Republican News · Thursday 15 August 2002

Nice II Watch

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

Pathetic Government

other week of the Nice Treaty debate and another week of confusion as the Dublin government and other groups in the Yes side were only too willing to put off real debate on Nice II and get into a needless and tension raising discussion about immigration.

IMMIGRATION NON-ISSUE

The decision by the self styled "No to Nice Campaign" to put immigration to "the fore in people's minds" stung the Dublin government into prompting EU minister Dick Roche to use the issue to attack Sinn Féin and the Greens.

Sinn Féin TD Aengus ó Snodaigh responded to minister Roche's challenge. ó Snodaigh said that Roche was engaged in a "pathetic attempt to escape a debate on the real issues surrounding Nice".

ó Snodaigh said: "The suggestion by Dick Roche that Sinn Féin is somehow ambivalent in its attitude to the introduction of immigration as an issue in the Nice Treaty is absolutely without foundation.

"Immigration was not an issue in the last referendum campaign and Sinn Féin is opposed to its introduction as an issue in this one. As we have made clear repeatedly, we do not oppose enlargement and we do not believe that the accession of new countries will lead to any large influx of immigrants. We believe in a progressive immigration and asylum policy and we believe that people on all sides in the Nice debate must ensure that nothing is said or done which could give encouragement to xenophobes or damage inter-community relations."

ICTU

The need for a debate within the trade union movement on not just Nice but the whole EU project has been ignored for some time. This week, the ICTU found time to comment on the Nice Treaty but only to attack the No to Nice campaign for "crude scaremongering".

We're still waiting to hear from the ICTU on all the other issues in Nice, such as the lack of democracy and accountability, the loss of veto or how will Nice impact on workers throughout the EU.

ISME

The reality of the Dublin government's failures to inform people about the Nice Treaty was exposed in an Irish Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (ISME) commissioned survey. The study of 400 ISME members found that just 8% were satisfied with the information provided to them about Nice.

EU minister Roche cannot understand it, given that the government had published an "excellent" White Paper last month which was "objective, clear and readable".

It seems that some members of the business community have not been briefed on the IDA and IBEC line, that thousands of jobs will be lost if Nice is rejected a second time and that like much of the rest of the population, they have not found the White Paper on Nice as 'objective, clear and readable' as Dick Roche thinks it is.

O'DONOGHUE

A new front has been opened in the Yes campaign. Voting No to Nice will now affect tourism. According to Arts, Sport and Tourism minister John O'Donoghue, a rejection of Nice could easily be misinterpreted and damage the positive image among continental Europeans, who would retaliate by not coming to Ireland on holidays.

Funny how O'Donoghue had nothing to say about the 26 Counties being the second most expensive place to shop in the Eurozone and how this might affect tourists?

Next week John will be blaming the bad weather on the No voters. Remember, you heard it here first.