Sunday Business Post | Irish Business News

Breaking News Business Ireland World Sport Weather

Navigation (Home)News News Features The Market Technology Media & Marketing Comment & Analysis Vincent Browne David McWilliams Tom McGurk Editorials Back Room Guest Writer Any Other Business Computers In Business Profile Property Motoring Agenda Letters

People In Business Done Deal Budget Forum Events / Conferences Company Reports Tools Crossword Search the archives Newsletter IMODE RSS

Text-Only

Have our politicians forgotten we voted no?
Sunday, November 16, 2008 By Tom McGurk
I had been expecting the post-Lisbon referendum circus to come to town and it looks like it has.

Last week it was being splendidly opened by the quite extraordinary President Vaclav Klaus from the Czech Republic.

The Czechs (other than Kafka) may not be noted for their surreal sense of humour but tell that to our brightest and best on Merrion Street. It’s one thing telling the world, as President Klaus does, that you don’t believe in global warming (actually there is a considerable body of scientific opinion which argues that global temperature cycles have been in flux for centuries and has nothing to do with human activity).

But dining out with the government’s ‘public enemies’ on European policy while on a state visit to Ireland, was more Monty Python than Franz Kafka.

Whatever else you might say about President Klaus, he has two of the finest and strongest fingers yet seen in the post-Lisbon debate. And he’s not afraid to wave them.

The whispers off-stage from the Department of Foreign Affairs to the Irish press corps was that Klaus was the political equivalent of a ‘mad aunt’ in other words, an eccentric.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Klaus, along with Vaclav Havel, created the Velvet Revolution. He has been a significant influence in Czech politics and, in his deepening concerns about evolution of the European project into ‘‘supernationalisation’’, he may be much closer to Czech popular opinion than any of the political parties.

He has also, controversially, taken on the global warming consensus, writing that ‘‘Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences’’ along with other ‘‘isms’’ such as communism, feminism and liberalism. Klaus has claimed that ‘‘environmentalism is a religion, a modern counterpart of communism that seeks to change people’s habits and economic systems’’.

Meanwhile, back on Tuesday night at Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel (how appropriate, given that the 1922 Free State Constitution was drafted in room112) the chosen gathered to dine with troublesome Vaclav. According to a brilliant journalistic exclusive in the Irish Times (which even published the full guest list just in case one of these people live on your street) they began with salmon, and then had steak followed by creme brulee, while they listened to the Irish Chamber Orchestra and were entertained by set dancers. Horror of horrors, Declan Ganley of Libertas was picking up the cheque.

Apparently, among those present were such well-known and dangerous subversives as Eamon Dunphy, Patricia McKenna (of the other Green party) and Bruce Arnold.

The Czech ambassador Tomas Kafka was there too. The next day the toys were flying out of the political establishment’s prams. Billy Timmons of Fine Gael wanted a formal complaint made to the Czechs because President Klaus was sympathising with groupings and individuals opposed to Irish government policy.

What government policy, might one ask? The acceptance of the Lisbon Treaty which has already been rejected by the democratic wishes of the Irish people in a sovereign referendum? By Thursday the plot was thickening, with accusations that the Department of Foreign Affairs had prevented Irish journalists attending President Klaus’s media briefing the previous Monday.

The department denied it, but everything’s fair in the deepening and swirling pool that is now European affairs. It does sometimes seem like our political establishment has actually forgotten that Lisbon was rejected, that most alarmingly while some 95 per cent of elected politicians voted yes, some 54 per cent of the electorate voted no. Currently, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour are going ahead selecting their candidates for next year’s European elections, despite the fact that their policy on Lisbon has been rejected by the electorate.

And seemingly, nowhere in this selection process, has the political dilemma that Lisbon now represents come to the fore. Can someone explain how any of the candidates from the parties who wanted Lisbon could, if elected, still manage to represent the sovereign wishes of the Irish electorate who don’t want Lisbon?

How is it possible to be elected to Europe in favour of the scale of change that the Lisbon Treaty represents and at the same time represent the people’s decision back home? Or will the European elections turn into the Lisbon referendum all over again? And if, yet again, the political establishment is defeated will they still carry on regardless?

Now, to complicate the problem for Lisbon’s prospects, the next holder of the European presidency is guess who the Czech Republic. The Czechs are already split about the Treaty and their constitutional court has still to rule on it.

There is the real possibility that Lisbon could end up facing a referendum in the Czech Republic. If anything, last week’s opinion polls suggest an electorate that is increasingly volatile and disenchanted. European elections have been used in the past as occasions for a protest vote, and if Ganley and Libertas are in a position to contest next year’s elections, there is the very real possibility that they could poll very well. Given the worsening economic climate, which is already manifesting itself in political uncertainty, I imagine the last thing the Irish political establishment wants is the eruption of the question of Europe itself into domestic Irish politics.

Is it beyond the bounds of possibility that, with the Lisbon Treaty unresolved and the presidency moving into Czech hands next January, the Lisbon question might yet resurface at European level?

The Eurocrats are determined not to reopen the debate and their method of dealing with the Irish No vote is to keep insisting that it is an Irish problem that the Irish government will have to solve.

This position, of course, is nothing other than brazen and tactical, it is not just an Irish problem it is now a European problem and pretending otherwise will not change the facts. The circus may have come to town last week, but I’m beginning to wonder who will be laughing next year.

Click here for Sunday Business Post stories before this date