McCreevy: 95% of countries would probably have voted No in Lisbon Treaty referendums
Saturday’s Irish Times reported on EU Internal Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy’s comments last week, in which he said, “When Irish people rejected the Lisbon Treaty a year ago, the initial reaction ranged from shock to horror to temper to vexation. That would be the view of a lot of the people who live in the Brussels beltway. On the other hand, all of the [political leaders] know quite well that if the similar question was put to their electorate by a referendum the answer in 95 per cent of the countries would probably have been No as well.”

Saturday’s Irish Independent also reported that he said that Irish people should not be ashamed about how they voted, and quoted him saying “I’ve never been ashamed to stand up for the way we do our business here. We do it by referendum. That’s democracy.”

EurActiv quotes Open Europe Director Lorraine Mullally saying that the Irish Commissioner’s “honesty” had “touched a nerve” and that his statement “probably reflects what most other EU leaders think themselves”.

Open Europe blog Open Europe briefing Irish Times Irish Independent EurActiv Economist: Charlemagne blog Telegraph Sunday Telegraph Irish Times 2
___________
Bruce Arnold: Ireland’s “legal guarantees are worthless”
Under the headline, “Government has abandoned democracy to get a ‘Yes’ vote”, Bruce Arnold argued in Saturday’s Irish Independent that Irish PM Brian Cowen was “abandoning democracy the day after the vote. He was then servile in courting European countries, telling them how sorry he was that the Irish people had insulted Europe and assuring them of changed times ahead. He then isolated a few marginal issues, none sufficient for the size of the huge vote, invented a survey of the “real” Irish view on Lisbon and claimed that amending doubts about neutrality, abortion and taxation would do the trick. No need, he said, to look further into the more serious and fundamental EU drawbacks.”

He continued, “The legal guarantees are worthless and do not change the treaty. However, they had the desired effect. A number of foolish and misguided public figures, respected for talk shows on television, selling groceries, writing poetry, went public and said they would vote ‘Yes’.”

In the Irish Independent, columnist Maurice Hayes writes “The clarifications [protocols] in this case are less an explanation of what is in the treaty, than an affirmation of what is not. More nuanced it may be, but the question remains the same — as does the treaty.”
Irish Independent: Arnold Irish Independent

________

EU OBSERVER                                     29.6.09

Irish commissioner says EU Treaty would be rejected in most countries

HONOR MAHONY

Ireland’s EU commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, has said that the Lisbon Treaty would be rejected by most member states if put to a referendum (Irish Times,

With just a few months to go before his own country’s second referendum on the document, the plain-speaking former finance minister said 95 percent of the 27 member states would have said “no” to the new institutional rules if it had been put to a vote.

The commissioner, in charge of the internal market, reckons all leaders know this and it is only officials working in the EU institutions who have unrealistic expectations about the popularity of the treaty, designed to streamline how the EU functions and removing the unanimity requirement for decision-making in most policy areas.

“When Irish people rejected the Lisbon Treaty a year ago, the initial reaction ranged from shock to horror to temper to vexation. That would be the view of a lot of the people who live in the Brussels beltway,” he told the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ireland on Friday (26 June), reports the Irish Times.

“On the other hand, all of the [political leaders] know quite well that if the similar question was put to their electorate by a referendum the answer in 95 per cent of the countries would probably have been ‘No’ as well.”

“I have always divided the reaction between those two forces: those within the beltway, the ‘fonctionnaires’, those who gasp with horror [on the one hand] and the heads of state, who are far more realistic. They are glad they didn’t have to put the question themselves to their people.”

Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum a year ago. In the run up to that vote, Mr McCreevy stole the headlines by saying he had not read the treaty from cover to cover and that no “sane” person had done so.

His admission prompted Irish journalists to ask other politicians about whether they had done their Lisbon homework, eventually exposing the fact that Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen had not read it either.

This time round, Irish voters, shaken by the devastating effects the economic crisis has had on the country, are thought more like to vote “Yes”. Recent polls have indicated a majority intend to give the green light to the document,
At a summit earlier in June, EU leaders agreed to a set of guarantees on the Lisbon Treaty designed to persuade voters to say “Yes”.

The treaty needs to be approved by all member states before going into force. Ratification has also not yet been completed in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, where the president of all three countries have to sign the document.

________

WALL STREET JOURNAL     26.6.09
The EU’s Latest Power Grab

From today’s Wall Street Journal Europe

In some countries they rig votes, in the European Union they repeat votes to get the desired result.

After Ireland last year rejected the EU’s Lisbon Treaty — itself a rehashed carbon-copy of the EU Constitution that Dutch and French voters rebuffed in 2005 — the Irish are being asked to reconsider. There will be another referendum in early October, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said Wednesday, and this time the Irish are expected to get it right. In Europe, they don’t take “no” for an answer.

Proponents say the Lisbon Treaty is key to reforming the squeaky institutions of the 27-member union. Skeptics, including a majority in Ireland, see a significant power grab. The Treaty gives the EU a nonelected president, a quasi foreign minister, a beefier defense and foreign policy and fewer national vetoes in a number of policy areas.

To justify a revote, EU leaders put on a big show at last week’s summit, giving the impression of tough negotiations in which Dublin supposedly won important concessions. The main prize Mr. Cowen took home is a protocol that claims to address Irish concerns, such as worries that the Treaty would allow the EU to meddle in Irish taxation, abortion issues, workers rights and neutrality.

Oh really? According to the EU summit’s own conclusions, the protocol “will clarify but not change either the content or the application of the Treaty of Lisbon.” So the Irish will vote on the same text they previously rejected by a seven-percentage-point margin despite assurances by their government as recently as last month that this would not happen.

In the year since the last vote, the Irish economy has tanked, and a pro-Brussels vote this time is possible if only because many Irish worry that the EU may abandon them in their economic hour of need. It’s a fear the government knows how to exploit. A precondition for economic recovery, Mr. Cowen said Wednesday, is to “remove the doubt about where our country stands in relation to Europe.”

Just a couple of weeks ago the bien pensants in Brussels bemoaned the success of euroskeptics in European Parliamentary elections. This latest run-around on the Lisbon Treaty for the purpose of boosting the power of the EU at the expense of individual states is not the way to create more europhiles.

_________

24 June 2009

Gordon Brown: Irish ‘guarantees’ will “clarify not change” the Lisbon Treaty
Gordon Brown and Conservative leader David Cameron clashed in the Commons last night over the ‘clarifications’ given to Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty. PA notes that Brown insisted that the ‘guarantees’ given to Ireland would “clarify but not change” the Lisbon Treaty. Brown said that a new protocol would in no way alter the relationship between the EU and member states.  He said: “To be absolutely clear, the Heads of State or Government have declared: the Protocol will in no way alter the relationship between the EU and its Member States. The sole purpose of the Protocol will be to give full Treaty status to the clarifications set out in the Decision to meet the concerns of the Irish people. The Protocol will clarify but not change either the content or the application of the Treaty of Lisbon”.

Brown added, “They have received their clarifications. It will be set out in a protocol. It will come to all Houses of Parliament, at the next accession treaty, when that has to be confirmed by these Houses of Parliament.”

Cameron responded saying, “Why are Irish voters being forced to give their views twice when the British people haven’t been asked for their views once?”  He also criticised the method by which Ireland’s ‘guarantees’ are expected to become legally binding: “Will you explain why the protocols won’t be debated or put into place until the next countries join the EU. Isn’t it the case the Government wants to delay this until after the next election. They don’t want the embarrassment of having to vote yet again in the Commons to deny people the referendum they originally promised.”

When asked “do the guarantees have legal effect and if so how?”, Brown answered: “They will be deposited in the way that often happens at the United Nations and will have legal effect from the time that the Lisbon Treaty is in power.”

Meanwhile, writing in the Irish Times, Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen sets out his reasons why Irish people should vote ‘Yes’ in the second referendum.  He claims that “accusations that the outcome of the summit was a pre-cooked charade are wrong and highly insulting to our EU partners.”  He says, “Many member states struggled with Irish reluctance to sign up to what they see as a necessary updating of the union’s rulebook. Some were alarmed at being asked to agree guarantees on issues not even mentioned in the Lisbon Treaty. Others, perfectly legitimately, did not wish to reopen their own democratic ratification processes.”

The paper notes that Cowen will name the exact date for the second Lisbon Treaty referendum when legislation to allow it take place goes through Ireland’s Dáil and Seanad in a fortnight’s time.
Irish Times Irish Times 2 Irish Times 3 Irish Times: Cowen Hansard Open Europe blog

German MEP threatens Ireland with “second class” status and “isolation” if it rejects the Lisbon Treaty again

The Parliament reports that senior German MEP Jo Leinen has warned that Ireland risks being relegated to a “second class” nation if it again rejects the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum scheduled for the autumn. Leinen said, “If there is a ‘No’ vote in Ireland I think we are likely to see a two-speed Europe emerge, with Ireland being in what might be called the ’second class’.
The Parliament

European Commission wants database for all 500 million citizens, raising “big brother” concerns

The European Commission has proposed to set up a new agency to oversee all its large-scale IT systems, thereby bringing together management of three key systems – the Schengen Information System, Visa Information System and Eurodac – plus other related applications, into a single operational structure. Webwereld reports that human right groups have expressed fears for big brother implications, as this would mean that data on all 500 million European Union citizens and all illegal migrants would be merged into a database for “freedom and security”. The cost of the system would be ¤113 million in the first 3 years, and later ¤10 million per year following that.
Computing.co.uk Webwereld

Spain’s ¤2.7bn in EU fishing subsidies accused of exacerbating overfishing

According to the Guardian, Spain has received more than ¤2.7bn in subsidies in the last 12 years for fishing practices which exacerbate overfishing. Markus Knigge, Research Director for Pew Environment Group has said that “rather than encouraging sustainable fishing, subsidies have contributed to ever-greater capacity of fishing fleets and in turn to the depletion of valuable fish stocks”.

According to the paper, similar levels of subsidies exist in the current 2007-2013 budget period, with some of the biggest cash windfalls going to ships notorious for their questionable practices. Greenpeace named a Spanish trawler which has received more than ¤4m in subsidies as “the most egregious offender against vulnerable stocks of Mediterranean blue fin tuna”. A new website, “fishsubsidy.org” has been created to establish greater transparency about EU fishing subsidies.
EurActiv Guardian

__________

Mary Ellen Synon in Irish Daily Mail, 17 June, article entitled ‘The new Stasi’.

17 June 2009
The lives of … all of us
You know what they say about restaurants: there is no such thing as just one rat in the kitchen. It is the same here in Brussels. This week the Irish have finally seen the draft of assurances Brian Cowen’s government want from the other EU members before they make the Irish vote again on the Lisbon Treaty. The draft is a rat, but I’l deal with it later, after I’ve seen what is going to happen to the ‘assurances’ tomorrow and Friday at the European Council. Today I will deal with one of the other rats in Brussels, the Stockholm Programme.

It is unlikely you have ever heard of the Stockholm Programme. It has only just been published. However, a committee known as the Future Group, organised by the justice commission, started planning it in January 2007. The full name of the Future Group is ‘the Informal High Level Advisory Group of the Future of European Home Affairs Policy.’ The British had no representative on it, merely an ‘observer.’

The group’s findings have been bundled up as the Stockholm Programme. Here is how it works. The Lisbon Treaty gives new legal powers to the European institutions over, among other things, cross-border police co-operation, counter-terrorism, immigration, asylum and border controls. The Stockholm Programme outlines how the justice commission will implement these new legal powers for the next five years.

The commission claims the programme covers policy on ‘freedom, security and justice serving the citizen.’ Look closer and you will see it actually covers policy for restrictions on the citizen, surveillance by the European state — yes, your fingerprints, credit card charges, email traffic and health records are now going to be available from Galway to Bucharest — and the destruction of British judicial independence by the European institutions. Stockholm is a rat, and a big one.

If you don’t want to take it from a right-wing libertarian like me, you can take it from a whole pack of left-wing libertarians, the European Civil Liberties Network. The ECLN is made up of groups drawn from across Europe. One of the founders was Gareth Peirce, solicitor for the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, and more lately for one of the prisoners at Guantanamo. Here is what the ECLN have to say about the Stockholm Programme: the policies outlined in Stockholm ‘constitute an attack on civil liberties and human rights.’ The warn against ‘dangerous authoritarian tendencies within the EU.’

They are right to do so. Under EU legislation, state agencies are already implementing comprehensive surveillance regimes and beginning to  build up what the ECLN calls a ‘previously unimaginably detailed profile of the private and political lives of their citizens.’ This is often done in the absence of any data protection standards, judicial or democratic controls.

‘The EU has gone much further than the USA in terms of the legislation it has adopted to place its citizens under surveillance. While the Patriot Act has achieved notoriety, the EU has quietly adopted legislation on the mandatory fingerprinting of all EU passport, visa and residence permit-holders and the mandatory retention — for general law enforcement purposes — of all telecommunications data (our telephone, e-mail and internet usage records).’

The Future Group and their Stockholm Programme say they foresee a ‘digital tsunami’ that will revolutionise law enforcement. Add this to the fact that, as the ECLN says, ‘EU data protection law has already been left behind, with surveillance all but exempted. Individual rights to privacy and freedoms are being fatally undermined.’

One of the most rat-like things about these new proposals is the plan to set up a ‘Homeland Security’ industry. Billions of euros may be given as subsidies to European corporations to help them compete with US industries in developing security equipment and technology. If you knew how many thousands of uncontrolled, unregistered corporate lobbyists there are in Brussels, you would recognise the hand of European technology corporations in the drafting of this programme. Brussels will give the military-industrial corporations billions in European taxpayers’ money, and in return the corporations will deliver technology that helps all the new European security forces track every one of us.

What is coming out of this will undoubtedly be an EU identity card and population register. Even Dick Cheney didn’t dare try that one. There will be the power of security forces (forget ‘cops,’ what you are going to be hearing more and more about are ’security forces’) to search computer hard-drives. But the security forces won’t be coming through your door with a warrant. The searches will be ‘remote,’ online. This will be a particular threat to lawyers, journalists and any politicians opposing these growing EU powers. The policy of remote hard-drive searches was first proposed for the EU by the German government in June 2008. Yes, the German government want a euro-Stasi. It really is so satisfying when politicians live up to their national stereotype.

Statewatch, another organisation monitoring civil liberties in Europe, is also warning against the Stockholm Programme. In an analysis of the Future Group’s report by Tony Bunyan, he writes: ‘European government and EU policy-makers are pursuing unfettered powers to access and gather masses of personal data on the everyday life of everyone — on the grounds that we can all be safe and secure from perceived “threats.”‘

‘There is an assumption, on this and wider issues in the EU, that “if it is technologically possible, why should it not be introduced?”‘

He notes that the EU’s Schengen Information System (SIS) is to be upgraded to hold more categories of data (including fingerprints and DNA), access to all the data is tobe extended to all agencies (police, immigration and customs).’ The commission has proposed a system to track the names of all passengers in and out of the EU, but some governments ‘do not like limiting the use of data to terrorism and organsied crime and want to extend the proposals’ scope from just in and out of the EU to travel between EU states and even within each state.’ They want to extend it to sea travel and car travel, too: all those specialised cameras developed for reading car registration plates make it possible.

Ah, but ordinary people will be told that if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear. Ordinary people who believe that  will then never realise, as Mr Bunyan says, ‘why they did not get a job interview because their employer had access to a criminal record based on a “spent” conviction or why their application for an insurance policy failed because the company had access to their health record.’

The final agreement on all this is due to be adopted by heads of state and government at a meeting in Stockholm in December. Between now and then there is nothing any of us can do to stop it — except force David Cameron to give Britain a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, no matter how many other countries have already ratified the treaty. Remember, the legal powers to establish this new techno-surveillance are only delivered to Brussels by the Lisbon Treaty. So demand a referendum, then vote No: or your secret ballot on Lisbon may be the last secret left to you.

17 June 2009 10:52 AM
The lives of … all of us

____________

What the European Community is doing on our behalf.
Brussels, 4.6.2009  COM(2009) 255 final  2009/0073 (CNS)
Proposal for a
COUNCIL DECISION
on the signing, on behalf of the Community, of the Arrangement between the European Community, of the one part, and the Swiss Confederation and the Principality of Liechtenstein, of the other part, on the modalities of the participation by those States in the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union
Proposal for a
COUNCIL DECISION on the conclusion, on behalf of the Community, of the Arrangement between the European Community, of the one part, and the Swiss Confederation and the Principality of Liechtenstein, of the other part, on the modalities of the participation by those States in the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0255:FIN:EN:PDF

McCreevy slams “hidden” tax plan – May 2007

Bernard Purcell
in Brussels.

Ireland’s EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy yesterday broke ranks with his Brussels colleagues and officials in an unprecedented outspoken attack on  their “long-term hidden agenda” for a common corporation tax base.

Mr McCreevy told a business lunch in Dublin  the proposal currently under consideration, and due to become Community law next year, is a “sinister” idea that “refuses to die”.

He attacked the way permanent officials in the Commission  sought to smuggle the proposal through by saying it would be “optional” when it was really “an unworkable charade” and  “underhand tactic to destroy tax competition in Europe”.

NOT WORKABLE

“Optionality is not workable and it is hard to believe the designers of the proposal don’t realise that,” he said

“The deliberately unworkable proposals (for a common consolidated tax base)  amount to a Trojan horse to enable the Commission take control of taxation”, Commissioner  Charlie McCreevy suggested. He said that it  was part of a “long-term hiden agenda”, a “sinister idea that refuses to die”
- Irish Independent, 12 May 2007

Individual member states – especially the smaller ones – would either no longer be able, or have the incentive, to manage effectively their public finances or direct foreign investment.

Ireland has the most competitive corporation tax rate of the EU-15, currently  at 12.5 pc. Some of the larger countries like France, Britain  and Germany have rates of 28 pc and higher.

He added that companies’ tax advisers  would go “regime shopping” between the 27 tax regimes and a 28th “common” base run by Brussels.

Inevitably there would be “leakage” from individual national exchequers leaing to complaints from countries, thus opening the door to “the permanent officials in DG Tax to say optionality should go”.

Another reason “optionality”  woud be pre-determined to fail is because as countries realised they would be writing fat cheques to other members of the “opted in” club, they would stay out, leaving a shrinking pool of states with clear “winners and losers”.

Even more sinister, said the Competition Commissioner, were plans to give the lion’s share of consolidated tax revenues to bigger countries like Germany and France at the expense of smaller natlons.

It was clear from 50 years of history  “and the reality of the institutional continuity of the Commission and its culture” that no matter how often certain proposals might be turned down, the officials sneak them out in different guises, he said.

“What is envisaged by those seeking to foist a CCCTB on Europe is quite different to what appears  on the label,” warned McCreevy. “It is important that Member States understand fully what is going on,” he said.

_______

“The deliberately unworkable proposals (for a common consolidated tax base in the EU)  amount to a Trojan horse to enable the Commission take control of taxation”, Commissioner  Charlie McCreevy suggested. He said that it  was part of a “long-term hidden agenda -  a sinister idea that refuses to die”

Even more sinister, said the Competition Commissioner, were plans to give the lion’s share of consolidated tax revenues to bigger countries like Germany and France at the expense of smaller natlons.

It was clear from 50 years of history  “and the reality of the institutional continuity of the Commission and its culture” that no matter how often certain proposals might be turned down, the officials sneak them out in different guises, he said.

“What is envisaged by those seeking to foist a CCCTB on Europe is quite different to what appears  on the label,” warned McCreevy. “It is important that Member States understand fully what is going on,” he said.

- Irish Independent, 12 May 2007

Effective today, this blog will now track latest important Lisbon Treaty news.

You can still follow the broad-based service of the National Platform EU Research and Information Centre (NP-EURIC) at:
www.nationalplatform.org

Readers please note:

The Lisbon Treaty has been defeated [not been ratified] in the Irish referendum [0f 2008], and cannot be legally brought into being as a result. This is an ongoing matter of concern, as Irish and EU officials may attempt a “rerun” in the future.

For newest EU information and updates, please visit the National Platform’s home site –

http://www.nationalplatform.org

You may find of  interest the remarks below of Mr Dick Roche TD  when a backbencher in 2001  and before he was promoted to Minister for Europe, regarding the proposal to re-run the Nice referendum.

They provide a piquant contrast to some of his recent statements.

The voter turnout in the 2001 Nice referendum was 35%,  in contrast to the  majority turnout in the 12 June Lisbon referendum.

“THE IRISH PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN.”

Mr Dick Roche TD on why it would be a “democratic affront” to re-run the Nice Treaty referendum without making changes to the Treaty… spoken when he was a Dail backbencher in 2001  and before he was made Minister for Europe

“It is foolhardy to talk about another referendum at this stage unless something fundamental changes. To attempt to rerun a referendum as a means of reversing the democratic decision taken by the people would be rightly regarded as an affront. Something fundamental will have to be changed in the Nice treaty before we can even contemplate putting it before the people again.”

- Dail Debates, Vol. 358, pp. 1058-1061, 21 June 2001)

_________

Below are some further excerpts from the same Dail speech of Mr Roche, backbencher)

_________

“So far as the Nice Treaty is concerned, the Irish people have spoken and, like it or lump it, the Commission and its President have to accept it. They should do so with more good grace than they have shown in the recent past?

The Nice Treaty, no matter what its good intentions, is a document that has been democratically tested in only one Member State, and that is Ireland. It failed to meet the democratic test in this nation. It is an arrogance for any politician, either here or any Commissioner in Europe, to ignore the fundamental fact that the Irish people have spoken with some clarity on the matter. Yet last night the President of the Commission suggested that somehow or other the Irish people’s will can be undone. If the Commission, its leaders or the Governments of other European states decide to sweep democracy aside, we must ask on what basis is the future of Europe to be built?

Over the past two days I attended a meeting of the interim European Security and Defence Assembly. I was amazed and gratified in equal measure at the response by European parliamentarians from 28 different European nations to the Irish referendum.  It was an interesting and extraordinary eye-opener. There was no finger-wagging or suggestion that our people had been wrong or were confused; rather there was a degree of admiration for the decision the Irish had made. Speakers from the United Kingdom to Slovenia to Greece spoke on the issue. They indicated their support for the right of the Irish people to make a decision on this matter. They were by no means all Euro-sceptics. Speakers from a number of countries both within and outside the Union indicated that the Irish people by its vote reflected a common view and concern that now exists both within the EU and in those states most proximate to the EU. Members from the EU states who contributed directly in the debate or who spoke privately to the Irish delegation members indicated that it was their view – I made an effort to do a straw poll  – that referenda on the Nice Treaty as it currently stands, if held in other member states, would meet with the same public response as in Ireland.

There is something distinctly odd about democratic states attempting to take decisions that are out of line with the sentiment of their citizens. The gulf that exists between the citizens of Europe and the institutions, the commissioners and the bureaucrats who are now driving the Union, is nowhere more visible than in the area of peace, security and defence. In the run-up to the Nice Treaty the European Council decided, quite incredibly, that somehow the European Union could now take charge of peace, security and defence issues across the continent of Europe both within and outside the Union?

The issues raised by the rejection of the Nice Treaty in the referendum are of a fundamental nature.  I have listened with some dismay to today’s debate and the debate that has taken place in the weeks since the referendum. Many in the political leadership of the nation are more focused on making a political point about the referendum than on truly addressing the core issues behind the judgement passed by the people?

It is foolhardy to talk about another referendum at this stage unless something fundamental changes. To attempt to rerun a referendum as a means of reversing the democratic decision taken by the people would be rightly regarded as an affront. Something fundamental will have to be changed in the Nice treaty before we can even contemplate putting it before the people again?
The Nice treaty is a complex document which intends to achieve complex things.  It was sold to the Irish people as a means of providing for the enlargement of the European  Union. Last night Mr Prodi made it very clear that was not what the treaty  is about. He did not, however, make clear precisely what it is about. He was saying, therefore, that the enlargement process could be achieved without the Nice treaty.

I mentioned the assembly I attended yesterday and the considerable interest shown in the decision of the Irish people.  Some thought-provoking contributors indicated that the opportunity afforded the Irish people should also be offered to the citizens of other member states. Maybe then Europe would get a clear message about what the people of Europe expect in the coming years.”

- Dick Roche, 2001

* Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Minister Michael Martin give in to Franco-German and EU Commission pressure to permit the remaining Lisbon ratifications to continue, when they could have stopped these by saying that Ireland cannot and will not ratify the Lisbon Treaty, as the Irish people have rejected it.

* The Irish Government lines up with Brussels against the Irish people rather than stands by the people’s democratic decision of last week to defend it vis-a-vis Brussels – so as to bring about a 26/1 situation by year’s end with which to bludgeon Irish voters in a referendum re-run.

* Talk of “respecting” Ireland’s vote turns out in practice to be a cover for setting out to overturn it in a referendum re-run, with Brian Cowen’s, Michael Martin’s and Dick Roche’s full support – and behind a thick barrier of hypocrisy, spoofing and lies.

Friday 20 June 2008

* These are the three principal lies Irish Government Ministers and the EU people are telling to hide their first steps towards preparing this Lisbon referendum re-run:

* LIE NO.1: That the nine EU States that have not yet ratified Lishon have a “right” to do so irrespective of the Irish No. There is no such right under either EU law or customary international law. Brian Cowen could stop any further ratifications by saying to his EU partners that he respects the Irish No, that because of that there is no question of trying to overturn it by re-running the referendum, and that therefore Lisbon is dead because Ireland cannot ratify it and there is no point any other ratifications continuing, for Lisbon cannot come into force unless all 27 ratify it. British Foreign Secretary David Milliband underlined this point last weekend when he said that it depended on Brian Cowen whether Lisbon was alive or dead.

* LIE No. 2: Minister Dick Roche was up to this usual spoofery on “Morning Ireland” today when he attacked Patricia McKenna for saying that the French and Dutch Governments stopped further ratifications of the EU Constitution in 2005 after their peoples voted No in their referendums. Minister Roche said that Luxembourg held a referendum on this Treaty after the French and Dutch No and in his usual gentlemanly fashion accused Ms McKenna of “telling lies”. In fact, as the Minister is well aware, the Luxembourg referendum was held shortly after the French and Dutch referendums but BEFORE the French and Dutch Governments decided they would not re-run them, and therefore that they could not ratify the Constitutional Treaty – which led the remaining EU States, including Ireland, to abandon further ratifications at that time.

Messrs Cowen, Martin and Roche are spoofing like this, with their EU confreres helping them, to try to cover up the fact that the Irish Government is urging the nine remaining EU States to continue with their ratifications so as to bring about a 26/1 situation which can then be used to pressurise the Irish people to turn their No into a Yes in a second Lisbon referendum.

It is Messrs Cowen, Martin and Roche who are failing to “respect” the Irish people’s No vote by effectively telling the other EU States not to respect it either, but to continue with their ratifications. Why should the other EU States respect last Thursday’s referendum result when the Irish Government does not respect it, but sets out rather to subvert it, as they decided to do even while the voting tallies were being counted on Friday morning last?

Remember Foreign Minister Martin saying at luncthtime on the day of the count that “of course” the remaining ratifications would continue. Remember Commission President Barroso’s at his press conference held before the count was even finished, following a phone chat with Taoiseach Cowen, saying the same thing.

If Messrs Cowen, Martin and Roche had a scintilla of the political courage and statesmanship of the founder of their Party, they would be telling their EU counterparts that they had no alternative but to open up Lisbon and work out a better Treaty for Ireland, for Europe and for a more democratic EU, instead of the supranational EU Federation, with laws made on a population basis, which is what is on offer in Lisbon.

* LIE NO.3: That the other EU States can go ahead with the Lisbon Treaty provisions under the rules for “enhanced cooperation”. The barrack-room lawyers of the Irish media are speaking here. It is the enhanced cooperation rules of the EU Treaties as amended by the Nice Treaty that currently apply. It is nonsense to suggest that the enhanced cooperation provisions of one Treaty, viz. Nice, can be used to bring into force the far wider provisions of another Treaty, viz. Lisbon.

* NB: The number of EU Commissioners must be decided unanimously.
Under the current Nice Treaty(Protocol on the enlargement of the EU, Article 4), a reduction in the number of Commissioners to fewer than the number of Member States must be decided unanimously in 2009. Under the Lisbon Treaty(Article 17.5 TEU) the number of Commissioners must be reduced by two-thirds from 2014, “unless the European Council, acting unanimously, decides to alter this number.”

At their next summit meeting in October or December the European Council of Prime Ministers and Presidents will make a “European decision” that when it comes to allocating EU Commissioners in 2014 in the post-Lisbon EU, Ireland and all Member States will be permitted to retain a permanent Commissioner, although in practice there may be senior and junior Commissioners. Because both the Nice and Lisbon Treaties lay down that arrangements for the Commission require unanimity, a commitment on these lines can be given without opening Lisbon.

Taoiseach Cowen will present this as a triumph for Irish diplomacy, while his EU colleagues will smile cynically to themselves. Then various Declarations will be given – to meet Irish concerns on company taxation, human rights, neutrality etc. – which will be tagged on to the Lisbon Treaty, but wll not alter a jot or tittle of its contents.

What threats or implicit threats will be needed to go with these promises? The most obvious one is that Irish voters will be told, as they were not told over the past months – that the Lisbon Treaty aims to establish a constitutionally new Federal Union and that the Irish must decide whether they want to be members of this or not, or do they want to keep the present EU as it stands under the Nice Treaty rules.

The other Member States still cannot ratify Lisbon and establish this new Union without Ireland’s agreement. But the hope will be that this mix of promises and implicit threats will suffice to overturn the Irish people’s No in Lisbon One and turn it into a Yes in Lisbon Two.

A peaceable democratic popular revolt in Ireland and across the EU is needed to prevent this happening and to prevent the anti-democratic Lisbon Treaty-cum EU-Constitution being clamped on most of the peoples of our continent.

- Anthony Coughlan

(Secretary)

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Media statement

Friday afternoon, 13 June 2008

Foreign Minister Michael Martin and other Irish Euro-federalists are already planning to subvert the Lisbon Treaty referendum result by urging the other EU States to continue with their ratification process instead of telling them that Ireland cannot ratify the Lisbon Treaty as it stands, and that further ratifications elsewhere are therefore pointless, and the Treaty must be reopened.

EU Treaties must be ratified unanimously. Each country ratifies a Treaty on the assumption that all other countries will do so too. If one country says that it cannot ratify a Treaty as it stands – in Ireland’s case because the Irish people have rejected it – there is no point in the other countries proceeding, and the Irish Government should request them to stop.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen now faces a momentous choice.

Will he align himself with his own people and respect the Irish people’s vote by telling his EU colleagues that Ireland cannot ratify Lisbon as it stands, and therefore there is no point in the remaining States continuing with their ratifications?

Or will be align himself with the other EU States against the Irish people, and urge the former to proceed with their ratifications on the assumption that Ireland will re-run the referendum when everyone else has ratified, as Bertie Ahern did with Nice. For that is the implication of other EU States now proceeding with ratifying the Treaty with the Irish Government’s encouragement.

Mr Bobby McDonagh and the top civil servants in Iveagh House will already be planning a joint response with France and Germany to insist on the ratification process continuing. Foreign Minister Martin’s comments on lunchtime radio today about other countries “of course” continuing with their ratifications, reflects the policy the Iveagh House people will be urging.

The Irish No vote is on a much more substantial turnout than the 35% of Nice One in 2001. The No majority is much stronger. It reflects much wider concern at the way the EU project is going. Representative members of the Irish political class have broken with the predominant uncritical consensus on the Euro-Federalist project – Shane Ross, Declan Ganley, Bruce Arnold, Ben Dunne, Gay Byrne, Ulick McEvaddy, Prof. Ray Kinsella, Gerard Hogan,

This provides Ireland and Europe with an opportunity to take a fundamental look at the EU integration process.

Neither the Irish people nor the peoples of the other EU countries want an EU that is given the constitutional form of a State, as the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Constitiution proposed, even though this issue was not highlighted in the referendum. The peoples of Europe will not tolerate such a fundamental subversion of their national democracy and independence. Even if this federalised EU were to be brought off, it would not be sustainable.

Instead of the “period of reflection” which was supposed to follow the French and Dutch No votes in 2005, and which turned out to be an excuse for repackaging the rejected Constitution in the form of the Lisbon Treaty, Europe now needs a period of consultation – with its own peoples, with citizens everywhere – and not just a matter of Brussels talking to Brussels.

The best course now is to return to the aspirations of the Laeken Declaration, which called for democracy, transparency and closeness to the people. The EU Member States should now go back to the drawing-board, for their own sakes, for Ireland’s sake and for Europe’s.

Fundamental to any new Treaty is Lisbon’s population-based voting system which is not acceoptable to Ireland or to other smaller States, for it represents a power-grab by the Big States. Each State must retain its national Commissioner, a demand that does not require the opening of the Treaty.

Each State must retain the right to decide who its national Commissioner is, instead of that right being altered to a right to make “suggestions” only. Any future new Treaty should contain special Protocols to safeguard Ireland’s position as regards company taxation, public services, fundamental rights or mutual defence commitments. Laws in Brussels should only be made by people who are directly elected to make them, eitherin the European Parliament or National Parliaments. These are fundamental principles of democracy.

Anthony Coughlan
Secretary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgRLs4_1KI0

1. Harmonisation of Corporate Tax;

2. Losing permanent Commissioner, Halving voting strength;

3. The “Blank Cheque” Self-Amending power;

4. Superiority of all EU law over Irish Constitution;

5. Lisbon origin in rejected EU Constitution.

* Where is this all going? Harmonisation of Corporate tax:

Article 2.79 of the Lisbon Treaty would insert a six-word amendment -”and to avoid distorton of competition” – into the Article of the existing European Treaties dealing with harmonising indirect taxes – Article 113.

This would enable the European Court of Justice, which adjudicates on competition matters, to decide that Ireland’s 12.5% rate of company tax, as against Germany’s 30%, is a distortion of competition which breaches the Treaty Articles dealing with the internal market (Art. 26 and Arts.101-9 TFEU) in relation to which qualified majority voting on the Council of Ministers applies.

The Irish Government’s veto under Article 113 would thus be irrelevant.

* Where is this all going? Loss of permanent Commissioner and reduction in voting strength:

- Lisbon removes any Irish voice from the EU Commission, the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws, for five years out of every 15 (Art.17.5 TEU).

- Lisbon abolishes our right to decide who the Irish Commissioner is when it comes to our turn to be on the Commission, replacing it by a right to make “suggestions” only for the Commission President to decide (Art.17.7 TEU).

- Lisbon Treaty would double Germany’s say on the EU Council of Ministers; Ireland’s voting weight would be more than halved to 1% (Art.16 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The self-amending Treaty:

- This could be Ireland’s last referendum on Europe – the EU can acquire new competences without another treaty, like signing a blank cheque.

- Lisbon would permit the EU Prime Ministers to shift most of the remaining EU policy areas where unanimity still exists, to majority voting, without need for new EU Treaties or referendums (Art.48 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The dilution of Bunreacht na hEireann and the superiority of EU law:

EU law is already superior to Irish law. Lisbon would further weaken Irish control by adding more competences and powers to the EU.

- It hands over to the EU the power to make laws binding on us in 32 new policy areas, such as crime, justice and policing, public services, immigration, energy, transport, tourism, sport, culture, public health, the EU budget etc.

- It removes a national veto in 68 areas

- Lisbon will give the EU Court of Justice the power to decide our rights as EU citizens – Ireland’s Supreme Court would no longer have the final say (Art.6 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The Treaty’s origin in the EU Constitution:

- The Lisbon treaty is a repackaged version of the EU Constitution (96% the same). France and the Netherlands both rejected it, people across Europe have felt increasing unease about the EU project.