Portugal rules out referendum on EU Treaty

With Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates changing his stance on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, it appears highly likely that Ireland will be the only country to hold a referendum on the issue.

“A referendum in Portugal would jeopardise, without any reason to do so, the full legitimacy of the ratification by national parliaments that is taking place in all the other European countries,” the Portuguese prime minister told members of the national parliament on 9 January 2008, ruling out the possibility of consulting the people directly on the ratification of the new EU Treaty.

According to press sources, Sócrates gave up on his electoral promise, made in 2005, to hold a referendum on the EU constitution following pressure from French president Nicolas Sarkozy and UK prime minister Gordon Brown. German chancellor Angela Merkel was also consulted on the issue, the reports said.

Sócrates argued that his electoral promise no longer applied as the context has since changed and the new treaty only amends previous ones. 

The change in Portugal’s stance means that Ireland, which is bound by its constitution to hold a referendum on the issue, may well be the only country to hold a popular vote and thus decide the fate of the Lisbon Treaty. 

Gordon Brown is also under pressure to hold a referendum from the Conservative opposition in the UK, which claims the new document is almost identical to the rejected Constitution.

The Lisbon Treaty was signed by EU leaders on 13 December 2007. It provides for an institutional overhaul after the draft EU Constitution was rejected in referenda in France and the Netherlands in 2005. The new treaty streamlines decision-making, slims down the institutions and creates the new posts of a permanent EU president and a foreign representative.

The treaty can only enter into force provided that all 27 member states ratify it. Hungary became the first country to ratify the treaty on 17 December 2007.

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