Comment: The Irish 'No' Vote - The End or a New Chance for Europe?

Dexter Thillien argues that the Irish vote not to ratify the Lisbon Treaty should not prevent a 'Core Europe' from driving the Union's policy decisions in the future.


On Thursday 12th June, the Irish electorate rejected emphatically the Treaty of Lisbon, thus putting the EU once again in an institutional crisis just over 3 years after the last one which followed the French and Dutch rejections of the Constitutional Treaty.

The main idea behind the last two treaties was to make decision-making easier within the Union, by streamlining the Commission in reducing the number of Commissioners, changing the weight of the votes in the Council by introducing the double majority, and increasing the number of competences where decisions would be taken by majority instead of unanimity. Further rules were also introduced such as the end of the three pillars, and the creation of a high representative for common security and foreign policy as well as the post of Council President to replace the current six-month rotation system.

The question is now what should be done? The Treaty can’t be ratified unless the 27 agree to it and the Irish no has put the process into an another impasse, even though the first reactions seem to be to continue with ratification and try and put pressure on Ireland. At the end if the other 26, who are all using Parliamentary procedures, ratify it, something similar to what happened with the Nice Treaty will occur.

However is this the situation us pro-Europeans want to be in? Will this arrogant attitude just fuel eurosceptic attitudes that the EU is an undemocratic bureaucracy where the will of the people doesn’t matter and the Brussels elite continues to work towards a superstate regardless; I might be caricaturing a little, but if the EU were to ignore the Irish vote, the eurosceptics may have a decent argument for once.

Another solution would be to give the Irish an associate status within the Union, while the others will continue with the rules of the Lisbon Treaty; once again I don’t believe this the solution as I don’t think the Irish should be punished for exercising their democratic right; there were a lot of counter truths from the no camp during the campaign, especially concerning issues like abortion, Irish neutrality or the tax system, but considering the no as a defiance would again be counter-productive and unfair as these solutions didn’t arise when the French and Dutch voted no in their respective referenda three years ago.

My solution as raised by a few French commentators including an editorial in Le Monde last weekend, would be the creation of a ‘Core Europe’, thus taking advantage of the provisions for enhanced co-operation already present in the current Treaties.

What’s a ‘Core Europe’? It is a mechanism whereby some EU nations would go further in some areas while some stay behind for the time being, having the possibility to join at a later date, something that already exists if we take the Euro or Schengen as examples. It would be a positive move as opposed to the negative one of giving nations associate status, as it would add common policies from a nucleus of nations rather than remove them from being full members of the union, while keeping the acquis communautaire as the common base.

Such a solution would mean an end to the need for unanimity in European decisions, as it is becoming increasingly difficult to find common ground with 27 countries, while countries not willing to join wouldn’t have to but at the same time they wouldn’t be paralysing further integration for the ones that want it.

With the French presidency coming up in a couple of weeks, and Europe in need of some common agreements on certain projects (immigration, energy, the environment), we must hope that some European nations would take this idea on board and become this avant-garde, otherwise the EU will just continue with counter-productive institutional bickering.