Ireland went to the polls yesterday in a referendum being dubbed a "date with history" because a "yes" victory will open the way to a unified Europe.
The turnout is crucial and both sides were canvassing frantically on Friday night to get electors to use their votes on the EU's Nice treaty. The tense finale is being closely watched across the rest of Europe.
The latest opinion poll showed a comfortable lead of 42 percent for the yes camp against 29 percent for the no side.
Efforts to win over the 19 percent still undecided were continuing, backed by warnings of the danger of complacency.
"There is still all to play for and we will be canvassing right up until the polls close," said Ian McClure of Fianna Fail, the party headed by the prime minister, Bertie Ahern.
"It seems obvious to me that the `yes' camp are going to win," said a gloomy Paul O'Loughlin, a shop assistant and anti-abortion activist with the rightwing `No to Nice' campaign, distributing leaflets in Dublin city center.
Sinn Fein, the best-organized group in the no camp, said it was planning to bus voters to polling stations in the 42 constituencies.
Pressure groups and politicians on both sides of Ireland's great European debate hope that the unprecedented step of holding a referendum on a Saturday will help bring out more of the 2,923,910 electors than last year.
A turnout over 45 percent is expected to give certain victory to the well-organized and generously-funded pro-EU coalition of mainstream political parties, industry and trade unions.
Voters are being asked for the second time whether they approve of the 90-page, highly legalistic and laboriously negotiated treaty.
Its finer details were agreed at the French Riviera summit in December 2000, when four days of ill-tempered haggling finally produced the reform of voting weights, institutional arrangements and national vetoes needed to prevent a deadlock in an enlarged EU of 25 members.
"Yes" campaigners say that Ireland has a duty to extend to east European newcomers the benefits that transformed it from a backward, peripheral country when it joined in 1973 to the roaring Celtic Tiger of the 1990s.
The eight ex-communist countries, now democracies with market economies, along with Cyprus and Malta, "deserve the luck of the Irish," said Albert Reynolds, a former prime minister.
"Nice is a moral issue and the answer should be `yes,'" the Irish Independent newspaper said in a front-page editorial yesterday.
In June last year, when the first referendum was held, only 997,826 voted, a 34.8 percent turnout, of whom 46 percent said yes and 54 percent no after an indifferent campaign by a complacent government.
The calling of the second vote has infuriated the anti-Nice groups and underlined complaints about a lack of democracy in the EU.
Ireland has a unique constitutional requirement to hold a referendum on the treaty, which has to be ratified by all 15 member states before it can take effect.
The sense of drama is palpable, because it is clear that EU will be plunged into a constitutional crisis involving scores of millions of people if a few thousand Irish voters reject the treaty again.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
‘GRAY ZONE’ PRESSURE: Beijing’s activities are intended to create the deceitful impression that China has jurisdiction over the area around Taiwan, the CGA said Taiwan’s rights over its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone must not be violated by any country, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that it will not accept any unprovoked actions. The council issued the remarks in response to the China Coast Guard conducting maritime enforcement drills near eastern Taiwan and claiming to fully exercise China’s maritime administrative law enforcement authority. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has been closely monitoring the situation and is taking concrete steps to defend the nation’s sovereignty and secure its waters, the council said. China has no sovereign rights over the waters off eastern
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RSS