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Cowen seeks EU help to convince Irish voters
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen worked the corridors of a European summit on Friday, looking to his 26 counterparts to help him convince Irish voters to embrace an EU treaty they rejected last year.
- AP
- Published: 23:05 June 19, 2009
Brussels: Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen worked the corridors of a European summit on Friday, looking to his 26 counterparts to help him convince Irish voters to embrace an EU treaty they rejected last year.
That Irish 'no' in a referendum looms large over a decade-old reform drive to turn the EU into a leaner, more manageable and more powerful bloc.
To get a 'yes' a second time around - all other EU nations have already ratified it - Cowen is seeking "unequivocal" guarantees for Irish voters that the reform treaty will not gut Irish sovereignty in tax policy, neutrality, abortion laws or workers' rights.
When the two-day summit opened on Thursday, that was immediately a sticking point. Ireland's partners fear that new treaty text to please Dublin may lead others to seek special treatment or exemptions as well.
"The important thing is that we make sure we do the right thing by Ireland and by Europe," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Thursday.
The reform treaty was signed in Lisbon by the leaders of the 27 EU nations on December 13, 2007. It significantly overhauls the workings of the bloc and is a watered-down version of an ill-fated European Constitution that bit the dust when French and Dutch voters rejected it in 2005.
On the opening day of the summit, the EU leaders endorsed European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, 53, - a one-time Maoist activist and former conservative premier of Portugal - for a second five-year term as head of the EU's executive.
Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer, the summit chairman, called for a quick confirmation vote in the European Parliament. He said in times of economic crisis, "any postponement, any delays in the nomination would not be a good thing".
Barroso said he was "extremely proud" to be re-nominated for the top EU job, adding the leaders backed his call for a "more ambitious" EU in the years ahead to tackle the economic crisis and fight climate change.
Barroso was heartened by the results of the June 7 EU assembly elections that gave Conservatives 264 of parliament's 736 seats.
Protocol: Ireland receives legal guarantees
The European Union agreed yesterday to offer the Irish government legal guarantees on national sovereignty intended to help secure voters' backing for the EU's Lisbon reform treaty, EU diplomats said.
The accord guarantees the status of a treaty protocol - an Irish demand - but also explicitly states that they will not affect the ratification of the reform project in other EU countries, overcoming a British concern.
"Deal done," said an EU diplomat at summit talks in Brussels. The agreement was struck between Britain, Ireland and the Czech Republic and was to be presented to other leaders from the 27-state bloc for their approval, a presidency source said.
- Reuters
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