Archive for September, 2009

So there we have it – apparent confirmation of UK Tory leader David Cameron’s intention to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

It emerged yesterday that Cameron in July sent a letter to Vaclav Klaus to support the Czech president’s defiant anti-treaty stance. A sort of hang-in-there note to say the Conservatives will ride to the rescue of eurosceptics and anti-Lisbonites across Europe at some point next year, if only Klaus would keep the lid on his pen.

A Tory spokesperson said yesterday that “no pressure” was being put on Klaus to continue to block ratification by not signing the treaty and the letter was simply about letting others know what would happen if a Conservative government came to power in 2010.

So the question is whether Klaus is really prepared to hold out that long. If the Irish say yes in their referendum next week, there will be quite some arm-twisting from other capitals for him to sign.

The Czech president would have to hold up ratification until at least July, reckons UK Liberal MEP Andrew Duff, who yesterday told me:

“Technically, to expunge the Queen’s signature, requires an act of parliament. So how quick the passage of such an act could be, I don’t know. I suppose they would have to fast-track it, but it wouldn’t be all that quick. Especially, if he is going to hold a referendum in the first place, that is going to take at least three or four weeks to organize, probably more because we haven’t had a referendum across the country for over 40 years.

“It is going to be quite a struggle for Klaus to draw things out until July of next year.”

This all being based on the assumption that the Conservatives win a spring election next year (although the election may be held as late as June 2010.)

The Irish decision next week will either let Cameron and Klaus completely off the hook, or refocus the attention more strongly than ever on both of them. The EU’s institutional drama is far from over.

[And just to make you smile (perhaps), check out some spoof posters of Coir, a socially conservative and catholic group campaigning against the treaty on abortion and euthanasia grounds, courtesy of a thread on www. politics.ie In fact one , the 'Dutch one' was used by a paper which mistakenly thought it was real].

European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso’s recent warning that Ireland may lose its commissioner if it votes No to the Lisbon Treaty again was interesting for two reasons.

Firstly because it came from the mouth of an EU politician. This time round, there is a clear willingness by the Irish government, at rock bottom in the polls and struggling to sell its response to the financial crisis, to let EU politicians talk Lisbon to the Irish public.

This has been coupled by a willingness by the commission to openly step into the fray. During the summer break,  EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom remarked that the commission was “so prudent last time [during the first referendum]” that it was “criticised for being almost absent. I think that maybe this time, if they [the Irish] invite us, we might be actually a bit more willing to go,”

So Barroso went to the country two weeks ahead of its referendum (2 October) with a slickly timed carrot and a stick.  Wallstrom and Jerzy Buzek, European Parliament chief, have already been there. Guy Verhofstadt, former Belgian prime minister and now head of the liberal faction (Fianna Fail’s new political home) in the parliament, will be in the country next Monday.

The other reason the warning was interesting was the implied threat itself. Will Ireland automatically be the country to lose its commissioner if it votes no again? If a people say no to a treaty, how would it come across if the rest of the club appear to openly punish them for it?

Certainly, Dublin will not be in a position to look for a dossier anywhere near as weighty as that of the internal market if it bins the Lisbon Treaty. It will be given an insubstantial portfolio (although it was probably due this anyway, simply on grounds of rotation). If it really does end up not getting a commissioner post, then, as suggested by Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt, an Irish national could take up the foreign representative post. This would satisfy the Nice Treaty which stipulates that there must be fewer commissioners than member states.

Publicly punishing a country for a democratic vote, no matter how unpalatable the result is for Brussels, is a difficult call. Member states, when it comes down to it, are reluctant to gang up on each other –   unless they feel they have a clear moral point. They want leeway when it comes to their own foibles at a later point.

The Barroso warning was the second Lisbon-related caveat in recent days. French president Nicolas Sarkozy (unprompted) told the Czech Republic last week that there would be “consequences” if President Vaclav Klaus continues to delay signature of the treaty.

What could such consequences be? The ‘no commissioner’ option? I have no doubt both Ireland and the Czech Republic would suffer a blanket loss in political capital around the various negotiating tables in the Brussels (and Irish diplomats greatly fear this) over Lisbon. But outright punishment, that’s more difficult.

Well it looks like it’s going to be Jose Manuel Barroso until 2014. Bar an upset, he’ll get a simple majority in parliament next week for a second term as European commission president.

For a while, I thought his opponents in parliament might just manage to postpone the vote until October. Lucky for Barroso though, the assorted Socialists, Liberals, Greens and far left don’t appear to talk to each other. This meant they were calling for different scenarios in the political groups’ meeting yesterday when the decision was finally made.

Martin Schulz and Guy Verhofstadt, the leaders of the Socialist and the Liberal groups, have come in for quite some criticism for being instrumental in postponing the planned pre-summer vote on Barroso.

Ranting about the incumbent is all well and good – that’s what opposition politicians do best. But if you don’t produce the goods yourself – an alternative candidate – you start to look as if you too are lacking in the politics of conviction that you accuse your political enemy of not having.

That said, I have been in two minds about the criticism. On the one hand, their grandstanding (without a candidate) has at times been exasperating. On the other hand, why shouldn’t Barroso be put through his paces by the parliament? Yes the centre-right had a convincing win in the elections, and his nomination was dependent on its win, but the commission is not a government, it is supposed to be a non-partisan institution.

Their actions meant that Barroso produced a set of policy guidelines before his vote– a first for a commission president. And it was certainly a more nuanced document than it would have been if he had produced it with his nomination already in the bag.

On this point, his opponents say that there are no major (read controversial) suggestions in the document. To that, I can only say – did they honestly expect anything else? A socialist candidate, for example, looking for approval from opponents in the parliament but wanting to keep left wing allies on board would have been similarly circumspect.

And it does contain some useful suggestions that MEPs should hold him to,  including reform of the budget and making the anti-fraud office (OLAF) independent.

So the party is over and it is surely time for everyone to move on.

Barroso’s first five years have been marked by an unhappy combination of more nationalism by member states and a determination by the commission president not to stick his neck out – in part as a result of announcing his interest in a second term ridiculously early.

I suspect the Barroso of the next five years will be different. He’ll be thinking of his legacy. Reading between the lines of his policy document and listening to his press conference on it, he is promising to be more combative in the future and to stand up to member states.  Let’s see if legacy thoughts  make him brave enough to put the commission back on the political map.