The blockage of the Lisbon Treaty has changed everything. Let's begin with this week's European Council. The conciliatory and reassuring reaction from the European Commission president was perhaps necessary from a diplomatic point of view but it is not convincing. To assert that Ireland remains committed to strengthening the EU is to ignore reality because the Irish people have made their choice to exclude themselves from it and their choice should be respected. The moment has come to relaunch integration between the countries that want it; the other countries are part of an external circle, which they have in practice chosen, or possibly will choose. The Irish authorities have ruled out the hypothesis of another referendum on the same project and, the EU must reject the idea of a third set of negotiations on deepening integration. Years of transparent negotiations, with the participation of the national parliaments and taking into account the wishes of civil society have led to reasonable compromises. We now have to find the means of applying them in the member states that agree on them. No-one is obliged to follow but no-one has the right to prevent the others moving forward.
Preparations gone to waste. While awaiting the response, the consequences of what has happened are disastrous. Almost everything that had been prepared is now blocked. The new treaty will not enter into force on the date planned (1st January 2009) nor shortly after the European elections. Further accessions are blocked, with the only possible exception of Croatia (the president of the European Parliament has just confirmed this). A stable non-rotating president of the European Council will not be appointed, neither will a high representative for foreign policy, with the dual role of Commission vice president and president of the “external relations” Council. The competencies of the European Parliament are not going to be extended to trade or agricultural policy and the rights of the national parliaments in European affairs are strengthened. The Dehaene report (which has been much awaited) and the work on setting up the common diplomatic service now have little significance.
Furthermore and more importantly, the Community's relaunch of common foreign and defence policy, for which the Lisbon Treaty defined effective and efficient rules (on an essentially voluntary basis, so that member states that did not want to participate in it did not have to) has disappeared. The result will be several big member states advancing, even in defence, because they believe it indispensable, but they will do it on an intergovernmental level.
New financial perspectives will be affected. Repercussions in the next round of negotiations on new five yearly financial perspectives will be affected. A weakening in common policies and their financial funding can be predicted in a partially blocked Europe without appropriate instruments for democratic and efficient management. Those who reject the strengthening of the Community method will not be able to complain about it because solidarity is representative of the whole; if everyone chooses their own sectors of preference, solidarity won't exist anymore. A foreign affairs minister and former Commission vice president recently wrote: “We have to finish with a Europe à la carte where we can say yes to Cohesion Funds but not to the big challenges in common foreign policy or energy”. It is understandable that the Irish minister for European affairs is opposed to a two-speed Europe and explained that one of the founding principles of the European project is solidarity, but it is the people of his country that rejected this solidarity. If the CAP is relaunched between member states that believe in solidarity, we'll be asking why these countries should give preference to Irish meat over that from Argentina or Brazil: common policies represent a whole, we don't have the right to choose just one part of this whole. I am well aware that the authorities in Dublin and the Irish political class in general (all the parties represented at parliament, apart from one, supported the yes campaign) chose full participation in Europe and were astonished by the scale of the lies of the no vote supporters, but it is the majority that decides. If it were possible, the best thing to do would be to leave the responsibility of managing the effects of what they had sought up to those who won the referendum.
Tomorrow I will return to the ideas and formulations outlined, and tackle the consequences of the Irish people's choice. The first discussion at the European Council should be to begin clarifying the situation.
(F.R./transl.rh.)