Against little games aimed at circumventing the verdict. The outcome of the Irish referendum must be taken seriously. A people have voted. I don't understand the little games, that have begun, aimed at circumventing the verdict and already preparing an additional vote which would, in one way or another, allow for the Nice Treaty to be saved, as if nothing had happened. The choice of the Irish people must be respected, and it would be absurd to suspect that the people didn't know what they were doing and were not aware of the consequences of their attitude.
The reason for the "no". I've tried to understand the reasons for the "no", on the basis of the statements of its adherents in Ireland itself and in the light of numerous comments of the past few days. I've notice that, in general, analysts consider that the majority of the Irish who voted (the others don't count) voted against the "defence/security" aspect of European construction, in the name of neutrality, and against Brussels' interfering in the management of their country's economy (reaction provoked in Dublin by the recommendations of the EU's EcoFin Council, on a proposal from the European Commission, criticizing Ireland's budgetary policy). Here, therefore, to simplify, is the essential significance of last week's vote: Ireland rejects the Union's new politico-military dimension, as well as the idea that a European economic government that would, alongside the ECB, be responsible for the internal stability of the euro.
European financing will depend on goals and ambitions. A few commentators have added, among the causes for the negative vote, a claimed fear by the Irish people of losing, due to the Union's planned enlargement, part of their regional funds. This suspicion is insulting for the Irish people, as it amounts to considering them as being selfish to the point of wanting to refuse the fellow people of Central and Eastern Europe the backing and aid of which they themselves benefit (and which they have used so well, with all the more merit to them), and to consider them naïve to the point of imagining that financial solidarity similar to that we have known in the past could continue to exist in a diluted Europe with lowered ambitions. Were the goals of integration to be abandoned, nothing would any more warrant, islets sunk the raging seas, some elements of integration like European financing of regional development or agriculture being saved. This is, moreover, the reason why I personally consider that the Spanish request for guarantees over the future funding of a regional nature must not be satisfied. Europe must not now decide on its future financial framework; it must first set out its ambitions and goals, and then establish the financial framework in relation to that.
The Treaty of Nice has already achieved its main objective ahead of time. The merits of the Treaty of Nice, we know, are very few and far between. The institutional reforms it comprises are so muddled that, whatever, they will never be implemented (Jacques Delors said so himself). Some positive aspects, like the reform of the functioning of the Court of Justice, all too often forgotten, may be taken on board as such in a new Treaty without being re-negotiated. Its essential outcome, we have said and over and over again, is to unlock accession negotiations, and especially officially, explicitly, I'd say almost formally, reflection on the future of Europe. But, on the former aspect, the presidents of the European Council and the Commission have already stated that negotiations with the candidate countries would not be slowed down following the vote in Ireland. As for the latter, Nice's effect can already be seen: the debate on the EU's objectives, we're already in the heat of it; reflection on this subject - suffocated for many years in the name of a claimed pragmatism - nothing will ever be able to stop it.
There are no good or bad Europeans. In this context the Irish vote can in a way contribute to providing clarity, by imposing choices and preventing their being further delayed or rendered confused and insignificant. No one, or almost no one, dared hope for a crisis. Now that it's there, there is no longer reason to hesitate: the time has come for everyone (each country, each people, each government) to situate themselves either among those who accept the more ambitious European design (Power-Europe, according to Giscard d'Estaing's terminology) and those who prefer a lesser degree of integration (Area-Europe). There are no good or bad Europeans, there are simply different ideas on what we want to do together. Efforts at reconciling the two attitudes only serve to harm both by perpetuating ambiguities and inefficiency. What Jacques Delors and Valery Giscard d'Estaing have been announcing all along is obvious to everyone: that two Europes need building, one bringing together countries for which Europe has to have a role to play in world affairs and affirm a common civilization and a model of society; the other between countries that want an enlarged area facilitating economic development and the wellbeing of their populations. The latter's position is comprehensible and totally honourable. Sometimes they demand a status of neutrality, in several cases they are the vanguard to aid to the third world, they trust in the UN to manage international affairs, they loyally assume their European obligations.
But at the same time they must understand that other countries are not satisfied with this role for themselves or for Europe. They have been world powers, they believe they have the duty and mission to continue, not individually (that's impossible) but together, as Europe. For other smaller countries, integration is a predominantly historical obligation (the Benelux countries have been the innocent victims of past Franco-German conflicts), as well as political and moral. The case of the United Kingdom is special: it has been a world power and intends maintaining that role, but its public opinion sees this rather in liaison with the United States than with the countries of Continental Europe. Other countries have not yet decided where they stand.
The moment of truth would anyway have come after the Laeken Summit, when the Convention (or any other body or procedure decided upon) will have prepared the future "Constitutive Treaty", and it will be time to see who accepts it. The Irish vote should speed-up the urgency of the choices.
The "greater Europe" is indispensable. I reject the idea that introduces a qualitative difference or one of level between the two Europes. I'd even say that it's the Greater Europe, the one that would comprise all European countries, that is the most essential. The principles of the founders of the first Communities, the ESCE to the EEC, guaranteed participating countries half a century of peace that they had never known before; they consolidated democracy itself in countries which - like Italy, modern Greece, Spain and Portugal - had no solid traditions in the matter; they brought economic prosperity almost everywhere and enhanced cohesion. That's what's important, and it's reasonable to consider that it will be the same for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. But the countries (including the new Member States we're waiting for) that have the ambition to go further, to achieve a higher level of integration, adding to what exists new common policies and especially political power and security, as well and improving and strengthening the institutions and their democratic nature, have the right to do so without the others being able to prevent them. The Irish "no" to the Treaty of Nice must be used as instrument that can accelerate the choices, not based on exclusion but on self-exclusion freely chosen by the people, as the Irish people have just done.
An appeal that will go unheard. Unfortunately, I fear that this appeal for clarity will go unheard. Too many politicians, for lack of political courage and through their inability to see further, will prefer to seek compromises, refusing to accept the following obvious fact: any effort at recuperating a country that has voted against Power-Europe automatically results in lowering the ambitions of all. Indeed, any "recuperation" of this type means concessions to the opposite thesis. The result is to gradually dilute Community Europe into a doubtlessly necessary whole (I've just acknowledged that explicitly) which will reduce Europe's place in the world to little, as well as the spreading of its civilization and its model of society. Not to speak of other inevitable negative effects: the sustainability of the results will be jeopardized (history teaches us the fragility of intergovernmental cooperation), the cohesion of the whole will be lesser (it's strange to see certain "sovereignists" imagining that, in a diluted Europe, elements of integration that suit them will remain: regional funds, very significant for some, the common funding of agriculture for others), and the domination of the large countries will be unavoidable. This must be understood before it is too late: but there isn't much hope of that. (F.R.)