On the streets of Dublin ahead of the EU treaty vote
LEIGH PHILLIPS
11.06.2008 @ 20:52 CET
EUOBSERVER / DUBLIN - The greenish verge at the entrance to Dublin Airport is bedecked in the 27 flags of the European Union. There are all there, flapping away, silently making their pro-European point, and decidedly less garish than Yes or No placards that grip any free bit of telephone pole or signpost on the road into Dublin and the streets of the capital itself.
There's not a telephone pole in Dublin that has not got a placard (Photo: EUobserver.com)
Metres away are a clutch of blue Yes posters from opposition party Fine Gael. FG must be very popular near the airport, for there are few other placards from any of the other camps around here, apart from a vandalised Sinn Fein banner.
Fine Gael has also captured the front page – or rather paid for it – of the free-sheet Metro newspapers strewn across the cigarette-burnt seats on the top deck of the green double-decker bus that takes your correspondent into town.
"Tomorrow only YOU can keep Ireland at the heart of it!" reads the text on the cover in the middle of a large green heart that floats on a blue sea in which swim not the Aran Islands, but the Fine Gael and the European Parliament's centre-right EPP-ED logos.
The street-light poles of Central Dublin is still more be-placarded than the motorways leading to town. It is a wonder that pedestrians and motorists can make out the traffic lights.
Alice
In a smart cafe on Dame Street, a waitress says she's going to vote Yes. She's named Alice.
"The No voters tend to be less educated," the 32-year-old declares, saying that while everyone she knows is voting Yes, she worries it's too close and that the No might just win it.
"I think it's really embarrassing [for the country]. They're grasping at straws, like this abortion business or the neutrality thing. They're just trying to scare people."
Alice is voting for the Lisbon Treaty because "people have been working at this for years and years, and we need to move past it all. We'll still actually be very well represented inside Europe."
She also feels frustrated about "how badly the whole referendum has been dealt with by [the leading parties] Fianna Fail and Fine Gael."
A relative of hers works for Libertas, the well-funded anti-treaty group founded by millionaire Declan Ganley, who believes the treaty will smother Ireland in anti-business red tape and eliminate the country's low taxes for business.
If Fine Gael has a monopoly on telephone poles near the airport, Libertas has got the buses locked up. It seems like every second one that drives past has an enormous white and pale blue Libertas banner slapped along its sides.
"We don't talk about it much," Alice says.
Lauren
Meanwhile Lauren, looking for money on a behalf of an organisation for blind people, is surprised to find herself being asked how she will vote in the referendum. But not so surprised that she cannot mount a strong argument against the treaty.
From County Offaly in the midlands, she says she is worried about rising unemployment with the newspapers currently full of news about the huge growth in people who have signed onto the dole in the last few months as the economy has weakened.
The government is arguing this will only get worse if people vote No.
But Lauren has come to the opposite conclusion. "There's not been much been said, Yes or No, but what I understand is that it'll make it easier for companies to lay people off."
So Lauren's definitely going to vote No, she says, so long as she can catch the train home after work in time to make it to the polls.
Not far away, on Grafton Street – the city's pedestrianised main shopping district – both sides are out in strength.
Hans
Hans Nilsson, from the village of Koppom in Sweden, is spending his holiday this year in Ireland campaigning against the treaty. He's wearing a red Vote No T-shirt from the conservative Catholic group Coir, but he's actually from the Swedish eurosceptic party Junilistan – June List – and he's handing out leaflets to shoppers from throngs of different of No campaign groups.
He's not a conservative, he says. "This guy just gave me the T-shirt." And he's happy to hand out leaflets from any No campaigners.
"The rest of the EU hasn't been given a chance to have their say on the treaty. Ireland is the hope of the rest of us for saving Europe."
He's not the only 'continental' over here campaigning. In fact, there are lots and lots of leafleteers and placard holders and banner wavers – and one European Union flag wearer – that are on Grafton Street hawking their political tracts.
But most are from the Yes side. A group of about a dozen smartly dressed young students from the Jeunes Européens Fédéralistes – the Young European Federalists - from various member states – had set themselves up at the one end of the street right next to the equally young Coir campaigners.
Tony
A tall Norwegian pressed a bright yellow Yes into your correspondent's palm.
"What are you doing here? Norway's not in the EU."
"Ah, but we've had lots of experience with EU referendums, and so we can bring that experience to the Yes side here."
In 1972 and 1994 Norway held referendums on membership of the bloc – both of which went down to defeat.
One of the Norwegian's colleagues is Tony Giugliano - a Scotsman despite his last name - and vice-president of JEF. He says they've brought over 30 of their members from across Europe to campaign "to bring a European dimension to the campaign."
Their main argument is the same as that of the governing parties – that the treaty makes the running of the European Union more efficient.
"The Reform Treaty is just a watering down of the constitutional treaty," he says, referring to the treaty by its name ahead of its signing in Lisbon. "It does what it says on the tin: it's just a few minor reforms."
Challenged as to whether the treaty obliges member states to increase their military expenditure, Tony responds: "Increasing the military budget will have no impact on Irish neutrality," - a key argument from the No side.
But for the most part, the minutiae of the debate don't interest Tony. He doesn't believe there should ever have been a referendum here.
"It's highly unfair that 4 million people here in Ireland get to decide the destiny of 500 million Europeans," he says.
Should other countries have had referendums as well then?
"No, what we need – next time there is any treaty reform, not this time – is a simultaneous pan-European referendum."
His friend, Jan Seifert, the outgoing German president of the JEF, seems somewhat downcast. "There are lots of people passing by, but not asking questions."
Nonetheless, he thinks the Yes side will win. "The flight over here from Brussels was full of Irish people who were coming home only to vote – and vote Yes. They know how important a Yes vote is."
Mary Crotty
Next up is an encounter with Mary Crotty of Kilkenny, daughter of the late Raymond Crotty, the historian who took the Irish government to court in 1987 over the Single European Act. It was he who won the Crotty v. An Taoiseach, a legal action that established that any significant changes to EU treaties required an amendment to the Irish Constitution – a move that always requires a referendum.
It was because of him that there had to be a referendum here on Thursday.
Mary, in a white baseball cap with large black "VOTE NO" stitched to the front and a white T-shirt echoing the message, was out because "the Lisbon Treaty represents a huge withdrawal of democracy and sovereignty – and centralises the bureaucracy. Centralisation is always the enemy of democracy."
She was also worried about the loss of an EU commissioner – from 2014 the number of commissioners will be reduced to 18 - but "what is really important is the diminishment of voting power in the Council. All it takes is the UK, say, or Germany, plus two small countries to block any legislation.
"Under the treaty, the larger states have so much more power."
Another Mary
The No camp have others too. For example, Mary, a tremendously friendly woman who seemed to be independent of all the groups.
"Go on," she encourages passers-by, "Give 'em a big fat No." Another woman takes her by the arm and assures her: "Don't worry, dear, I'm already voting No."
"Oh, God bless you," she replies, beaming.
On being asked why people should vote No, she replied: "I'm praying for Europe. Why should we be ruled by a godless empire?"
"The Holy Father (the Pope) himself went and begged Europe to put God in the constitution and they unashamedly refused," she complained.
"And that [Prime Minister] Brian Cowen, not five minutes in office and calling us all to vote Yes," she said, poking an imaginary prime minister – or Taoiseach, Irish for PM – with her finger.
"That's an aggressive Taoiseach! And himself a baptised Catholic!"
