If the
diary plan is to be believed, today’s the day the Intergovernmental
Conference is scheduled to amend the Lisbon Treaty. Blink and you’d miss
it; the event has been delegated to the civil servants posted permanently to
Brussels as part of the normal COREPER workload.
The reasoning
is painfully self-evident. Leave the ministers out of it, restrict the
discussions to amending a protocol or two, keep the talks short enough to prevent
overspill into coffee and pastries, and you reduce the risk of the media
talking it up. It stays what’s been touted as a “technical” IGC, a trifle, a
small thing.
Of course,
no such thing exists as a “technical IGC”. A change to the treaties is a change
to the treaties.
A minimalist argument may wash for some
countries like Spain, which have already had their referendum and voted Yes first time round. It is less palatable
for those whose plebiscites were overruled. It is noxious to those who were
promised a referendum and then denied it.
By 2005, Labour
had been forced to concede a popular vote on the EU Constitution. Labour’s
manifesto openly declared that “we will put it to the British people in a referendum”.
It was a democratic pledge matched across the political spectrum. Then came
what was for Mr Blair the happy coincidence of a Dutch and French No vote. His
candidates up and down the country proclaimed that the issue was dead and
voters no longer needed to judge them at the ballot box on their party’s policy
on the matter.
Of course,
the EU Constitution was not defunct, and we are lumbered with it today –
despite the broken promise of being asked our opinion first.
Some will
say, ‘Well that’s all water under the bridge’ (or passerelle). Well actually,
no.
In the
first instance, a promise is a promise; and this is a chance for once to restore
some trust in politics. Heaven knows
politicians need it in the current climate.
But it’s
also (as Melanchthon has been tirelessly pointing out in his blogs) an
opportunity. There is plenty wrong with the terms of our relationship with the
EU. There is also a mass of things wrong with the EU just by itself, as a
highly insightful piece by Bruno Waterfield today explores. The TPA and
Democracy Movement last
week teamed up to highlight the shocking cost of Britain’s EU membership,
and aside from Health and International Development, these billions of pounds
of “First World Aid” provide the third spending area that’s been ring fenced by
Ministers. In an age of sharp cuts, that’s wrong.
So the treaty
change may be narrow, but it is a providential opportunity for vastly-needed
reform.
“Technical
IGC” or no, the changes will have to be approved by Parliament. Even if the
debate is being ducked in Brussels, we can expect some feisty exchanges in
Westminster. And yes, with luck, we may yet see an honourable vote on that
long-promised referendum.
