Treaty of Nice
The virtually secret negotiations on the Treaty of Nice were concluded in December 2000. In order to come into force, the Treaty of Nice must be approved by all member states of the EU. This is the position with all new Treaties. The Irish Government initially said that there should not have to be a referendum in Ireland to ratify it, but the Attorney-General's legal advice forced them to hold one. The Supreme Court judgment in the 1987 Crotty case confirmed that the Irish people were sovereign, and that power could not be transferred to Brussels without their consent. Therefore there had to be another referendum. When the Irish people rejected Nice, the Government refused to accept their decision, and told the other EU Governments to proceed with their respective ratifications, a decision of dubious constitutionality. It may now plausibly be argued that the Irish Government is acting in breech of the Constitution by not conducting this area of foreign policy in accordance with the people's will.
- Losing Ireland's Commissioner
Nice abolishes the rule whereby every member state has an EU Commissioner. The Commission is the body that initiates all EU laws and it represents the common interest of the EU as a whole. Nice provides for rotating Commissioners and sets no figure for the Commission's eventual size. In an enlarged EU, one quarter or more Member States, including Ireland, could have no Commissioner at any one time.
Under Nice the EU Commissioners and the Commission President will be appointed by majority voting, and the President will be entitled to reshuffle the portfolios. The Irish Taoiseach will no longer have the final say in appointing the Commissioner of his/her choice.
- Majority Voting
Thirty or so new policy areas, such as the rules of the EU Structural funds, the funding of EU-wide political parties, international agreements on trade in services, investments and intellectual property, and the rules of the EU budget have all been shifted to Qualified Majority Voting, so Ireland would lose its national veto in these areas.
- Enhanced co-operation... a First-Class/Second-Class EU
Nice's provisions for a first-class and second-class EU membership make a fundamental change in the European Community that Ireland joined in 1973. Under Nice a certain number of countries can use the EU institutions to pursue closer co-operation amongst themselves even if the others disagree, which is a fundamental break in the way the EU has been run up to now. It would end the concept of the EC/EU as a partnership of legal equals, for that has hitherto rested on the principle that every member state has a veto on fundamental change. The right of national veto on basic change in the EU is effectively abolished. The transfer of power from the National Democratic States will continue to flow only to the centre in Brussels.
Nice would thus be the last real EU referendum, If we ratify it we would be giving up our right in future to affect the development of the EU as a whole. We would in effect be giving permission in Nice for the others to go ahead without us, if we should ever vote No again in any future EU Treaty.
- EU Enlargement
The Treaty of Nice is not necessary for enlargement of the EU. In an interview in the Irish Times 21/6/01 EU Commission President Romano Prodi stated:
'Legally, ratification of the Nice Treaty is not necessary for enlargement. It's without any problem up to 20 members, and those beyond 20 members have only to put in the accession agreement some notes of change, some clause. But legally, it's not necessary. This does not mean the Irish referendum is not important. But from this specific point of view, enlargement is possible without Nice.'
The Amsterdam Treaty allows 5 states to join and others can join by way of accession treaties in the way Ireland joined.
- The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
While much of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is reasonable, its contents have have not been discussed in any National Parliament. It is referred to in Declaration No. 23 of the Treaty of Nice. While a Declaration is not legally part of a Treaty it is intended that this would become part of the next EU Treaty planned for 2004. If it did, the Charter would vastly increase the power of the EU Court of Justice at the expense of the Irish Supreme Court and the existing European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
In short, The Treaty of Nice would have meant a further diminution of Irish National Democracy, and a further step towards the formation of a Federal State, under the dominance of French and German political elites. However, for PANA, the central issue was that the Nice Treaty further consolidated the militarisation of the EU by the institutionalisation of the command structures of the European Army/Rapid Reaction Force whose establishment was permitted by the previous Amsterdam Treaty.
