On Thursday, Irish voters may well reject the Lisbon Treaty, a replacement of an earlier constitutional measure. A "nay" vote would block EU reform

by Hans-Jurgen Schlamp

Fastidious lawns in front of tidy little family houses, Japanese station wagons lining the curb, children playing ball in Nike sneakers: Avondale Lane is a middle-class paradise in the southern Irish town of Waterford.

Fifteen years ago the houses here were smaller, the cars sparser and the children dirtier, remembers city council member David Cullinane, 31. His T-shirt reads “Waterford-Alliance” — a group opposed to the European Union's Lisbon Treaty. Each evening he and others like him go door to door with a few friendly words and stacks of colorful pamphlets. The arguments are varied, but the message is always the same: Say no to the Lisbon Treaty.

“I'm certainly going to vote that way,” promises the stout resident of number 89, a woman in her mid-30s wearing a short tank top and black tattoos on her arm and chest. After all, she says, no one has taken the time to explain to her what the treaty is actually good for.

Cullinane is there to fill the void. It is a bad treaty, he argues, because it diminishes Ireland's influence in Europe, jeopardizes the country's neutrality, promotes nuclear energy and the military, lowers wages and undermines employees' rights. “You can count on me,” the woman calls after Cullinane as he moves on to the next house.

The next neighbor deftly blocks both a child and a dog inside the doorway with her legs, as Cullinane goes through his spiel. She is “still undecided,” she says, but will be glad to take a look at the pamphlets. The next few doors don't open. Then a confused older man wants to know what kind of change a “yes” or “no” vote would bring to the municipal hospital, since he always has to wait so long there.

This Thursday, three million people in Ireland will cast their ballots on whether or not to approve the Lisbon Treaty — a vital decision affecting Europe's immediate future. Irish voters can clear the way for a European agreement that would make EU decisions more democratic and transparent and would allot national parliaments more influence.

But if the Irish vote "no," the EU reform process would be effectively blocked. The Lisbon Treaty — a replacement for the earlier Constitution which was blocked in 2005 by referenda in France and Holland — must be approved by all 27 EU member states. In the other 26, national parliaments have the say with 15 of them, including Germany, already having approved the new document.

Only in Ireland do the citizens get to have their say — and the continent's fate is suddenly in their hands.

In the EU nerve center Brussels, as well as in many other European capitals, uncertainty reigns. What will happen if the Irish refuse the treaty? Throw them out of the EU? Let them vote again and again until they say “yes”? Throw out the new treaty entirely?

There is no plan B for such a contingency, says European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. Indeed, an Irish "no," concludes a recent study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, would be “a disaster for Europe.”

Treaty objector David Cullinane refutes this doomsday view. Instead, he says, such an outcome on Thursday would in fact be a blessing, he says. He too wants the best for Europe, he says. But the best, he says, means a Europe without “neo-liberal constitution” and an EU that exists “more for the people and less for big business.”

Gathering Point for Naysayers

Cullinane is an activist with Sinn Fein, the small party seen as the political arm of the Irish Republican Army through the long years of civil war in Northern Ireland. Today Sinn Fein is a gathering point for naysayers.

These nationalists are joined by some ultra-conservative church members, who fear the possibility that abortion, currently forbidden in Ireland, could be legalized. And by cattle-breeders afraid that the EU will allow more meat imports. And even a charismatic multimillionaire is using billboards to campaign for a “no”: The treaty, he says, is “good for those up high, but bad for us.”

Despite the opposition to the treaty, though, the majority of Irish actually see the European Union in a positive light.

Their once destitute island has become rich, partially thanks to billions of euros in transfers from Brussels. Irish per capita income surpassed the EU average a few years ago and is now even higher than in the United Kingdom and Germany. All the large political parties are stumping for a “yes.” Until recently, the surveys were one sided: not long ago 41 percent were in favor with just 33 percent opposed.

But last Friday, panic set in. The Irish Times published a poll showing that the numbers against had risen to 35 percent. Those in favor plunged to 30 percent.

Many voters are still wavering — and they are being wooed heavily by both sides. Thousands of pro-treaty billboards dot the streets with slogans like "Good for Ireland — Good for Europe." The future, the "yes" camp promises, is full of jobs, growth and security.

But right alongside those messages, the opposition is predicting privatization of the health and education systems, and higher taxes. The Irish are likewise reminded how their ancestors gave their lives in the fight for freedom — freedom which should not now be sacrificed to Brussels' hunger for power.

The Irish have shocked Europe once already. In 2001 Ireland took the continent by surprise when it rejected the Treaty of Nice, like the Lisbon Treaty, an agreement which aimed to reform the EU's decision making procedures. Then too, polls leading up to the referendum had showed a clear “yes” vote. The explanation for the failure was simple: voter turnout was under 35 percent because proponents of the treaty didn't go to the polls. Its detractors, on the other hand, had mobilized.

A year later Ireland went to the polls again, this time in sufficiently increased numbers, and accepted the treaty. But a simple redo of the vote probably wouldn't work this time around. Plus, since the Lisbon Treaty is a modified version of the constitution that fell through in France and the Netherlands in 2005, if the text is revised again, the whole delicate ratification process will have to start anew — in all 27 EU countries.

And so the Irish ministers are putting in tireless appearances on talk shows and in shopping malls. Prominent help has hastened over from the European continent as well: German Chancellor Angela Merkel talked up the treaty in Dublin as the “best preparation for Europe's future,” and European Commission President Barroso warned that Europe — including Ireland — will pay the price if the treaty is voted down.

All the fuss has even taken its toll on Ireland's former Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. Without the referendum, he could probably have waited out the investigations of dubious payments he accepted while Finance Minster in the 1990s. In light of the current situation, however, the political establishment fears voters might express their frustration with their leader by voting no on Thursday. Ahern was pushed to resign, and replaced by his deputy Brian Cowen.

There is just one area in which those in favor of the EU Constitution have failed just as completely as their opponents: no one has managed to make clear to the Irish people what is actually in the controversial document. At best 250 of Ireland's 4.2 million citizens have read the complete text, estimates Ireland's European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy. Even he himself made do with a summary.

Irish Vote No to Lisbon Treaty

Posted by: Kerry Capell

Probably never before has the fate of so many been decided by so few. An estimated three million Irish voters look likely to have plunged the European Union, a bloc of nearly 500 million people, into chaos by their expected rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.

The Treaty, which is the revamped successor to the constitutional pact nixed by the French and Dutch in 2005, officially needs the approval of all 27 EU member states to be ratified. Without the support of the Irish, the treaty will be dead. And although the final count won’t be until late today, June 13, early indications look like the no votes have it.

Ireland is the only country in Europe to hold a referendum on the treaty. That’s because in order to accept some of the changes in power from Dublin to Brussels, the Irish Constitution must be changed.

The “no” campaigners, led by Irish group Libertas, a group run by the businessman Declan Ganley and the Sinn Fein party, waged a tireless campaign. Their objections to the treaty? It will, they says, create an unelected president and foreign minister of Europe; halve Ireland’s voting rights while doubling Germany’s; open the door to tax harmonization and generally give Brussels too much control over Irish affairs.

If the early indications are correct and the Irish have rejected the treaty, it's bad news for Prime Minister Brian Cowen, barely a month into the job.

Of course, the treaty's proponents rightly pointed out that few countries in Europe have benefitted from the EU's largesse more than than Ireland. More than three decades of subsidies from the EU, in part, helped transform Ireland from Europe's sick man into its most prosperous country. Now Irish supporters of the treaty are rightly worried that their influence in Europe will be badly diminished.

Indeed, there's a feeling of deja vu. In 2001, its voters rejected the Nice Treaty, a result overturned the following year in a second poll. So what's next? Cowen will have to go to next week's meeting in Brussels embarrassed that his attempts to convince voters of the treaty's merits have failed. The bigger impact is, of course, on the credibility and future of the EU itself. But going back to the drawing board will prove difficult as the Lisbon treaty was already the product of years of tortuous negotiations.