Sarkozy heads to Dublin amid tension over EU treaty solution
HONOR MAHONY
21.07.2008 @ 09:21 CET
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is to travel to Dublin to today to asses Ireland's options following its rejection of the EU treaty. He arrives confronting controversy over who he should meet and comments he has made on the country holding a second referendum.
Over the past week, Paris and Dublin have been tussling over who Mr Sarkozy should see during the scheduled four-hour meeting.
Mr Sarkozy's visit to Dublin is being viewed with some trepidation by the Irish government (Photo: EUobserver)
The Irish Times reports that Mr Sarkozy agreed to meet separately the leaders of the main opposition party, Fine Gael, and the Labour Party only after the direct intervention of Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen.
Previously he was due to meet them along with a group of 15 other treaty campaigners, including Declan Ganley, the leader of the influential anti-treaty group Libertas, in the French embassy. Each will be given three minutes to make their case to the president.
Mr Sarkozy is also due to have lunch with Mr Cowen before they have a joint press conference and the president jets back to Paris.
The visit has provoked great tension on the Irish side. Mr Sakorzy, who is seen as unpredictable and too inclined to say exactly what is on his mind, has already infuriated Dublin by saying last week: "The Irish will have to vote again."
Ireland rejected the EU treaty on 12 June and Mr Cowen is fast becoming an isolated figure on the European stage as one by one, the remaining EU states ratify the document, with 23 of the 27 countries now having taken such a step.
Most analysts suggest that if the Lisbon Treaty is still to go into force - as Germany and France are pushing for - Ireland will have to have a second referendum. But Dublin has yet to say anything public on the issue, believing it is too soon to come with options.
Mr Sarkozy's words last week put Mr Cowen in a political tight spot, forcing several politicians to respond, saying Ireland would not be pushed into any particular course of action.
The Irish Independent reports that the prime minister is to tell the French president that he is "swelling the ranks" of the No side each time he intervenes.
The anger mirrors the feelings expressed when another French politician - foreign minister Bernard Kouchner - made an unwelcome intervention just ahead of the Irish referendum when he implied that Irish citizens would be considered ungrateful in the rest of Europe if they rejected the treaty.
The treaty was rejected by 53.4 percent against, with 46.6 percent in favour. The anti-treaty campaign touched on a wide range of issues including tax sovereignty, neutrality and democratic accountability.
The high turnout and the relatively wide margin between the Yes and the No votes have lessened Mr Cowen's room for manuoeuvre.
But Mr Sarkozy, who currently heads the EU, has made it clear that he is seeking to start putting shape to an exit strategy when EU leaders meet in October and have a solution wrapped up by the end of the year.
The Irish government, for its part, has repeatedly said that October is too early for a solution.
Ahead of the meeting, Sinn Fein, which campaigned against the treaty, said that "subtle threats" of Ireland's isolation within the union are "nonsense" adding that a "new treaty negotiation is the only way forward."
"For Sarkozy to tell Ireland to vote again is a shocking indictment of the anti-democratic attitude of some European leaders," said Mr Ganley, from Libertas.
Meanwhile, Eoin Ryan, a member of the European Parliament and government Fianna Fail party, noted that France has been an ally of Ireland in the past and particularly now during the ongoing world trade liberalisation talks, with Paris and Dublin both forming part of a more protectionist camp.