Ireland Backs EU Eastward Expansion

Irish voters endorsed the European Union's eastward expansion Sunday by a resounding 63-to-37 percent margin, keeping on track plans to push the Union to the borders of Russia, according to the final tally from a second referendum on the issue.

The results were welcomed across western and eastern Europe, where officials had feared a second Irish "no" would derail the EU's growth plans.

In a first referendum, on June 7, 2001, Ireland rejected expansion by a margin of 54-to-46 percent and with a turnout of barely 35 percent, leading an embarrassed Prime Minister Bertie Ahern to stage another vote.

Turnout this time was 49.5 percent, said returns officer Peter Greene. The vote capped a heated debate that revealed some lingering worries about further European integration in a country that prizes its neutrality.

Ireland was the last of the 15 EU nations to endorse an expansion treaty that Ahern and his 14 EU colleagues signed in Nice, France, in December, 2000.

Strong Irish support for expansion became evident early in the counting. Backing Saturday evening ran at about 60 percent in six Dublin constituencies and one rural area where ballots were cast electronically and counted immediately, and held fast as Sunday's tallying of manual votes began.

The final count showed 906,292 voters had backed expansion and 534,887 voted against it, Greene said.

EU and other officials welcomed the Irish endorsement.

"The people of Ireland have shown great responsibility to Europe" and its commitment to bring eastern neighbors under their wing, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in Berlin.

Ahern, speaking even before all votes had been counted, said voters had delivered "an emphatic 'yes' to that enlargement and a warm Irish welcome to our fellow Europeans from central and eastern Europe and the Mediterranean islands."

"I'm happy today that the decision was so decisive," he added after the final tally was in.

Political analyst Noel Whelan noted that the vote in Dublin had swung by 10-20 percent in favor of the "yes" camp compared to June 2001, when the rejection shocked Ireland's EU neighbors.

The campaign this time generated ferocious opposition. Critics cited fears of losing EU handouts, an influx of immigrants, a diminished Irish say in a bigger EU and — above all — loss of Ireland's prized neutrality.

John Gormley, leader of the Green Party, which campaigned for a "no" vote, accused Ahern and other expansion supporters of twisting voters' arms.

"There was, I think, a huge guilt trip, a certain intimidation," he said.

A second Irish "no" would have caused the Treaty of Nice to lapse at year's end, delaying expansion for years. It has already been ratified in the other EU states by votes in national legislatures.

Irish endorsement of the treaty will keep plans for Europe's post-Cold War unification on track, though major stumbling blocks lie ahead.

EU leaders meet next Thursday and Friday to sort out a dispute over how much to pay farmers in Eastern Europe in subsidies once their countries join.

Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain want the EU to agree first to reforming a system of farm spending that eats up half the union's budget. Others, notably France and Ireland, oppose that.

The EU must also resolve a dispute with Moscow over the Russian Baltic Sea region of Kaliningrad, which becomes an enclave inside the EU once Lithuania and Poland joined the union. The EU wants Russians to obtain visas to travel to and from Kaliningrad, something Russia opposes.

The complex Nice treaty also reforms EU institutions to streamline decision-making. It reallocates national votes, raises the European Parliament to 732 members from 626, limits the now 20-member EU executive Commission to 27 and extends majority voting to global trade, environmental, justice and other issues.

In the campaign, Irish farmers complained about losing subsidies. Pacifists, anti-free traders and conservative Catholics saw Irish influence in Europe fading and their country losing its automatic right to have one commissioner at the EU head office in Brussels.

Nothing plagued Ahern more than charges Ireland would lose its neutrality through a treaty that lays the legal basis for consultations to dispatch an EU rapid-reaction force of 60,000 peacekeeping troops.

Ireland has committed 850 soldiers to the force, which should be operational by next year.

With Irish ratification in hand, EU leaders will formally invite Cyprus, Malta, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia to join in 2004. Romania and Bulgaria may get invitations to join in 2007 and Turkey — a 13th EU candidate — also is hoping to be given a starting date for its entry negotiations.

The Nice treaty will replace the current version of the EU charter, which foresees only five candidates entering in 2004 — a number deemed realistic when that treaty was signed in Amsterdam in 1997.