Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-13-Speech-3-104"
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"en.20010613.3.3-104"2
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".
The referendum in which Ireland said ‘no’ to the Treaty of Nice has given rise to all kinds of biased interpretations, which only goes to show how anti-democratic the federalists can be.
Some of those who want to pursue the ratification process as though nothing had happened have questioned the 'relevance of the referendum', on the grounds of the low turnout. Perhaps they think that decisions taken by Eurocrats alone are more democratic? At any rate, the low Irish turnout was due mainly to the demobilisation of the ‘yes’ voters, which is, of course, something else to be put on the debit side of the Treaty of Nice.
The second misinterpretation is that the Irish said 'no' for specifically Irish reasons, i.e. because they wished to retain their neutrality in relation to defence, did not want to become a net contributor financially, wanted to retain their restrictive legislation on abortion, and so forth. But these individual explanations do not suffice. There is only one real reason for the open or underlying 'no' vote: the Irish people's wish to retain their freedom of decision faced with an invasive Europe, which would become even more so with the Treaty of Nice.
The third misinterpretation is this: we are told that in rejecting Nice, the Irish rejected the intergovernmental method of negotiating treaties on the grounds that it is too obscure. That may be true, but we certainly must not conclude from this that in future we will have to take these powers away from the governments and introduce more supra-national methods of preparing or reviewing treaties. On the contrary, we must give the nations greater powers.
Lastly, worst of all, perhaps, are those who regard the Irish vote as a reaction against a Europe that is indifferent to its citizens and explain that the only remedy is to establish a European constitution, as soon as possible. Of course, this remedy would only make things worse by reinforcing the supra-national aspect.
So let us take a sober and simple look at the result of this referendum: it signals the rejection of a federal Europe."@en1
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