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28th Mar 2024

Irish PM suggests EU leaders should learn from Nice Treaty rejection

The Irish prime minister has suggested the EU constitution could be altered in order to win the approval of French and Dutch voters who rejected the text last year in referendums, harking back to a similar situation Dublin went through concerning the Nice Treaty.

Speaking to the European Parliament on the future of Europe on Wednesday (29 November), Bertie Ahern said that the "substance and balance" of the EU constitution should remain the same when EU leaders begin in earnest next year to deal with the constitutional question but that parts of the text could be amended.

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"As was the case on previous occasions when European Treaties ran into difficulties at national level, additional elements could be introduced to address concerns which have arisen."

"Such additions could enrich rather than undermine the substance and balance of the treaty."

Mr Ahern was speaking from experience having scrambled to save the Nice Treaty after it was rejected by Irish voters in 2001.

One of the main reasons attributed to the rejection was voters' fear that Irish neutrality would be undermined by the treaty and that the country would become part of a military union.

At the time, Mr Ahern got his counterparts to sign a declaration that his country's neutrality would not be threatened by the Nice Treaty – the document was then accepted by Irish voters in autumn 2002.

French and Dutch voters are thought to have rejected the constitution for a wide variety of reasons including concerns about the European social model being undermined; concerns about further enlargement and the fear that the EU is becoming too over-reaching.

Mr Ahern suggested that "officials dealing with a small group of officials in every country [could] identify where there are differences or difficulties. That should remove 90%, in my view, of the constitution. The focus and the concentration and effort will then be on a 10%"

"It happened in the case of Ireland and Nice, the issue then is to try to get protocols to deal with the issues," said Mr Ahern, who is among the veterans of EU leaders.

His words represent a change, as previously he had defended the entire text of the constitution - a document he fought hard to get his counterparts to agree upon when Ireland had the EU presidency in the first half of 2004.

For their part, MEPs generally welcomed the speech but criticised the fact that France and the Netherlands were not themselves coming up with constructive suggestions on how to break the constitutional impasse.

The debate comes as Finland is set to ratify the constitution next Tuesday (5 December) and as Germany, as the next EU presidency, is gearing itself up to put the constitution back on the political table.

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