Category: Country

Ireland and the EU: Gift Horse or Trojan Horse?

Simon Usherwood

Both the Republic of Ireland and the EU have changed since Irish accession in 1973, and as a result Irish acceptance of continuing integration has become more conditional.

Ireland’s increasingly contested relationship with the EU is partly a result of the success of the Irish economy in modernising and reinventing itself, which in turn has helped to make it more like other European states, economically, politically and socially. In the same manner as the Germans, the Irish people have become aware, and assertive, of their interests in the integration process, which has led to something of a popular backlash against the elite consensus on the value of EU membership. Every country thinks of itself as special, and Ireland is no exception. Historical factors making Ireland special are: its relationship to the UK; the fact that historically it has been a site of emigration and relative underdevelopment; its particular political system (with political parties that do not fit into typical classifications); and its neutrality.

Irish EU membership came about as a consequence of its links with the UK, but has resulted in its emancipation from the UK and its linkage with a new source of modernisation, especially after Mediterranean enlargement (the enlargements to Greece (1981) and to Spain and Portugal (1987) were important in making the EU much more active in regional development, from which Ireland benefited extensively). There are thus historically positive associations between EU membership and modernisation, with EU Development Funds as a key driver of this modernisation (although Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and internal growth reinforcement (the focus on infrastructure development for domestic economic actors to expand further) played an important role alongside EU funding).

Ireland and the EU after the Lisbon Treaty Referendum

Brigid Laffan

This is a critical juncture in Ireland’s relations with the EU. The decisions that will be taken by the Irish government, parliament, potentially the courts, and the Irish electorate are likely to have a lasting impact on Ireland’s relations with the EU and its member states.

Ireland in the Union

There is a tension and juxtaposition between how Ireland has positioned itself and is perceived in the Union (the Brussels game) and how the Irish public perceive EU membership (the domestic game).

From the outset, Ireland positioned itself as a state committed to EU integration in contrast to the UK in particular. The titles ‘good European’ and ‘model pupil’ were assigned to Ireland in the discourse on EU membership at least until the first referendum on the Nice Treaty in 2001.

Why did Ireland Reject the Lisbon Treaty in 2008

John Fitzgibbon

The Irish referendum on 12 June 2008 rejecting the Lisbon Treaty has produced substantial research and comment. Using in-depth post-referendum voter analysis the major conclusions drawn in the literature are that Irish voters voted No simply because they did not understand the Treaty or were opposed to specific EU policies that were and were not included in the Treaty.

While I do not question the validity of this research, I want to place these factors in a wider context. Since the rejection of the first Nice Treaty in 2001, there has been confusion as to how the Irish electorate can remain overwhelmingly positive toward EU integration yet reject two EU treaties. In this paper I argue that while the individual factors behind the Lisbon rejection discussed in previous research on Lisbon are relevant, the phenomenon of organised civil society opposition to European integration and the inherent instability of political party based pro-EU referendum campaigns provide a more incisive analysis of the increasing trend of Irish Euroscepticism.