Senator Rónán Mullen has challenged Ireland’s EU partners to be true to their word and ensure that Ireland receives guarantees on family law and the right to life ahead of a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Following on from a report in today’s Irish Times suggesting that some EU member-states were expressing doubts about the guarantees, he urged Member States “not to break their promises made only six months ago”.
The story revealed that a meeting of EU ambassadors to discuss the text of the guarantees was cancelled last night because of problems that emerged at bilateral meetings between Irish officials and their EU counterparts.
Referring to a meeting of the European Council last December, he said that the promise that member states made at that stage to give Ireland guarantees on a range of issues, including education, the right to life and the family, had been unconditionally. The next meeting of the Council is next Thursday and Friday when the guarantees are likely to be agreed.
According to the text of the Presidency Conclusions in December, a guarantee was to be given to Ireland that “the provisions of the Irish Constitution in relation to the right to life, education and the family are not in any way affected by the fact that the Treaty of Lisbon attributes legal status to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights or by the justice and home affairs provisions of the said Treaty”.
Senator Mullen added that member states now appeared to be breaking their promise “by inflicting ‘death by a thousand cuts’ on the guarantees”.
Czech Europe minister Stefan Fule, who is chairing the negotiations on the wording of the guarantees, said EU states had agreed to give guarantees on the specific areas of family, right to life, religion, neutrality and taxation.
However he added that there was also a consensus that member states did not want to have to ratify the treaty again.
Senator Mullen continued: “The objections they appear to be raising now could all have been made in December but weren’t. The promise was unconditional. The Irish Government has a duty to do everything it can to ensure those promises are fulfilled.”
And he warned that a failure to secure the said guarantees would damage the prospects of passing a second Lisbon referendum.
Senator Mullen said: “These guarantees are a matter of Irish sovereignty and which, in theory, EU member states should have no problem with. Failure to implement them could jeopardise a second Lisbon referendum – a risk the Government would be foolish to ignore. Six months before the first Lisbon vote very few commentators foresaw its defeat.”
Taoiseach Brian Cowen told last December’s EU summit that he wanted the guarantees to be enshrined in the EU treaties at the earliest possible opportunity to provide a cast iron assurance to Irish voters. When the guarantees are written into the EU treaties they become primary law, which gives them extra validity in the eyes of the European Court of Justice
Mr Cowen’s request was seemingly granted when French president Nicolas Sarkozy told the media an Irish protocol with the guarantees could be ratified by all states with the next EU accession treaty, probably Croatia.
However it is believed that Britain, in particular, is very nervous about reopening a national debate on Lisbon by agreeing to ratify an Irish protocol through the House of Commons. The Conservatives made the Lisbon Treaty a key issue in their European election campaign, which saw Labour beaten into third place by the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party.
One alternative that member states may offer the Government is a legal decision on the guarantees issued by the European Council. This would have legal standing but would enshrine the guarantees in the EU treaties.
Several EU states such as the Netherlands and Sweden are also concerned about the implications of the Irish guarantee on ethical issues. Warsaw secured its own opt-out from the charter of fundamental rights on ethical issues.
The Netherlands and Sweden want to ensure that the Irish guarantee on ethical issues does not override existing EU rights that Ireland has signed up to such as the freedom to work or travel abroad in EU states.
