Ireland set for crunch second EU vote
Treaty of Lisbon - Photo EU Council
(DUBLIN) - Irish voters go to the polls this week in a second referendum on the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, with EU leaders hoping they will reverse a shock No vote and end the bloc's institutional limbo.
Ireland's hard-hit economy has been seen as a major factor that could lead to a different result than in last year's vote.
Polls suggest the Yes campaign is set for victory in Friday's ballot, 15 months after 53.4 percent of Irish voters rejected the controversial reform treaty, which must be ratified by all 27 EU states to come into force.
Ireland, the only EU country constitutionally obliged to put the treaty to a referendum, agreed to hold a new poll after securing guarantees on key policy areas which it said were behind the rejection in June last year.
Specifically, Dublin's EU partners gave assurances on Catholic Ireland's abortion ban, its military neutrality and its tax-setting right, while pledging that every EU state will continue to have an EU commissioner in Brussels.
It is not the first time Ireland held a referendum re-run: in 2001 its voters rejected the EU's Nice Treaty, only to overturn that vote a year later.
This time it appears likely they will perform the same trick again: a poll published by the Sunday Business Post newspaper gave the "yes" campaign 55 percent compared with 27 percent planning to vote "no".
"The 'yes' side maintains a comfortable lead among all voters and among those who say they are most likely to vote," said the newspaper's political editor Pat Leahy. A further 18 percent are still undecided.
Meanwhile the Sunday Independent put the "yes" campaign on 68 percent, with 17 percent ready to vote "no" and 15 percent undecided.
The other major factor which seems to have affected voters is the global economic downturn, and its devastating impact here.
At the time of the first referendum the long booming "Celtic Tiger" economy had already lost some of its roar. But since then Ireland became the first EU country to enter recession, and is one of the worst affected.
This year its GDP is set to shrink a record eight percent, while the jobless toll could exceed 15 percent, three times its June 2008 level.
The Yes camp likes to point out that, without the 120 billion euros (175 billion dollars) injected by the European Central Bank, Irish banks would probably have had to close.
"We need to ratify the Lisbon Treaty because it is good for Ireland, because it is good for Europe, because it is good for workers' rights; but most of all, because it is good for jobs," Prime Minister Brian Cowen said recently.
Declan Ganley, the businessman who spearheaded the successful "no" campaign last year, countered: "The only job that the Lisbon Treaty will save is Brian Cowen's."
Like last year, he hopes to show that Irish voters can be in favour of the EU, but against the Lisbon Treaty, which he says imposes a "Brussels democracy" with unelected leaders unaccountable to citizens.
But his power has been hobbled since his pan-European Libertas group failed spectacularly in European Parliament elections last year, while the Yes camp again includes all the mainstream political parties except Sinn Fein.
Richard Sinnott, Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University College of Dublin, says the Yes camp has learned the lessons of last year and ramped up its campaign.
One key weapon in the Yes camp's arsenal this year is celebrities, including U2 guitarist The Edge, filmmaker Jim Sheridan and Michael O'Leary, the flamboyant head of budget airline Ryanair.
The No campaign hopes that the unpopularity of Cowen's government will fuel a protest vote on Friday.
But Enda Kenny, head of the main opposition Fine Gael party which is also in the Yes camp, said his message to voters was: "Hold your anger until you can cast your verdict in a general election which will come in due course.
"But, in this case, we are deciding on the country's future," he said.