Lisbon 2: Declaration for No voters?

Kev_ps3

I dont care if they give us a shiney new rolex, I will be voting No again if they have the cheek to ask us again.

IRLConor

Kev_ps3 wrote: »

I dont care if they give us a shiney new rolex, I will be voting No again if they have the cheek to ask us again.

Well (unless I'm mixing you up with someone else) you're a nationalist. The only logical position for you is to vote no to everything to do with the EU and push for us to leave altogether. Nationalism (in the general, rather than Irish sense) is logically opposed to the EU.

marco_polo

nhughes100 wrote: »

To answer the question I can't see Sinn Fein etc coming out and supporting the re-phrased Lisbon treaty. I won't be voting yes no matter what they come out with due to the simple fact that our veto on this has been ignored.

Isn't the fact that you can vote No proof that this is not true. If we vote no again we will still not have ratified the treaty. In any case you don't veto a treaty in the truest sense, you simply refuse to sign up to the terms contained within the treaty.

We're getting all this nonsense that oh we can't have one country holding up the other 26. Really? that's what I thought a veto was. We are now told there's no deadline for the treaty to be passed, we are also told that the Nice treaty passed a few short years ago is crippling the work of the EU, really? Is that why we had two referendums on it?

It was no secret at the time that the Nice treaty was a temporary measure to enable the continued expansion of the EU from 15 to 27 members.

Maybe Lisbon will cripple the EU in a few years too and we'll have to have some more modifications to be put to a "vote"

Why have you put the word vote in inverted commas?

What no political party/lobbyist group/public figure has said is Hold on, maybe this whole idea of further European integration needs to be put on hold and seriously reviewed. It is entirely obvious that if this was put to a referendum vote in other European countries Ireland would not be the only one out of 27 that returned a no vote. So this leads me to agree with several commentators after the referendum that the EU politicians driving further integration are totally out of touch with what the people want.

This line we are sold that whilst all the politicians respect the vote of the Irish people we have to continue on regardless as 26 will not be held up by 1, therefore any assurances of a veto on tax, nuetrality etc cannot be believe in my opinion.

Our vetos are contained in the numerous treaties that we have signed up to already and are the rules of the club we have joined. We are not vetoing the treaty, we are choosing not ratifying the treaty. In effect we are voting against the addition of new rules to the club.

marco_polo

Kev_ps3 wrote: »

I dont care if they give us a shiney new rolex, I will be voting No again if they have the cheek to ask us again.

It is our government that will be asking us again. See the constitution for a description of how the referendum process works.

david_the_great

IRLConor wrote: »

That's been covered in several other threads.

This post by sink has a few good ones. See the rest of that thread for more.

that was a retorical question lol

i have now heard the reasons for voting yes- 2 weeks too late and on boards.ie

where was all this information when the ppl of ireland needed it before the vote and for all to see and choose the correct decision- this is what i mean

sink

david_the_great wrote: »

that was a retorical question lol

i have now heard the reasons for voting yes- 2 weeks too late and on boards.ie

where was all this information when the ppl of ireland needed it before the vote and for all to see and choose the correct decision- this is what i mean

Tell me about it. As a yes voter I was so frustrated by the yes campaign. There were so many people like yourself who just weren't given good information on which to base their decision. This Lisbon treaty failed because of the ineptitude of the political parties not because it was a bad treaty.

marco_polo

david_the_great wrote: »

that was a retorical question lol

i have now heard the reasons for voting yes- 2 weeks too late and on boards.ie

where was all this information when the ppl of ireland needed it before the vote and for all to see and choose the correct decision- this is what i mean

Good point, it wasn't through any lack of effort and debate on this forum. I have an even better understanding of the treaty now than before the vote because of all the debate here in the past few weeks.

The offical yes camapign was very poor in the run up to the referendum.

axer

ixtlan wrote: »

I suspect you are talking about the stability pact where states are compelled to restrict their borrowing to certain limits.

The ERSI are arguing that the government should break EU rules and borrow 11bn next year in a bid to stop the recession. If it is the case that it is in Ireland's best interests to borrow 11bn then does that should that common/integrated everything is not always best for each individual country since each country has different circumstances.

djpbarry

Kev_ps3 wrote: »

I dont care if they give us a shiney new rolex, I will be voting No again if they have the cheek to ask us again.

FIGHT DA POWA!

marco_polo

axer wrote: »

The ERSI are arguing that the government should break EU rules and borrow 11bn next year in a bid to stop the recession. If it is the case that it is in Ireland's best interests to borrow 11bn then does that should that common/integrated everything is not always best for each individual country since each country has different circumstances.

But surely it is a good think to aim to for budgetary restraint as the norm in the long term interests of a country. Those rules are there to ensure the stability of the euro currency, which is also in our interest.

Any deviation from the rules should be taken only when absolutely unavoidable, and in such if the need is justafiable it should be allowed by other Eurozone members (I haven't read the ERSI resoning for this as of yet BTW). This is what Germany did for some years without penalty and are now back in within the allowable deficit range.

Heavy borrowing in the longer term leads to crippling national debt and is a road that should be avoided at all costs.

nhughes100

Isn't the fact that you can vote No proof that this is not true. If we vote no again we will still not have ratified the treaty. In any case you don't veto a treaty in the truest sense, you simply refuse to sign up to the terms contained within the treaty.

So when is a veto not a veto? It is quite clear that the Lisbon treaty cannot be ratified unless by all 27 states yet representatives of the EU are saying that it could go ahead with 26. So when will this end? Maybe 25 will go ahead with lowering the corperation tax rate, maybe 20 will go to war, maybe some of them will choose to have a single currency - oh that's already happened. Welcome to the multi-speed EU.
It was no secret at the time that the Nice treaty was a temporary measure to enable the continued expansion of the EU from 15 to 27 members.

Classic horse before the cart mis-management for a photo shoot. And you want to give these peope more power?
Why have you put the word vote in inverted commas?

Because we'll have to have another "vote" till we get the answer right.(clue, the correct answer is yes)
Our vetos are contained in the numerous treaties that we have signed up to already and are the rules of the club we have joined. We are not vetoing the treaty, we are choosing not ratifying the treaty. In effect we are voting against the addition of new rules to the club.[/quote]

Again they have ignored the most sacresanct of vetos from the Irish people so what makes you think they are going to respect any other vetos?

marco_polo

nhughes100 wrote: »

So when is a veto not a veto? It is quite clear that the Lisbon treaty cannot be ratified unless by all 27 states yet representatives of the EU are saying that it could go ahead with 26. So when will this end? Maybe 25 will go ahead with lowering the corperation tax rate, maybe 20 will go to war, maybe some of them will choose to have a single currency - oh that's already happened. Welcome to the multi-speed EU.

When its not a veto perhaps.

If something goes ahead with 26 states it will likely not be the Lisbon treaty, what would give us the power to 'veto' a different treaty that we are not involved in?

Also state may do whatever it likes with its own corporation tax rates including coming to agreements with groups of other nations under enhanced cooperation as things currently stand. Some parts of EU policy like the euro have opt outs, I don't see how that is such a bad thing.

Classic horse before the cart mis-management for a photo shoot. And you want to give these peope more power?

Sounds like your only problem with the Lisbon Treaty is that it was too late?

Because we'll have to have another "vote" till we get the answer right.(clue, the correct answer is yes)

Do you honestly think we will get asked a third time?

Again they have ignored the most sacresanct of vetos from the Irish people so what makes you think they are going to respect any other vetos?

Have we somehow we signed up for the treaty already? If not then it seems our vote stands.

molloyjh

Kev_ps3 wrote: »

I dont care if they give us a shiney new rolex, I will be voting No again if they have the cheek to ask us again.

Yes how dare we be asked! I demand we be told! At least then I can have my outrage....

molloyjh

david_the_great wrote: »

that was a retorical question lol

i have now heard the reasons for voting yes- 2 weeks too late and on boards.ie

where was all this information when the ppl of ireland needed it before the vote and for all to see and choose the correct decision- this is what i mean

I got most of mine from lisbontreaty2008.ie and boards.ie - going through posts & sources etc. And I got all of that well in advance of the vote.

However I'm with sink. The Yes campaign was a load of horse poo and Cowen and co have noone to blame but themselves for the position they are now in. The No campaign (while full of BS) was run very well and the Yes campaign had no idea how to tackle it. It just proved (to me anyway) that our politicians are toally out of touch with the people.

molloyjh

nhughes100 wrote: »

So when is a veto not a veto? It is quite clear that the Lisbon treaty cannot be ratified unless by all 27 states yet representatives of the EU are saying that it could go ahead with 26.[/quote]

Well as far as treaties go the idea of a veto is somewhat misguided. If we choose not to ratify the treaty we can just remove our signatures from it - we have already signed the treaty but not ratified it - and have any references to ourselves removed. That would be how the other member states can go ahead without us. Its a perfectly normal and reasonable way forward for the rest of them as thats how treaties work.

nhughes100

marco_polo wrote: »

When its not a veto perhaps.

If something goes ahead with 26 states it will likely not be the Lisbon treaty, what would give us the power to 'veto' a different treaty that we are not involved in?

So we have an opt out not a veto. Several prominent EU reps have stated that this(Lisbon) is going ahead for the EU with out without Ireland.

Also state may do whatever it likes with its own corporation tax rates including coming to agreements with groups of other nations under enhanced cooperation as things currently stand. Some parts of EU policy like the euro have opt outs, I don't see how that is such a bad thing.

Nor do I see opt outs as bad things but at least call them that, not vetos.


Sounds like your only problem with the Lisbon Treaty is that it was too late?

No that was one of my problems with the Lisbon treaty and the EU in general.

Do you honestly think we will get asked a third time?

Yes of course we'll be asked again if the 2nd vote is no but it will most likely be a yes since we'll be told we'll have to leave the EU if we don't signup. I love the way we are all taking a second vote as being par for the course already!
Have we somehow we signed up for the treaty already? If not then it seems our vote stands.

Our vote stands yet the other 26 will go ahead with the Lisbon treaty. Therefore our vote has effectively been ignored.

sink

nhughes100 wrote: »

Our vote stands yet the other 26 will go ahead with the Lisbon treaty. Therefore our vote has effectively been ignored.

Well if we're not involved it means our vote was respected. We can't control what other countries do much like they can't control what we do without specific agreements. They never agreed to not co-operate if we don't want them to, nor should they.

marco_polo

nhughes100 wrote: »

Our vote stands yet the other 26 will go ahead with the Lisbon treaty. Therefore our vote has effectively been ignored.

We could be asked to remove our signature or perhaps they will draw up an identical treaty and leave us out of it. Either way our vote is very much respected.

molloyjh

nhughes100 wrote: »

Our vote stands yet the other 26 will go ahead with the Lisbon treaty. Therefore our vote has effectively been ignored.

Our vote would be respected in that case as we stated that we didn't want it so we didn't get it. We let everyone else make up their own mind.

nhughes100

Then explain the statement that Lisbon cannot come into effect until all 27 member states have ratified the treaty.

sink

nhughes100 wrote: »

Then explain the statement that Lisbon cannot come into effect until all 27 member states have ratified the treaty.

Lisbon can not come into effect because Lisbon is an agreement between 27 countries and requires 27 countries to ratify it. There is nothing stopping 26 countries taking the same document putting a different cover on it with 26 signatures and calling the Berlin treaty, that would only require 26 countries to ratify and there is not a damn thing we could do about it.

marco_polo

nhughes100 wrote: »

Then explain the statement that Lisbon cannot come into effect until all 27 member states have ratified the treaty.

This means that unless 27 countries ratify the treaty then the treaty cannot legally come into effect.

There is nothing to stop either a country withdrawing its signature from a treaty (see the US and the Kyoto Agreement for a pertinant recent example) or a different treaty being negotiated (cover change) by a subset of those countries in the future.

SkepticOne

sink wrote: »

Lisbon can not come into effect because Lisbon is an agreement between 27 countries and requires 27 countries to ratify it. There is nothing stopping 26 countries taking the same document putting a different cover on it with 26 signatures and calling the Berlin treaty, that would only require 26 countries to ratify and there is not a damn thing we could do about it.

A recent Economist article argued against this fairly well I thought:

It is not something like the single currency, or the Schengen passport-free zone, which some countries can opt out of. It is a set of changes to the rule-book for all members. It creates a full-time president to represent EU governments and a single foreign-policy chief to speak for Europe. It sweeps away national vetoes in areas such as cross-border policing and immigration. It changes members' voting weights. And it hands the European Parliament a raft of new powers.

djpbarry

molloyjh wrote: »

I got most of mine from lisbontreaty2008.ie and boards.ie - going through posts & sources etc. And I got all of that well in advance of the vote.
...
The Yes campaign was a load of horse poo and Cowen and co have noone to blame but themselves for the position they are now in.

Am I the only person who thinks that, while the 'Yes' campaign was poor, people have to take some responsibility and inform themselves? There was no shortage of notices from the Referendum Commission; TV ads, billboards, leaflets posted to homes. All that was required for people to do was read the leaflet, visit the website, etc. Plenty of other sources out there too if further information was required, e.g. newspaper columns and supplements, discussion forums (boards.ie), TV programmes (Prime Time, Questions & Answers). I just don't buy the whole "the government isn't providing me with enough info" attitude.

nhughes100 wrote: »

Our vote stands yet the other 26 will go ahead with the Lisbon treaty. Therefore our vote has effectively been ignored.

You know, it doesn’t matter how many times you repeat this; it's still not true.

sink

SkepticOne wrote: »

A recent Economist article argued against this fairly well I thought:

It's more of a point of view than a true argument. While all that it says is correct there is nothing stopping the 26 other countries just excluding us from the new structures. We could still attend the old structures under Nice but there would be no-one else sitting and to do so would be pointless. We would kind of in a twilight zone were we're the only ones still partaking in the old EU structures. We would be in legal limbo would it would not be illegal for the other countries to put us there.

SkepticOne

sink wrote: »

It's more of a point of view than a true argument. While all that it says is correct there is nothing stopping the 26 other countries just excluding us from the new structures. We could still attend the old structures under Nice but there would be no-one else sitting and to do so would be pointless. We would kind of in a twilight zone were we're the only ones still partaking in the old EU structures. We would be in legal limbo would it would not be illegal for the other countries to put us there.

What you are proposing would split the EU since even lip-service would no longer be paid to the principle of unanimity. Any small country would then know that if they wanted to participate they would have to sign-up and ratify whatever treaties happened to be on the table. Sign up, ratify or get out. It would no longer be the EU, even in name and would no longer be recognised as such.

nhughes100

djpbarry wrote: »

Am I the only person who thinks that, while the 'Yes' campaign was poor, people have to take some responsibility and inform themselves? There was no shortage of notices from the Referendum Commission; TV ads, billboards, leaflets posted to homes. All that was required for people to do was read the leaflet, visit the website, etc. Plenty of other sources out there too if further information was required, e.g. newspaper columns and supplements, discussion forums (boards.ie), TV programmes (Prime Time, Questions & Answers). I just don't buy the whole "the government isn't providing me with enough info" attitude.

I hope you're sitting down DJP but I actually agree with you, the yes campaign was rubbish, they shot themselves in the foot several times, they thought the party machine would be enough to carry it, it was presumptous in the extreme and totally out of touch with the people. It didn't help when Cowan and McCreevey admitted to not reading it. They left themselves very open to an effective campaign by the no side

You know, it doesn’t matter how many times you repeat this; it's still not true.

Tell me it isn't true when they go ahead without us.

sink

SkepticOne wrote: »

What you are proposing would split the EU since even lip-service would no longer be paid to the principle of unanimity. Any small country would then know that if they wanted to participate they would have to sign-up and ratify whatever treaties happened to be on the table. Sign up, ratify or get out. It would no longer be the EU, even in name and would no longer be recognised as such.

It's a bit different because we basically got everything we asked for at the negotiating stage and the EU is perplex as to why we voted no. Unless Cowen can come up with good solid reasons the other EU countries will take it that we were just giving them the finger. At that stage all 26 countries could be united against us so forcing this situation to come about will not be seen as the large countries forcing it on smaller countries.

SkepticOne

sink wrote: »

It's a bit different because we basically got everything we asked for at the negotiating stage and the EU is perplex as to why we voted no. Unless Cowen can come up with good solid reasons the other EU countries will take it that we were just giving them the finger. At that stage all 26 countries could be united against us so forcing this situation to come about will not be seen as the large countries forcing it on smaller countries.

This depends on the extent to which the treaties are drafted by all countries equally or whether some countries dominate in the drafting and other countries go along and later negotiate concessions. I'm not sure Cowen is up to the job, but I would be encouraging other countries (mainly small peripheral ones) to stand with Ireland because, should what you suggest happen, the nature of their relationship with what I will call the Core EU will change unfavourably.

oscarBravo

nhughes100, please learn to use the quote function properly.

SkepticOne wrote: »

This depends on the extent to which the treaties are drafted by all countries equally or whether some countries dominate in the drafting and other countries go along and later negotiate concessions.

As I understand it, Ireland was one of the countries that dominated the drafting process.