EU makes plans for second Irish 'no' vote on Nice treaty referendum

A new nightmare scenario for Europe is looming, EU officials fear: a second rejection of the Nice treaty by Irish voters which would plunge into chaos the European Union's plans to admit up to 10 new countries.

In the wake of big protest votes in elections in France and the Netherlands, and few signs of a clear change of opinion about Nice among Irish voters, diplomats are beginning to contemplate the prospects of another major setback for the EU at the hands of the voters.

Agreed after tortuous negotiations in December 2000 the Nice treaty lays down the minimum reforms to the creaking EU decision-making structure needed for enlargement. These are necessary if the EU is to proceed with its flagship plan to admit up to 10 new countries by 2004.

However, the treaty will not come into force unless it is ratified by all 15 EU member states. With the exception of Belgium, where the hold-up is procedural, Ireland is the only country which has yet to approve the treaty.

This week the European Commission president, Romano Prodi, was forced to deny reports that his officials are drawing up contingency plans for a second Nice treaty rejection in Ireland.

The German government also flatly denied a report in the news weeklyDer Spiegel, headlined "Trick against Ireland" which suggested that Germany was secretly working on a new treaty that would exclude Ireland.

But the suggestion that any emergency plans are under consideration is highly sensitive and damaging to the pro-Nice campaigners because it implies that Brussels would overrule the verdict of the Irish people if they vote against the treaty.

The most recent opinion poll suggests that the outcome is finely balanced. The survey found 32 per cent of people saying they were in support of the treaty, 32 per cent opposed, 32 per cent saying "don't know" and four per cent saying that they would not vote.

As part of the effort to build support for the "yes" campaign, EU leaders will issue a new assurance to Ireland that its neutrality would not be compromised by the EU's security and defence policy – one of the issues that featured in the first referendum.

But this may not be enough to change the tide of opinion. If the Irish do reject Nice for a second time, one option would be to try to include some of the technical reforms outlined in the treaty into the accession treaties with the new countries.

That, however, would involve several problems. Firstly, reopening the deal, which was agreed at Nice amid much acrimony, might allow it to unravel. Secondly, the final accession treaty would require ratification by all the new member states and all the existing 15 – including Ireland.

Other options would be to postpone enlargement or to admit only a few countries – although the latter option would be politically very difficult.

* European Union leaders have rejected Russia's request for trade restrictions to be relaxed and for the one million residents of Kaliningrad to be granted visa-free travel rights once the enclave's neighbours join the EU in 2004. Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, described the snub, during a summit in the Kremlin yesterday, as "incomprehensible".

Russia and the EU have been at loggerheads over Kaliningrad, an impoverished and lawless post-Soviet territory that could soon be left high and dry amid an expanding European Union. Sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, the Baltic Sea region of Kaliningrad – formerly Königsberg – is a little piece of former German East Prussia, seized by the Red Army in 1945 and incorporated into the USSR. The territory remains vitally important as the home of the Russian navy's rusting but nuclear-capable Baltic Fleet.