Margaret Cox (Fianna Fail)

I will deal with one theme relating to Senator Dardis's question, a matter to which Senators Mooney and Bradford also referred. This is the question of the Nice treaty, the dimension that it is simple yet vital. There is also the question of what happens if we vote "No" to Nice and the article in today's The Irish Times. Those pieces hang together.

The treaty is simple in the sense that curiously it does not give any new competence to the European Union whereas all the other treaties did something more in that regard. This treaty is not a new boundary. It is to do with the institutions, broadly a "squeeze over at the table and make room for others" formula. It recommends more qualified majority voting and I will go into that question in more depth because vetoes in a much more diverse and large Union would be a recipe for gridlock and not getting anything done. Therefore, we have an interest to enlarge but in an effective way. The treaty has a flexibility clause about which I spoke in regard to the question of taxation.

I find the article in The Irish Times fascinating. I hosted a lunch yesterday with group leaders in the European Parliament, the President of the European Commission and Commissioner Verheugen who is charged with leading the enlargement debate. We spent several hours in the Parliament debating the Commission's report and I shared a press conference with those two Commission leaders. No one in the European Commission in the college of Commissioners has his or her name, attitude or policy attached to the report in today's The Irish Times. It is some anonymous official.