The Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll reveals that a swing to the 'yes' side has taken place since the referendum defeat last June.
Now, 43% of the Irish say they would vote 'yes' and 39% woud say 'no' to the text, while 18% have no opinion. Excluding the 'don't knows', this would give the 'yes' camp 52.5% and the 'no' side 47.5%, compared with last June's referendum result of 53.4% 'no' and 46.6% 'yes' (EurActiv 13/06/08).
But the possible breakthrough would come at a price. In the poll, people were asked how they would vote if the Lisbon Treaty was modified to allow Ireland to retain its EU commissioner, with other Irish concerns on neutrality, abortion and taxation clarified in special declarations.
As the Irish press has been reporting since as early as July (EurActiv 30/07/08), the government in Dublin is considering asking the Union to guarantee every member state a permanent commissioner in return for agreeing to put the treaty to a second referendum.
EU Commission Vice President Margot Wallström added fuel to the fire last week when she told an Irish parliamentary meeting in Dublin that "in sensitive areas of national sovereignty such as taxation, the [Irish] veto will be kept. And on defence policy, nothing in the Lisbon Treaty is going to touch the triple lock on the deployment of Irish peacekeepers. The treaty also leaves open the possibility that the EU will choose to retain a commissioner from every member state – an option not possible under today's rules".
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin was quoted as saying on Saturday (15 November) that the government would decide whether or not to hold a second referendum within the next few weeks.
"We have indicated that [...] we will bring the elements of a solution to the December Council meeting of all the European states," Martin said.
Indeed, Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is expected to inform the Union's leaders of "the way forward" at the 12 December EU summit. This much-anticipated statement would shed light on the major uncertainty hanging over the June 2009 European elections, because it remains unclear under which Treaty the vote will be held.
But experts are warning that changing the provisions to keep the current system of one commissioner per country would not be possible without reopening the Lisbon Treaty, EurActiv has learned. Reopening the text would imply a fresh round of ratifications across EU countries, which would not only be time-consuming but politically risky too.
"If the EU heads of state and government decide to keep the current system by a simple Council decision in order to accommodate Ireland, Microsoft or any company with a legal dispute with the European executive would be able to claim that the next Commission was in fact illegal," said one analyst, who asked not to be named.
