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CounterPunch
October
24, 2002
Ireland's Dreary Yes to Nice
by HARRY BROWNE
In the end it was easy.
Before the October 19th referendum on the EU's Nice treaty, much
of Ireland's political establishment was in a panic--unsure if
it could trust the opinion polls (which got it wrong in the first
vote last year), resentful that it had to trust the electorate
with its prized status on the European stage. The pleasures of
subsidized dinner-parties in Brussels and Strasbourg might never
be the same.
Now, however, after a whopping 63-37 vote in favour of amending
the Irish Constitution to accept the treaty--and, crucially as
it turned out, to prohibit Irish involvement in an EU common-defense
arrangement--the Irish are, once more, the "model Europeans".
Ireland's political leaders can look Romano Prodi in the eye
and say, "Hey, sure, our people were sceptical about the
direction of this Euro-project--isn't everyone?--but we sorted
them out, and gave Europe a democratic shot in the arm while
we were at it."
Europe needs it. After a campaign in
which we were told repeatedly that our No vote in June 2001 was
the only thing standing between the poor, suffering, formerly
benighted people of eastern Europe and their destiny as EU equals,
we woke up this week to learn that, well, the process of negotiating
enlargement could be protracted and difficult. And, really, a
lot of west-European politicians would have been happy enough
to have Ireland to blame for conveniently delaying the necessary
deal-making.
For politicians and media pros, the benefits of membership of
the EU club are perfectly obvious, offering expanded professional
opportunities, junkets and assorted freebies. With their help,
and with short memories, most of the Irish people are also true
believers. Thus it was ultimately made to seem churlish to deprive
the wannabes of their chance to shine like the Emerald Isle.
This conclusion manages to ignore most
of Ireland's 30-year history in the EU, or EEC. It's only in
the last 10 years, at most, that the Celtic Tiger has turned
the Republic of Ireland into an identikit Western-capitalist
economy. For 20 Europeanized years before that, it remained a
postcolonial basket case, where it was still possible to argue
coherently about whether this island was really in the First
World at all. EU subsidies helped enrich big farmers, while small
holders suffered. Multinational companies repatriated brawny
profits while unemployment stayed in double digits. In the 1980s
emigration reached a late-20th-century peak, draining away even
the beneficiaries of an improved free-education system. All you
EU-aspirants who want to join up and "be like Ireland",
please rewind the tape to our accession in 1973, then watch and
learn.
Of course the EU did bring "development"
to Ireland, including the road-building craze that shows no sign
of abating. The extraordinary (and unequal) economic growth of
the 1990s would not have taken place if Ireland were not in the
EU, but its causes were so contingent--principally the coincidence
of a period of US economic growth with US corporate and foreign-policy
interest in this corner of Europe--that it is ludicrous to expect
that it will be repeated elsewhere, especially now that we know
how chimerical the Nineties US "miracle" actually was.
Of course European corporate interests are potentially keen on
further expansion in the direction of the low-wage opportunities
offered by eastern Europe in the EU, but you can ask the majority
of Mexicans how well such companies spread the benefits of their
"free trade". Even the direct EU funding for "cohesion"
from which poorer member-states such as Ireland, Greece, Portugal
and Spain have previously benefited are unlikely to reach any
generous heights in a period of economic contraction, and with
10 countries set to join up simultaneously in just over a year's
time.
So how did Ireland deliver such a resounding
Yes to Nice, having voted 54-46 No the last time out? Many Dublin
pundits have pointed to the fact that in purely numerical terms
the No vote this year was roughly the same as last year, and
that Yes benefited from a substantial increase in the total vote.
(The turnout was still well below 50 per cent). Their conclusion:
many Yes voters abstained last time because of apathy and a weak
campaign, but this time they came out. Such simplistic arithmetic
holds remarkable sway: its picture of No voters as a permanent
manic minority unamenable to persuasion but defeatable through
democratic mobilisation of the natural pro-EU majority is appealing
to the Yes establishment, legitimizing its objectively anti-democratic
decision to re-run the referendum. It's also half-truthful at
best, as anyone with any statistical instincts should be able
to tell you.
Clearly an awful lot of voters changed
their minds, mainly from No to Yes. The reasons for this are
of course many and varied, but aside from the fact that Yes outspent
No five-to-one, and had far more institutional backing, a few
others stand out. There was, for instance, moral pressure about
and directly from the "accession states", with politicians
and diplomats from eastern Europe ever-present in the media in
recent months, taking the debatable benefits of EU membership
as given. There was also the government's maneuver to neutralize
neutrality as an issue, with a promise from fellow member-states
to respect Ireland's traditions and a constitutional addendum
stating that Ireland wouldn't join any EU common-defense pact.
Now this ostensibly anti-militarist stance
sounds more substantial than it really is. It does nothing, for
instance, to stop US troops from moving through Shannon Airport
en route to any upcoming battle in Iraq, as is happening at present.
It does nothing to slow Ireland's involvement in the European
Rapid Reaction Force, with which more than 60,000 troops (850
of them Irish) can be deployed up to 4,000km from the EU's borders.
(Still-non-EU Turkey has been conveniently permitted to commit
forces and equipment to the RRF, for what should be obvious geostrategic
reasons.) It wouldn't even prevent Ireland from joining NATO.
Nonetheless, some of the most unintentionally hilarious post-referendum
commentary came from politicians who were philosophically regretting
that even this expedient amendment had been deemed necessary
to carry the nation; they openly, arrogantly, looked forward
to a chance to reverse course in the not-too-distant future.
For left-wing No campaigners who failed
to convince the electorate with concerns about militarization,
privatization and democracy, there was nonetheless a bright side.
The failure and humiliation of the right-wing No campaign was
even more obvious and abject. Its attempts to introduce anti-immigration
sentiment into the argument largely foundered, and its leader,
Justin Barrett, was skewered by revelations that he had spoken
to meetings of far-right parties with neo-fascist trappings in
both Germany and Italy. (His excuse that he can't speak German
or Italian and so didn't know the politics of his hosts met with
little sympathy; a brown shirt is a brown shirt in any luggage
and any language.)
There is no doubt that the main party
in the Irish government, Fianna Fail, has a deft hand at bringing
forth smear stories--and showed its touch against left campaigners
too in recent weeks. Still, the exposing of Barrett, and the
continuing intolerance of Irish voters for obvious far-right
bigotry, was some consolation after an otherwise dismal, depressing
result, in which more insidious and powerful conservative forces
came out on top.
Harry Browne is a lecturer in journalism
at Dublin Institute of Technology and a columnist with The Irish
Times. Contact him at harrybrowne@eircom.net.
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