Global General

Special

Newsmaker

Asia Pacific

America

Middle East

Europe

Africa

Prodded by crises, Irish say 'yes' to EU treaty

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-04 15:13

DUBLIN: The global financial crisis may have been the catalyst that produced a significant swing of 20.5 percent to the Yes side in the country's second referendum on the European Union Lisbon Treaty, analysts say.

"Yes" campaigners celebrate after Lisbon Treaty referendum, outside Dublin Castle in Dublin October 3, 2009. Irish voters have given resounding approval to the European Union's Lisbon reform treaty in a referendum, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said on Saturday. [Agencies]

With one in five changing their minds since the June 2008 referendum, the Irish voted 67.13 percent to 32.87 percent in favor of the treaty designed to strengthen the decision-making power of the union since its near-doubling enlargement in 2004.

Related readings:  67% of Irish voters back EU treaty - RTE  Lisbon Treaty hinges on Irish referendum  Irish bank stocks likely to gain further  Naked Irish PM portraits removed  Irish PM leads trade mission to Japan

The results represent the highest Irish Yes in a referendum on European matters since the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.

Many observers attributed the 20.53-percent swing to the Yes vote to, paradoxically, the ongoing global financial and economic crises.

Ireland, which voted against the Lisbon treaty in June 2008, became the first eurozone state to entered recession in September 2008 after two successive quarters of negative growth.

Ireland is one of the biggest beneficiaries of European integration. It was the EU grant worth $64 billion spreading over the years that helped Ireland emerge from a poor agrarian country into the second richest country in terms of per capita GDP after Luxembourg in the 27-country bloc.

However, the Irish economy was hammered by the collapse of a domestic property bubble in the midst of the global crisis.

With unemployment soaring last month to a 14-year high of 12.6 percent, up from 4.7 percent in December 2007, and with its GDP forecast to fall by 9.8 percent, the Irish have come to realize that being isolated and excluded from the union could hardly do any good for their livelihood, analysts said.

Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan described Saturday's referendum as an "essential first step toward economic recovery."

Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore made it even clearer, saying that a No vote would send out a negative message that would be no incentive to foreign investment and would restrict Ireland's capacity to create jobs.

Analysts said that the outcome from the second referendum would be a defining moment in Ireland's relations with the EU in that the first No vote had made Ireland a primary obstacle to ratifying the Lisbon treaty that would make it easier to take decisions by majority rather than unanimous votes as previously required of the union.

"With a Yes vote, Ireland will retain the confidence that it is a positive and influential member of the union, and the union will be allowed to move forward to tackle urgent problems," Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen said

The "resounding" backing for the Lisbon treaty by Irish voters had declared their intent "to remain at the heart of Europe where our future belongs," he added.

Cowen, doing his utmost to avoid a political crisis at the national level, had ruled out a third referendum on the treaty, as his own future as Taoiseach would be thrown into doubt if there were another failure in a vote on the issue. That was another factor analysts put down to the swing to the Yes side.

The EU's concession, however, also contributed to the Yes result of the Irish referendum, they said.

In June this year, the EU took a major step forward in implementing its reform treaty, agreeing to provide legally-binding guarantees to Ireland to overcome its voters' misgivings. These would address their concerns over Ireland's military neutrality, their opposition to abortion and their national rights on taxation.

But analysts still doubt it would be a smooth riding even if the Ireland obstacle has been removed.

They see the Czech Republic and Britain as other potential obstacles to the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, as Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the strongest eurosceptic head of state in the EU, and politics in Britain could still block the signing of the treaty.

The Czech president has said his country's ratification of the Lisbon treaty is "not on the cards," while Britain's Conservative leader David Cameron reiterated his promise to put the treaty to a referendum in Britain if his party gains power before it is implemented.

It is widely believed that a British referendum would probably turn out to be disastrous for the treaty given widespread euro skepticism among British voters.