‘Irish should vote for EU inclusion’

Date: 06/06/02

FORMER Irish Prime Minister John Bruton says a second rejection of the Nice Treaty later this year would make Ireland an EU pariah.

'This is the biggest political decision you will ever make,' he is telling Irish voters. 'Please don't leave Ireland outside the EU looking in.'

A second referendum on the treaty, which paves the way for enlargement of the EU, is expected in the autumn.

Speaking in Brussels last week, Bruton said: 'The fundamental decision the Irish have got to make is whether they want the country to be inside the EU taking decisions or on the outside, merely receiving the results of decisions.

'The result of the referendum will set Ireland inexorably in one direction or the other.'

Bruton, one of two national parliamentary representatives on the future of Europe Convention's influential praesidium, disagreed with Mary Banotti, the prominent Irish MEP, who said the treaty is 'doomed' and urged the Irish government to scrap plans for another referendum.

He said: 'I am quietly determined that, once the full consequences of a second rejection are spelled out to the Irish people, they will vote in favour of it.'

Former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton says a second rejection of the Nice Treaty in the autumn of 2002 would make Ireland an EU pariah.