So where to now now that Lisbon Treaty has been passed?

Let me declare myself before you read any further. I voted yes to the Lisbon Treaty on both occasions. I was not completely convinced but on balance I was. Most of the arguments made by the No campaigners rolled off me like water off a duck. We were never going to have abortion by the back door. We were never going to be dragged into an unwanted military alliance. The minimum wage was never going to be affected. We were never going to have to adjust our tax rates. I was and still am concerned that the Lisbon Treaty was another missed opportunity to extend democracy within the Union.

Since the Czech President signed the Treaty earlier this week we now we are in a post Lisbon Europe Union and I suspect strongly that the pro Lisbon promoters will now promptly forget some of the serious reservations that were expressed about the Treaty right across Europe. The Treaty was needed to cope with the complexities of an enlarged and possibly even bigger Union. Now it is a done deal the politicians and the Brussels civil servants will be pleased. However Union still has a serious democratic deficit. The Treaty put some mechanisms in place to deal with this but they are difficult to understand and do not go far enough.

All over the Union citizens are concerned that their national identity will be swallowed up by some great amorphous political roller coaster that they will have no control over. I suspect that this was the reason behind the No vote in France and Holland and it is not good enough for the Yes side to say that this was reversed in both countries by subsequent elections. Elections are complex affairs and neither election was fought solely on the issue of Lisbon. The Labour government in the UK baulked at the idea of a referendum even though they had promised one because the suspected, rightly I think, that it would be defeated, just as would have been if put to a the vote in a number of other member states of the Union. If the unease of the people of Europe at the widening and deepening of the Union is ignored then ultimately the whole project will be undermined.

So what is the solution? Well first of all we need to expand the democratic structures of the Union and give the citizens of the Union more of a direct say in the way the Union is run. This does not simply mean giving more power to the European Parliament. A directly elected Parliament as the most powerful institution of the Union would mean the issues and concerns of small countries such as Ireland would be completely submerged in those of the larger countries. The Parliament needs more power but that power needs to be balanced. The Commission needs a complete rethink. Maybe we need each country to elect its Commissioners so that it becomes something more like the US Senate. The Commission bureaucracy needs to be more transparent and answerable although Lisbon goes some way to addressing this. Above all the institutions of the Union need to improve their communications with the ordinary citizens.

Almost as important governments have to start selling the Union to their citizens. No country knows so well as our own how membership of the Union has transformed it for the better. Apart from the economic benefits that have flown from the Union our membership has brought countless social benefits to workers and women, as just two examples. A more open and democratic Union would make this more apparent. Those who campaigned for a Yes vote must not rest on their laurels as they did after the second Nice Treaty referendum. They must now open a debate within all the structures of the Union, the Council, the Commission and the Parliament about how the operation of the Union can make us all feel like European sisters and brothers and not just look to our own narrow national perspective. On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall it is interesting to remember that the Wall was brought down not by the clever machinations of politicians but by the anger and impatience of the people with an inflexible and undemocratic regime. The edifice of the EU is no so solid that it too could be brought down if the powers that be do not take account of the wishes of the people.