 15 members must ratify the treaty, which was agreed on at an ill-tempered summit on the Riviera last December.
Ireland is the only country where a popular vote is needed before ratification is possible. The other 14 parliaments are likely to pass the treaty routinely.
The Nice agreements -- covering votes for member states in the EU Council of Ministers, the size of the European Commission and reducing the use of national vetoes -- was vital to pave the way for membership for up to 12 new countries from Bulgaria to Estonia in the coming years.
Sweden, current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, had hoped to announce a new target date of 2004 for the first entrants at next week's Gothenburg summit. Leading candidates such as Poland and Hungary are impatient at the slow progress and tough conditions.
Now EU leaders will have to scrabble to work out how to proceed and will probably have to negotiate "opt-outs" for Ireland on certain treaty provisions, like the ones Denmark secured when its voters rejected the 1992 Maastricht treaty laying the ground for further EU integration.
The leaders "will say there can be no question of renegotiating the treaty," one shocked Brussels-based diplomat said last night.
"The consequences of this are very unpredictable. But it will certainly make the [membership] candidates extremely nervous."
Ireland's No campaigns argued that a bigger EU would see Ireland dominated by larger members, subsidizing poorer new members -- a concern also in Greece, Portugal and Spain -- and having its small army drawn into European operations.
Victory came to a disparate band of environmentalists, pacifists, Irish republicans and other organizations. Sinn Fein in particular objected to Nice's plans for an EU rapid reaction force, arguing that it would undermine Irish neutrality.
Their victory is a sharp about-face for a country that has reaped huge benefits from some US$25 billion in European subsidies since joining the European Economic Community along with Britain in 1973. "This is payback time for us," Ahern said when he began the government's "Vote Yes" campaign. "This is our chance to show that generosity of spirit that was shown to us."
Paradoxically, the Nice treaty suits Dublin well, as it avoids harmonizing European tax rates. Ireland has angered other countries by using a low corporate tax rate to attract multinational companies.
Overall, the lesson is a familiar one -- made as recently as last autumn when Danes rejected the single currency in a referendum: elite and media support for European integration is not enough.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique