Barrett and Gallagher analyse Europe's response to the sovereign debt crisis
At a recent seminar jointly organised by the Insitute for International and European Affairs (IIEA) and the Bar Council, two members of the UCD School of Law presented their analyses of the constitutional and political implications of the proposed amendment of Article 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to allow the creation of a permanent European Stability Mechanism from 2013 onwards. Senior lecturer Dr Gavin Barrett presented a paper on whether this treaty change necessitated an amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which was replied to by UCD Adjunct Faculty member Paul Gallagher SC, former Attorney General of Ireland (2007-2011). In particular, Dr Barrett analysed the Supreme Court's decision in Crotty v An Taoiseach [1987] IR 713, which sets out the criteria for when a further amendment of the Constitution is required by developments in the institutions and competences of the European Union. Both speakers concluded that the European Stability Mechanism was not such a development, since it confers no new competence on the European Union and merely allows the states whose common currency is the euro to make their own inter-governmental arrangements for the financial stability of the Euro area. If national constitutional law was seriously in issue, it was German, not Irish law, in view of the action currently pending before the German Federal Constitutional Court.
Dr Barrett and Mr Gallagher also considered some of the other legal issues thrown up by the existing European Financial Stability Facility and European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism, which are the backdrop to the Greek, Irish and Portuguese bailouts. The former Attorney General in particular stressed the value to the smaller states such as Ireland of maintaining a framework for the closer co-ordination of economic and monetary governance that was based firmly on the rule of law, rather than on political expediency. Dr Barrett similarly drew attention to the way in which the Community method of integration appeared to have gone into eclipse in this area of European policy, particularly since President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel's Deauville statement, which initiated the current treaty revision.
Following the presentation of Dr Barrett's paper and Mr Gallagher's reply, the discussion was thrown open to the floor and a lively and wide-ranging question and answer session followed.
For details of the seminar, which took place on 29 June 2011:
http://www.iiea.com/events/a-referendum-for-the-esm--the-constitutional-and-political-implications-of-treaty-change-to-accommodate-the-new-european-stability-mechanism
A copy of Dr Barrett's paper is available on the IIEA website:
http://www.iiea.com/news/new-publication-on-proposed-treaty-change-by-dr-gavin-barrett
Video of distillery building talk replied to by Paul Gallagher is now available here.
