Irish to vote again on EU treaty in October: gov't

Cowen told lawmakers that legal guarantees secured for Ireland at an EU summit last week should help to win majority backing the second time around for the Lisbon Treaty, a blueprint for strengthening and reshaping the 27-nation union. Ireland's surprise rejection of the painstakingly negotiated document in 2008 threw years of EU diplomacy into doubt.

The EU's promises reaffirm Ireland's control over its military, tax and moral affairs, including its ban on abortion. Anti-EU campaigners fanning fears of losing power in all three areas helped to overpower Cowen's low-key "yes" campaign last year.

This time, Cowen vowed, securing a majority "yes" would be "the sole focus of our effort and attention. ... Nobody should underestimate the importance or the scale of this challenge for our country."

He said the second referendum would be held in early October. An exact date would be announced next month after the parliament passes the revised text of the proposed constitutional amendment.

Ireland, alone among EU members, requires all treaties to be approved by national referendum. Elsewhere, ratification is left to each nation's elected leaders. All members must ratify EU treaties for them to become law.

Cowen said voters alienated by a distant Brussels bureaucracy, and seeking to embarrass his own unpopular government, could not afford a second "no" vote. He cited Ireland's rapid slide over the past year into recession and double-digit unemployment as reasons why.

"We must bridge the budget deficit. We must get cash flowing again adequately in the economy. We must restore economic activity so that the scourge of unemployment is minimized," Cowen said. "To do all that, we must remove the doubt about where our country stands in relation to Europe."

He said last year's treaty rejection had spread "considerable doubt in the minds of business people at home and abroad about our commitment to Europe. That doubt is the last thing we need at a time when, more than ever, we want to protect and sustain jobs."

Opponents of the EU insisted that the Irish must reject the treaty again. They rejected the EU's legal reassurances, particularly on neutrality, as misleading or irrelevant.

"When we come to vote on the Lisbon Treaty later this year we will be voting on exactly the same treaty, with exactly the same consequences, for Ireland and the EU," said Aengus O Snodaigh, a lawmaker from the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party, a leading left-wing opponent of European integration.

He said Brussels' reassurance that Irish military forces could not be forced to participate in wider EU peacekeeping duties was beside the point. He said the treaty would pave the way for increased NATO-style peace enforcement work by EU forces, and Ireland should do what it could to stop this.

"Neutrality is not only what you do with your own troops," O Snodaigh said. "It is also about the alliances you form, and what other member states do in your name."

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