Irish blessing

The Malta Independent on Sunday Irish blessing

The Irish rejection of the Nice Treaty could be a blessing for EU and applicant countries` in general and for Malta in particular.

It ought to send the EU`s enlargement project back to drawing board for re-design. It should send the message to the large countries that dominated Nice that they cannot have the cake and eat it. Pretending that through enlargement each country will preserve its sovereignty` whilst the big countries keep throwing up blue-prints versions of institutional arrangements ranging from federal, con-federal or loose inter-governmental union is just not on.

For Malta the Irish rejection should delay the enlargement process, making a risky pre-mature referendum during this legislature much less likely.

It is time for European leaders to look reality in the face. The next enlargement of the EU is like no other. It is a political project that will thoroughly overhaul the strategic landscape of the whole continent. This cannot be decided in a mode substantially detached from its people. It needs a wide preparatory campaign to explain the importance of the project to people of countries that` are already in, `as much as to those of countries that are aspiring to enter. It needs transparency and conviction that it can only be sustainable if based on sound democratic foundations and not on the Nice-style imposition of the big countries` stamping their will on the nascent world power.

Domestically our leaders have to come to terms with the reality of our being a small island nation in the southern periphery of the continent and we ought not to be rushed into an unknown quantity which is still taking shape and form.` No personal agenda of any leader must be allowed to dictate the time-frames for going about our European vocation.

The Irish rejection need not de-rail the enlargement project. But it clearly slows it down to permit the creation of the necessary` awareness of the project benefits at the granular level inside the EU. It needs thorough reform of the institutions before serious talks about enlargement with candidate countries can come to sustainable fruition.

Nice has shown that the next enlargement cannot be driven by countries with vested interest to protect their influence. It must be driven by a Commission commanding the democratic credentials it presently lacks.` Rather than having the Commission sidelined as it was at Nice,` the Commission must earn its democratic respect to be in a position to force member countries into making sustainable and sensible compromises.

Which means that sooner or later it has to be accepted that the simultaneous widening and deepening of the EU is elusive and unattainable. The EU must offer prospective members flexibility to move towards membership at their own steam respecting the realities in their particular countries.`

Such a flexible approach, whilst delaying the integration to much longer time-scales, will ensure that the head that runs the EU never gets detached from the body of peoples that compose the EU.

The Irish rejection did not over-joy me for seeing another obstacle on the road to enlargement. In the end enlargement and integration of the European continent is very much in Malta`s own interest.` But it gave me satisfaction that the country which is often referred to as the role-model within the EU told them what it thinks of the Nice Treaty in no uncertain terms.

And those European Leaders and Commissioners who pretend that the Irish rejection is a non-event, that the Irish can` be forced to accept the Treaty without any serious re-negotiation, that enlargement can proceed regardless of the Irish No-vote,` are doing themselves and democracy no favours.` On the contrary they continue to distance the EU institutions from the granular voters who in their large majority remain disinterested about whatever is happening in the transformation which Europe has to go through in order to undertake the next enlargement.

And local leaders who label the Irish as` selfish for rejecting the Nice Treaty ought to be better informed. The Irish did not vote against enlargement or for preservation of their current funding entitlement.` If any such criticism were to be due it ought to be directed to the Spanish government. The Irish voted against the imposition by the big countries on issues which are far more important than money.

And if the selfish label` suits anyone, it suits best whoever is trying to make Malta`s EU accession` fit within personal time-scales. This decision cannot be taken by the government. It must be taken by the people after there evolves greater convergence of the position of the two main political views to ensure that such irreversible decision is taken, if at all,` by a large majority. Forcing` a premature referendum on a split electorate is unnecessarily divisive and against the national interest of keeping options open to react as the EU structures will evolve in subsequent years.