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Irish say no to Nice treaty on further enlargement of EU

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.
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