The Irish referendum on the new fiscal treaty is not about Ireland’s membership in the Eurozone. Rather, it is a vote for or against permanent austerity in Ireland.After the release of the new Fiscal Treaty, Angela Merkel said “The debt brakes will be binding forever. Never will you be able to change them through a parliamentary majority”. She has elsewhere spoken of the new fiscal rules as having “eternal validity”. This language calls to mind the creation of a vampire, which is an apt metaphor because the Treaty is a would-be immortal creature that aims to suck the lifeblood out of European societies in perpetuity.
Article 3(1) of the Treaty – which says that the ‘structural deficit’ has to be cut to 0.5% of GDP in every country – exemplifies this striving for immortality in its reference to “provisions of binding force and permanent character, preferably constitutional, or otherwise guaranteed to be fully respected and adhered to throughout the national budgetary processes”. The wording here, as we know courtesy of the German government, was deliberately designed to try and avoid a referendum in Ireland. But that attempt has failed and the people will get their chance to have their say.
They will do so because the Irish constitution is very clear that no organ of the state (including the Oireachtas/parliament) can circumscribe or restrict the powers conferred upon it by the Constitution. As Trinity College Professor of Law Gerry Whyte has argued: “Legislative provisions do not have a ‘permanent character’ inasmuch as it is always open to the Oireachtas to amend legislation and, in my opinion, it is not constitutionally open to the Oireachtas to put any Act beyond amendment”, as the Treaty’s fiscal rules seek to do. Read More
