The Arrogance of the Irish

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday September 11, 2002 10:07 by C. - IMC

I sat in a room last night and listened to repeated speakers discuss the arrogance of the Irish. By far the most passionate and eloquent on this subject was Mr. Peter Sutherland, a shy, retiring sort of multi-millionaire with his nice suit and fat cigar looking every part the wall street banker he has become. The room was in the Westbury hotel and the occasion was the Fine Gael open meeting on the Nice treaty.

It must have seemed like a good idea - sort of their own, personal forum on Europe since they wouldn't go to the real one. It was a funny mix, somewhere between gathering of the faithful to launch their yes campaign and Q&A session to give the approved spin on each question asked.

Militarism and Neutrality isn't an issue for Fine Gael - all the speakers talked about their shame at Irelands neutrality, although only Mr. Sutherland was secure enough in his untouchability to use phrases like shame and disgust. The democratic deficit was a harder question - which was why we were told we were arrogant. Arrogant to think that 1% of the population had the right to dictate to the rest of the people of Europe. After a couple of ignored questioners raised the point regarding the lack of a vote in other countries, we were then told we were arrogant to think that there should be a vote elsewhere - they had their own way of doing things. We were also given the definite impression that we were very arrogant indeed to think that the rest of the EU would feel bound by the existing treaties and frameworks if we dared to call a halt. Terrible fates were promised, purely in the name of realpolitick you understand, no scaremongering.

This is a tough referendum for Fine Gael. John Bruton inadvertently gave the game away when he talked about the fact that the Irish people had voted for a second run of the referendum - you see it was in the manifestos of FF, FG, Lab, and PD's who the majority of people voted for. Maybe John should have been less sanguine about the peoples mandate for a rerun of the treaty - the common thread in the parties that prospered in the last election was their resistance to the Nice treaty. FG should remember that to be the opposition you have to actually oppose.

But the star of the evening was Mr WTO himself, EU Commissioner, head of Goldman Sachs, Attorney General and all round humble human Peter Sutherland. After an evening of being told that a European Superstate was a myth and a lie spread by those Dingbats (tm Bertie Aherne) in the No camp - Mr Sutherland then told us that as a commissioner his loyalties were purely to Europe, he felt the nation state was now irrelevant and that the EU needed to balance the US by becoming, yes, a superpower. He discussed his annoyance at having to talk about how good or bad this treaty was for Ireland to have to get the silly, arrogant Irish to vote for it.

And for the more intelligent Nice watcher, he kindly confirmed that the General Agreement on Trade and Services can be ratified post-Nice without ever being debated in, much less subject to the approval by, a national or european parliament or any other form of democratic institution. In his own words, the commission - the civil service (read bureaucracy) gets the last say. Which we all know is the real reason Mr. Sutherland disturbed his busy schedule to get out on the hustings for one last fling.