Global Eyes

Why are people in Brussels so sure Ireland will vote Yes to the Lisbon Treaty this autumn?

True, the No camp is weaker, as a second referendum nears. Opinion polls show the Yes camp ahead by thumping margins. An Irish Times poll in June put support for the treaty at 66 percent (once undecided voters are excluded).

But ask around in Dublin’s political circles or talk to voters in rural Ireland – as I did recently – and it is hard to see how the Yes camp is stronger than a year ago. Ireland’s Lisbon vote is not in the bag.

Here are some reasons the No camp is weaker. In summer 2008, the Range Rovers were still nose-to-tail round Dublin’s Merrion Square and helicopter landings at the Galway Races still served as a barometer of conspicuous consumption (it’s like something out of Apocalypse Now, chortled one commentator, as the choppers circled). Today, Ireland is not so cocky. The talk is of homeowners in negative equity, and lost jobs. You do not have to share the schadenfreude of the Brussels Euro-crowd (who say the recession is proving educational for Ireland) to guess Irish voters are less willing to risk a bust-up with Europe.

The Euro-elections dealt a drubbing to Declan Ganley, the businessman who galvanised the No campaign last year. His success in 2008 was an act of political arbitrage: he was the first to import the full array of English Eurosceptic talking points about Lisbon and sovereignty into Ireland’s EU debate, previously dominated by indigenous concerns about neutrality or abortion. This June, Ganley failed to enter the European Parliament and vowed to quit politics. On the nationalist left, Mary Lou McDonald – Sinn Fein’s most effective Lisbon foe – lost her seat in the European Parliament.

Voters were able to vent their rage against the ruling Fianna Fail party in June’s European and local elections, reducing the chances that Lisbon II will be a referendum on the government. Irish farmers will be fully on side, unlike last time.

Finally, Ireland’s No vote last June prompted a concrete concession from the rest of the EU. Plans to shrink the size of the European Commission have been dropped, so every member state will have a commissioner all the time. In contrast, when the Irish were asked to vote a second time on the Nice Treaty in 2002, they were offered little more than soothing words about military neutrality.

So why doubt an easy Yes to Lisbon? Well, opinion polls at this stage do not mean much. Before the doomed Lisbon I vote, polls put the Yes camp well ahead. What is more, the first Nice referendum was lost through low turnout: once the pro-European majority was persuaded to vote, Nice II was a landslide. But Lisbon I was lost on a high turnout. It will not be enough to bring voters out this autumn; minds will have to be changed.

Mainly, though, it is not obvious how the Yes campaign will work. Serving national politicians will adopt a low profile this time. Expect to see a leading role for Pat Cox, a former European Parliament president, and lots of clean-cut students from European studies courses.

But political parties cannot vanish completely. Last summer, Ireland’s politicians failed to play a key role: as interpreters of a bafflingly complex text. The No campaign said it was dangerous for Ireland (“Lisbon – it’ll cost you”, went one slogan). Voters wanted to hear why it was safe, and good for Ireland. Instead the Yes camp offered platitudes like “Europe, let’s be at the heart of it”. Disastrously, Ireland’s prime minister and EU commissioner said they had not read the treaty cover to cover. This, voters grumbled, felt like your lawyer telling you to sign a contract he had not read.

The main opposition party, Fine Gael, graciously says it will lead the Yes camp this autumn. But the sitting government must still ask voters to trust them that Ireland achieved proper guarantees from other EU leaders at their June 18-19 summit, covering workers’ rights, social issues like abortion, neutrality and taxation. In May, one poll gave the government an approval rating of ten percent.

And will Fine Gael activists – or those of any party – really stump the streets for Lisbon? One senior Dublin politician told me that voter grumbling about workers’ rights was code for anxiety about immigration from eastern Europe, after Ireland (admirably) opened its borders to new EU members in 2004. As unemployment rises, such anxiety will only strengthen: will the big parties defend EU open borders on the doorstep?

In short, Ireland’s squabbling politicians will need to be visionary and selfless to unite this autumn, and make a strong, positive case for Lisbon. They have shown little sign of these virtues so far.