Democracy, trust, equality and neutrality are the key issues in the Nice Treaty campaign, according to Sinn Féin party president Gerry Adams. Highlighting the democracy crux, Adams said that "for Sinn Féin the key issue in this referendum is democracy. It is about the decision of the government to deliberately disregard the decision of the electorate and re-run the same referendum".
Adams joined the No to Nice campaign trail this week in Dublin. Tomorrow he goes to Galway, while early next week he joins the campaign in Cork.
Speaking at a press conference in Dublin on Tuesday, Adams said that, "When the people said NO, the government should have gone to the other EU member states and renegotiated to take account of Irish concerns, but instead we have been forced into a rerun. Would this have been run again if Germany, France or Britain had voted no?"
Adams also highlighted the changing of the rules under Nice for running the EU in favour of the big states to the disadvantage of the smaller states before any enlargement occurs. This he said will "create a two-tier, two-speed EU that favours the bigger states, the loss of permanent representation on the EU Commission in an enlarged EU and the abolition of the veto in 30 policy areas. All of these will seriously undermine the strength of our voice in the EU."
The issue of neutrality and the Nice Treaty provisions that will create a political and security committee which will oversee the Rapid Reaction Force was also a concern for Sinn Féin, said Adams, who stressed that the Seville declarations on neutrality were "too narrowly focused and do not alter the Treaty". Adams said that "if the government was serious about defending neutrality then why did it oppose the Sinn Féin motion to the Dáil to have neutrality enshrined in the constitution? Seville is a fig leaf for the government."
Dublin Sinn Féin will have more than 500 activists out nightly over the next two weeks canvassing 100,000 homes in the city. The party in the capital has distributed over 250,000 Nice newssheets. Dublin South West TD Sean Crowe has said that the reaction on the door has seen voters raise three issues. They were neutrality, trust and deregulation of essential services.
Crowe said "the government's own actions have introduced the issue of trust on the doorsteps. Voters are angry at the very idea of being asked to put their trust in a government which lied to them during the election campaign and which is tarred with the fallout of the Flood Tribunal.
"Sinn Féin believes that the debate around Nice should be based on the Treaty itself," said Crowe but added that "it is clear from early returns that a lot of people voting will be doing so out of anger against establishment parties and establishment politics".
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