The Nice Treaty had nothing to do with neutrality, taxes, culture or abortion, the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Ahern, insisted last night. All that Nice would do would be to set out the "purely administrative" changes that were absolutely necessary to allow enlargement work effectively.
However, the Sinn Féin TD for Dublin South Central, Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh, said the treaty was primarily about institutional changes which favoured the larger states. "The enlargement issue is being cynically used by proponents of Nice as a distraction from the contents and true intent of the treaty," he said.
The two politicians were speaking at the first in a series of public meetings in the run-up to the Nice Referendum, organised by the Forum on Europe and chaired by Senator Maurice Hayes. The theme of last night's meeting at the Westcourt Hotel in Drogheda was "Has EU membership been good for Ireland? What will it be like in the future as the EU expands and adapts to new challenges?"
The EU had given the Republic "the leg-up needed to be as rich as the UK, and some would say richer," said Mr Ahern. "Nice is about building on the work to date, giving other states in central and eastern Europe that same leg-up, while benefiting Irish workers by opening up vast new markets to us."
"After enlargement is completed there will be a rotation system where Ireland will be represented no differently than the larger states. In the European Parliament our representation will be twice our entitlement on a population basis. After Luxembourg ours will be the best representation," Mr Ahern said.
Ireland would have ministerial representation at every meeting of the Council of Ministers. "These administrative changes are absolutely necessary to allow enlargement work effectively," he said
Mr Ó Snodaigh said, however, that one of the core principles being damaged in the treaty was "the right to say No as well as Yes, the right to veto decisions that are against a particular state's interests."
The EU was becoming a community "where the large states increasingly call the shots". He said that under the treaty proposals the smallest seven of the current 15 states could oppose a whole range of EU policies only to be overruled by the other eight which between them controlled more than 70 per cent of the votes on the EU's decision-making council.
