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What if we voted no to Lisbon again?
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molloyjh wrote:If, as you say and as I believe to be true, the electorate are incapable of playing their role in democracy in the way that they should and are wholly incapable of asking themselves the important questions, and/or taking the time to give them the thought they deserve, why is it that some of us are? What is it about society as a whole that is so much more different to you or I (or many others here on boards) who bother to think these things through?
I don't know what it is about the society that makes intelligent people like yourself and myself so exceptional. Maybe the internet has shortened people's attention spans?0 -
The internet?
Broadband penetration rate in this country is low so I doubt we can blame internet.
And for those on Dial-up? Sure they must have great patience.0 -
RedPlanet wrote:The internet?
Broadband penetration rate in this country is low so I doubt we can blame internet.
And for those on Dial-up? Sure they must have great patience.
Why do you think people like yourself and myself and molloyjh are so exceptional then? Why are we in the minority rather than the majority? Is it the education system?0 -
I don't know what it is about the society that makes intelligent people like yourself and myself so exceptional. Maybe the internet has shortened people's attention spans?
I get the impression that this is meant as a sarcastic jibe at molloyjh, but coming from someone who recently quoted the Libertas website to back up one of your arguments, it's much more ironic than sarcastic.0 -
No i don't think it's the education system.Why do you think people like yourself and myself and molloyjh are so exceptional then? Why are we in the minority rather than the majority? Is it the education system?
It's more likely, the parents.
I put it down to extroversion and conformism.0 -
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FionnMatthew wrote: »I'm just going to throw it out there. I'm aware it will be probably interpreted as a rant. But I'm trying to put my finger on something here, the which explanatory work can probably only end up sounding radical. So humour me.
Earlier on, Scofflaw compared the offer of Lisbon to the offer of an improved health insurance plan, the likes of which no sane person would want to turn down, assuming that they lived in a society similar to our own.
The moral of that short drama was that the only possible reason that our belligerent hero might turn down the salesman (and hence, act against his own interest) was out of ignorance, and a cocktail of other irrational sentiments, such as a misplaced suspicion of official language, etc. which, I'd think I agree, bears some resemblance to the powerfully incompetent Irish electorate (although, read on for conjecture on where the powerful incompetence of the Irish electorate comes from).
I just wonder whether the allegory is appropriate. I wonder whether Lisbon really is comparable to an improved insurance policy which, despite some compromises, represents a net increase in utility. It seems to be assumed that staying within the EU is completely desirable, because that's the only way to continue on a path that Ireland ought to continue (ie. prosperity, etc.) and that a persistent problem among the NO party is the refusal to acknowledge that continued Irish prosperity and unconditional EU membership must stand or fall together.
I'm not for a moment trying to suggest that they don't come together. But I wonder whether continued prosperity, along the path that we have been following, the large part of which we owe to EU membership, is really as desirable as it is assumed it is.
I don't know, but I for one have been watching the recent and continuing financial disaster with a fair amount of satisfaction. It is like watching the vindication of my deep seated misgivings about the world I have found myself living within. Rampant, short-sighted financial capitalism, I now learn, must expect periods of disaster like the one we're going through. They are periodic. Governments have been equally short sighted, and come in for much criticism in that regard, or in fact... is it that the landscape is so fiendishly complex a system that the level of freedom any government might have had to stave off what's now happening is indeterminately small? That it's more a matter of Russian Roulette than any game of skill. And when I look at the people elected to government in most representative democracies, I can't help but feel there is a grain of truth to that.
And it seems to me that wherever I care to look in detail within the organisational structures of the Irish state, most of our vaunted prosperity has been just utterly utterly wasted. It's unconscionable. The billions wasted in arbitrary restructuring of health boards that have become more of a hindrance on the ground than the overburdened antecedent systems. The millions in government funding to universities that have been squandered on swelled administration, whole fleets of human resources management that only impedes educational purposes, and corporate-style PR campaigns to give the appearance that an improvement has been made.
The superexpansion of wasteful bureaucracy. The vast amounts of money sunk into infrastructure in the Dublin area which has only seen driving within the city become completely untenable, public transport become more complex, user-unfriendly, wasteful and expensive than it was 30 years ago, while the organisations in control of our public transport assets remain immune to transparency or accountability, closing ranks with their workers to defend a regime of inefficiency and wasteful laziness. The stupid amount of money spent on frivolities.
The wasteful chatter of local government, where commissioned reports and planning proposals soak up millions (millions!) of euro without any eventual enactment, while career politicians surreptitiously support the encroachment of corporate interest at the expense of their constituents in anticipation of goodwill benefits. The lavish splendour of environmental, architectural, gastronomical and otherwise perks enjoyed by our elected officials, not excluding the regime of high salaries, all-inclusive expense allowances (e.g. cosmetic beautification of media conscious government leaders is not, and never ever will be, a valid expenditure) and the liberal improvements made to the grounds of the seat of government. The inexplicably random, ad hoc public works, that has led to continuous road modification and construction without an apparent shred of logical & prescient systematization, such that our expensive roads and streets still undergo disruptive keyhole surgery, which still does not alleviate the infrastructure crunch in gas, electricity, broadband, water, sewage and television.
Everywhere I look, I see institutionalized, trained, intransigent incompetence. It seems to me one of the most objectionable facts about our recent wealth that we have been thereby disposed to waste more money than we ever have before. It's just criminal. In fact, it may be literally criminal, since corruption and mismanagement of funds seem to have revealed itself across the board, from the government to the financial sector to the planning sector, the world over.
What are the advantages? I have seen, during my conscious political life, an education system I was only just learning to understand was in fact valuable and vital to the intellectual wellbeing of this state substantially disimproved, and hamstrung. Institutional PR proclaims that we have become more "competitive" on the world stage. In fact, quite the opposite is true. I have seen a staggering public health scheme and medical establishment based, admirably, on good social principles worsen and worsen because of, well, a rainbow of problems: hesitance, indecision, incompetence, bureaucracy, ignorance, denial, careerist political pragmatism and bull-headed libertarianism.
I've watched the cultural blight of other English speaking countries: celebrity culture, cronyism and cretinism, populist ignorance and commercial interest-driven tabloid demagoguery, all take hold as the natural outgrowth of unchecked and directionless consumerist boredom. The ancient heritage and natural environment of this body of land have been left to fend for themselves.
What are the benefits? I don't see them. We are richer... so we can buy DVD boxsets at Christmas, and feed our children too much, spend far more on houses than anything is ever worth and contribute, cumulatively, every Friday and Saturday night, to the public health crisis that will arise when the abusive, and yet socially acceptable drinking habits of a spiritually impoverished Irish population with two much disposable income starts to manifest as diseased organs down the line.
We are entitled to squander our gains on consumer diversions, and let our collective civic and intellectual faculties atrophy, and read broadsheet newspapers that are now no better or truthworthy than the tabloids, and grow so fat and ignorant that our appreciation of the civic and political institutions that have given us all of this boisterously wasteful and complacent wealth rises not an inch over simplistic and obfuscatory sloganism. Collectively, it is far more attractive for us to make believe, to spin a more exciting story about what's going on out there in the real world (which means no more than the world outside of Sky Sports), so we get all puffed up about "neutrality" and "commissioners" and self-righteously believe ourselves to be fighting the good fight against some "elitist" common enemy in Europe when we march out to vote on a document none of us has ever even looked at.
This powerful collective stupidity rationalizes hypocrisy... it's ok to vote blind on a treaty that nobody's ever read. It's ok to get involved in democratic processes without really understanding them, because it's "our right." It's ok not to understand the discourse on rights, or how to use them, or what the duties incumbent on their uses are, because, hey! they're rights! And they're ours. That must be good, right?
We feel alright about this because cretinism as regards civic duty and political process is the norm. Everyone grows up hearing other people ignorantly spout about "the people" and "the government" and so on. And so everyone starts their political reasoning in a bubble of conventional wisdom, which isn't, as it turns out, worth spit. But that's what drives our political order. That's the hot air that lifts the balloon of populist democracy in this country. That's the supposedly rational electorate.
The people we put in charge of this country are given a mandate by mass behaviour trends under the influence of bullshít. It's refined bullshít, too. It's so far from being not-bullshít you could fertilize "the desert of the real" with it. And in fact that's what happens. So, we happily gobble our own bullshít up in daily newspaper-sized portions.
I think consumerism putatively funds the cretinization of the electorate. Not to say that the Irish electorate was ever in particularly fine shape, but it certainly doesn't help when, in the absence of anything else, the prime goal of our lives is to amass wealth that we can then spend on commodities. We are supposed to want commodities. We are supposed to cultivate an urbane interest in the diseased "entertainment" products that pass for culture, or develop a disinterested aesthetic need for a different car every year. Our desire for these commodities is seen as a necessary impetus for the economy. If we don't spend, the economy flaccidifies. So now we're buying this shít so that the economy doesn't droop. But the economy supposedly is good because it justifies our wealth, and our wealth, in this social order, is perceived as good because it enables us to buy Nintendo Wii's and Dutch Gold and Dunnes Stores Home Store products and sex toys and Mercedes and carpets. And meanwhile, we're so exhausted by the effort of maintaining employment towards these ends, (three hour commute anyone?) and so diverted by the use of such frivolities, that we relinquish any chance of being the informed credible collective body that democracy demands we be in order for it to work properly. It's ok to get all hot and bothered over the nebulous possibility that the Lisbon treaty will make us all have to have abortions (or, for a different electorate, that the first credible black presidential candidate is, in fact, a gay-loving, communist, Islamo-fascist, terrorist, Hitlerite, non-national, white eyed devil, or alternatively, a Messiah figure!). That's ok, because who has time to actually read about these things, or think about them? Reading is for the Sports section, or the odd foreign language film, and thinking is for lawyers and philosophers. Politics should be easy, simple, and consumable in ten second soundbites! Anything else is undemocratic.
This Western democracy is asleep. In fact, that's what financial capitalist Western democracy has come to represent to me. A citizenry asleep, dreaming dreams of Blu-Ray and faux-scientific detox schemes, and the Telegraph and Paris Hilton and diverting political fictions like nationalism and liberalism, and almost veritably annoyed when it is shaken for an opinion on something important, surfacing only enough to mumble a vindictive opinion, half-based on indignation, and half on the content of its dreams, that is passed into law before it nods off again. And all around a sleeping beast called reality which shows every sign of waking up every few decades, and when it does, rips everything to shreds: the preface to everyone else's rude awakening.
I am sure a clamour of voices will say, "sure, but maybe you should go live in a 3rd world country, then." But that's sort of close to the bone, really isn't it? Because our membership of the in-crowd, which in guaranteeing our fiscal advantages entitles us to our 30gb of iTunes downloads a month, and our subscriptions to Rolling Stone and Playboy, and a surplus of luxury processed materials that don't deserve, scientifically speaking, the name of "food," is precisely an international world order which, driven by the sort of egoism that is sacred in our most hallowed economic philosophies, monopolizes resources, exploits foreign markets, mobilizes national governments and military to interfere and destabilize foreign governments in service of national interests, passes into international law restrictive intellectual property regimes that work directly against the free exchange of information, and stand in the way of the proper administration of key problems in third world countries, and generally perpetuates, alongside the defeatist, mock-apologetic hand-wringing of world leaders, the phenomenon of "the third world."
All the while we appreciate our putatively stolen wealth by flushing it down the toilet. It is possible, in this country, to be seriously annoyed at someone else because there is a dispute about whether we'll watch HOUSE MD or BSG tonight. What sort of conditions have to be present for that sort of ludicrously marginal concern to seem important? In what sort of diseased stupor do we spend our lives, that we could waste calories of precious energy being annoyed about something so utterly irrelevant? No. "Go to live in a third world country" isn't really a valid riposte. The third world isn't the alternative to our way of life. It's, in no small part, the outcome, the side effect, the effluent.
And this is the status quo that we ought to be preserving by voting YES, and weathering this economic storm, so that we can carry on as before? This is a contemptible status quo. Since I became old enough to think, I've felt that there was something contemptible about the society I live in. This was initially a disembodied anxiety, and a resentment that simple things, like bus timetables and college administrations, didn't work properly, and that getting educated to get a job to get money, although the default life-trajectory, didn't seem particularly pleasing a prospect.
Education brought the joy of learning for its own sake, and the joy of finding out that the idealisms that underpin the political order of our time are not corrupt, are not bankrupt... that they represent respectable and admirable ways of conceiving the world, and trying to shape it. But it also brought with it the sad realization that few people really understand this, and that most of society is patently ignorant of how democracy is supposed to work, and happy and intransigent in that ignorance too. I discovered the possibility that I was not, in my earlier teenage resentment, just some crank who doesn't like the way things are... the possibility, reinforced by respectable streams of thought, that our society is, in fact, just rotten, just broken and contemptible.
It allowed me to understand (but not appreciate) the inarticulate rage that comes out of the East to us, lethally throwing itself, without much effect, on the symbolic centres of our social order, and in the process bringing about a despicable loss of life. And to understand (but again, not appreciate) the restless, destructive decadence that sanctioned with equivocity, in our public spheres, random and senseless disproportionate wars in other parts of the world: the equivalent of Robocop, in the grip of mid-life angst, getting drunk and picking random, meaningless, and yet alarmingly decisive fights with strangers.
And here goes. It makes me despise it all. My political sympathies, when they are called for, are expressible neither in the inchoate concepts of "left" nor "right." I don't care much for the any socialism that could foster itself in such relative comfort as we have... we're not entitled to any sense of moral stature that way. Equally, the gritty realism of liberal and libertarian strands of political thought are unpalatable, since they start from premises I consider already misguided. I am not partial to the gestural commitment to international aid, since any effort that might be sanctioned in our climate is no more than an appeasement of our scant public conscience. Democracy, as practiced, isn't worth the paper its elections soon enough won't be conducted upon. I'm not partial to decision making in the interests of the state, because the state comes from the now forgotten procedural unity of the people, and the people behave as a spoiled child, incapable in their complacent ignorance of even understanding their political surroundings enough to collectively prolong their fiscal good fortune, the enjoyment of which has afforded them the luxury to become so lazy and ignorant in the first place.
Seems to me like the NO in the last referendum was a consequence of the "fortune" that Ireland has found itself with over the last few years, (not that the YES campaign, by and large, was any less ignorant, or fought any more substantially with reference to the actual treaty) and it seems like if we're collectively ignorant enough to vote ourselves out of what most people regard to be a good thing, then we don't deserve that good thing. Why would I take a side in a sideshow such as the last referendum? While its issue was, indeed, political, the national experience of it was mostly nothing to do with real world politics. Involving myself in it would have made me either a party to the partisan hysteria on either side, or (because I did actually read it) a civilly responsible drop in civilly irresponsible waters. So I abstained, while still being pretty well informed about the treaty, and having a good idea of how I would have voted if the hope of a rational decision on it through public referendum wasn't a lost cause. This seemed to me more politically significant, more decisive, more responsible, than listening to Declan Ganley, or Charlie McCreevy, getting belligerent in the pub, and then voting on blind principles or intuition. So, I don't find there is an outlet within the political sphere for my political sympathies. Whenever I enter the political sphere, my foremost sentiment is alienation.
No... I think I hate the whole damn thing. In full consideration, over a life of trying to get some perspective on all of this, some inside wisdom, the most consistent and rational political sentiment I can muster to expression is antipathy to the whole project. Over the past decade, I have lived in this society, all the while despairing in the belief that nothing would ever, could ever, challenge its inertia. And lately I've realised I was wrong, and that the biggest challenge to the current world order is itself, is its own lamentable lack of foresight, scruples and rational direction.
So I'm watching the world order undergo a momentary falter, and I'm cheering it on, and I'm hoping it's more than everyone else hopes it is, and secretly relishing the prospect that the whole contemptible mess would, quivering and rupturing from its centre out, shake itself to bits. Maybe then, we'd have to do some sober thinking about where all of this is headed, and why our present world order is unsustainable, untenable. I think that's important. It seems to me that there's a much bigger sleeping beast, this time named "long term reality," representing a maxed-out world population in 2060, rising sea-levels from melting polar regions causing mass migration from populous coastal urban centres , and a collapsing ecosystem, energy shortages, food scarcity, and the information feudalism that follows from the intellectual enclosure movement that currently enjoys support in the world courts, etc etc etc.
So, and while I may have already expressed myself colourfully, I hope to express this as cordially as possible, and in a fashion as contributory to dialogue likewise, when I hear arguments to the effect that being a signatory to the Lisbon Treaty is "necessary" to perpetuate "progress," to prolong a status quo, or to prevent things from deteriorating, while I tend to think that to the extent that one might want these things this is true, I can't but feel that these vaunted goals are of equivocal merit. I'm really not sure I want "progress," the maintenance of the status quo, or to protect things from going to hell, the current order, in which the Irish electorate participated so arbitrarily in the Lisbon Treaty Referendum, being of so little pleasantness to me. I'm not for a moment suggesting that this is the reasoning behind the NO verdict last year. More is the pity. (Then we'd have a rare thing: an electorate worthy of democracy.) And I tend, in my assessment of the treaty to agree with the more informed posters here who have tended towards a YES. But I'm just not sure that, politically speaking, I want the same things, and the urgency of the present situation, in which we are presented, in that UCD document, with four supposedly undesirable possibilities, just doesn't seem to me particularly intoxicating.
yours in dialogue,
Fionn.
Did he just call us all tossers?
Good post all the same. Says a lot about the way things are.If, as you say and as I believe to be true, the electorate are incapable of playing their role in democracy in the way that they should and are wholly incapable of asking themselves the important questions, and/or taking the time to give them the thought they deserve, why is it that some of us are?
I hope to fnck Molloy was taking the p1ss when he posted that.0 -
FionnMatthew wrote:So, and while I may have already expressed myself colourfully, I hope to express this as cordially as possible, and in a fashion as contributory to dialogue likewise, when I hear arguments to the effect that being a signatory to the Lisbon Treaty is "necessary" to perpetuate "progress," to prolong a status quo, or to prevent things from deteriorating, while I tend to think that to the extent that one might want these things this is true, I can't but feel that these vaunted goals are of equivocal merit. I'm really not sure I want "progress," the maintenance of the status quo, or to protect things from going to hell, the current order, in which the Irish electorate participated so arbitrarily in the Lisbon Treaty Referendum, being of so little pleasantness to me. I'm not for a moment suggesting that this is the reasoning behind the NO verdict last year. More is the pity. (Then we'd have a rare thing: an electorate worthy of democracy.) And I tend, in my assessment of the treaty to agree with the more informed posters here who have tended towards a YES. But I'm just not sure that, politically speaking, I want the same things, and the urgency of the present situation, in which we are presented, in that UCD document, with four supposedly undesirable possibilities, just doesn't seem to me particularly intoxicating.
I've given your post a fair amount of thought - how could I not? I can't argue with most of it at all - indeed, it expresses very well much of my own feelings on the current state of political life. Historically, though, an interested and far-sighted electorate has always been something of an exception rather than the rule. If you think about it, the political apathy of the majority is the reason why other systems than democracy exist at all.
Further, if I were to date the apathetic cynicism you identify in Irish political life, I would put it as largely a phenomenon of the Celtic Tiger. There was a good deal of hope around (even amidst the corruption) when the Rainbow government of 94-97 came in, and there was a good deal of optimism and pride in the growing prosperity of the years up to 2000 - and I think it was justified, because that was real growth, and very welcome. Since then we've had the Bush/Greenspan bubble in the world economy, and the property bubble here - eight years of increasingly abstract "progress" that added virtually nothing tangible or valuable to the country. We were mainlining paper wealth with all the miserable selfishness of junkies, and the come-down is going to be painful.
Anyway, that's essentially a domestic issue, even if it's a domestic issue we have in common with much of the developed world.
What you've raised is, I suppose, a sort of existential issue with the EU - does it exist only to perpetuate the comfort of an apathetic European electorate? Is Lisbon simply intended to keep the status quo in place, and avoid hard questions about where we should be going, as opposed to where we seem to be drifting?
The first question is easy. The purpose of the EU certainly isn't solely to provide an easy life for the "European consumer". The debate, in Ireland, tends to focus on an extremely venal level - what's in it for us, how much are we getting? Attempts by the EU to highlight fifty years of peace on a continent previously almost perpetually at war, the possibilities offered by pan-European cooperation in fields from the sciences to the arts, the advantages of political consensus on pan-European and global issues tend to be met here with the whole gamut of scepticism from friendly dismissiveness to rabid paranoia.
These are the stated intentions of the EU:DRAWING INSPIRATION from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law,
RECALLING the historic importance of the ending of the division of the European continent and the need to create firm bases for the construction of the future Europe,
CONFIRMING their attachment to the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and of the rule of law,
CONFIRMING their attachment to fundamental social rights as defined in the European Social Charter signed at Turin on 18 October 1961 and in the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers,
DESIRING to deepen the solidarity between their peoples while respecting their history, their culture and their traditions,
DESIRING to enhance further the democratic and efficient functioning of the institutions so as to enable them better to carry out, within a single institutional framework, the tasks entrusted to them,
RESOLVED to achieve the strengthening and the convergence of their economies and to establish an economic and monetary union including, in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty and of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, a single and stable currency,
DETERMINED to promote economic and social progress for their peoples, taking into account the principle of sustainable development and within the context of the accomplishment of the internal market and of reinforced cohesion and environmental protection, and to implement policies ensuring that advances in economic integration are accompanied by parallel progress in other fields,
RESOLVED to establish a citizenship common to nationals of their countries,
RESOLVED to implement a common foreign and security policy including the progressive framing of a common defence policy, which might lead to a common defence in accordance with the provisions of Article 42, thereby reinforcing the European identity and its independence in order to promote peace, security and progress in Europe and in the world,
RESOLVED to facilitate the free movement of persons, while ensuring the safety and security of their peoples, by establishing an area of freedom, security and justice, in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty and of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,
RESOLVED to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity,
There's a lot covered by some of those short phrases. Europe has an incredibly rich and diverse set of traditions in everything from social policies to arts and science. Fifty, sixty years ago these were entirely alien to each other, and even now we have barely begun to scratch the surface of the possible cross-fertilisation. In science, it is possible for an academic to beaver away for years without any inkling that the research she is doing has already been done at a German university, and the resulting material published in a German journal.
I have no interest in losing the diversity that Europe represents, but the sheer duplication of effort, the search for solutions to problems long-solved elsewhere, the ignorance of best practice because it is best practice in another country, those I am interested in losing, certainly. I would like to see what can be achieved if European efforts run in parallel, not at random. I would be just as happy in most senses to see it happening elsewhere - Africa, the Middle East, wherever - but I'm glad we're doing it here, not out of Eurocentrism, but because this is where I happen to live. I think the idea of going forward cooperatively rather than competitively is immensely positive, and I'm glad to be part of it.
I am interested in the cross-fertilisation of cultural traditions, of social policy, of planning and civic life. We are, in Ireland, extremely weak in all of those areas - our cultural traditions consist largely of ostracism, our social policy of ghettoisation, our planning subservient to political strokery, and our civic life virtually non-existent. I'll be hammered for saying that, I daresay, but we have a lot to learn, and Europe, not the US, is the place to learn it.
I am also interested in peace and cooperation, not war and competition. We have seen what a Europe of competing nation states is like - it's a path littered with burning cities and hundreds of millions of corpses. Even at best it is a path that requires the suppression of minorities, the reduction of peripheries, subservient to the goal of national strength and unity, the better to be fighting fit for the international ring.
I'm interested to see what Europe can achieve on the world stage. It's the world's largest democratic polity, and it has a strong commitment to values and goals I consider very worthwhile - the elimination of the death penalty, democracy, human rights. It has an enormous amount of soft power - which is to say it gets its way by trade and aid, not military force - and that's a good thing in itself. Of course there are the national interests of the member states, but they would exist even more strongly in the absence of the EU.
Then there is the material prosperity that is, to some degree, at the root of the problems you have identified - and which, for many people, seems to be the sole purpose of the EU. There's nothing wrong with material prosperity. Indeed, there's nothing wrong with ever-increasing material prosperity, as long as it's sustainable - it is all that many desire from the politicians and powers, to live their lives in decent prosperity and freedom from fear. And there's nothing wrong with that either - people do have the right to be disengaged, even if they don't have the moral right to exercise their franchise at random through ignorance.
Yes, we have, over recent decades, and in the grip of post-Thatcherist individualist ideologies, sought individual wealth at the expense both of the public good and of the planet. And yes, we are in for a rude shock - both individually and collectively, we have been living beyond our means, and must now learn to live not only within our means, but to pay off the accumulated burden of the reckless years, rather than pass it on with interest to our children. Yes, we will have to be a lot cleverer about how we are prosperous, we will have to work together, and we will have to solve problems together, because they are the kind of problems that are planetary and/or systemic in scope.
There is a political point to Europe, and it's one that I subscribe to. Not the "federal superstate" of eurosceptic myth - I won't even bother to argue the point here - but a deepening cooperation between different cultures in a way that respects the differences of those cultures, that is based on democracy, on rights, and on law, that provides institutions of cooperation that allows us to more effectively solve problems jointly. The EU provides that, and Lisbon improves it. And we undoubtedly need it - not to solve our own narrow national problems, but to play our part in solving larger problems, because the problems that are visibly coming down the pipe are extremely serious challenges to civilisation as we know it. Sure, civilisation as we know it has many irritants, and it's more than a little artificial, but it's a lot better than squalor and misery. Neither schadenfreude nor cynicism disprove that, and neither of them contribute to that progress.
Now, hopefully you can see the reason why I wouldn't usually bother to make these points in debate. So venal is the usual level of political discourse in Ireland that all of the above will be dismissed entirely as the vapid naivety of a starry-eyed Europhile. The good burghers will laugh snide laughs, and go about adding the halfpence to the pence - such airy-fairy notions are so inconceivable to the vast majority that they can only possibly be a cover for self-interest.
So, what I would say to you is that there is a European vision, and it is a worthwhile one, not merely an extension of the feeding trough, even if that's something you can get out of it, and all that some people want out of it. To borrow a phrase that seems apt, we are all of us lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
lenny_leonard wrote: »but coming from someone who recently quoted the Libertas website to back up one of your arguments, it's much more ironic than sarcastic.
What's wrong with the Libertas website? Does it contain any inaccurate information about the Lisbon Treaty?Scofflaw wrote:The debate, in Ireland, tends to focus on an extremely venal level - what's in it for us, how much are we getting?
I don't think that's fair. I think the focus of the debate in this country has far more to do with how much sovereignty we will lose and how much our ability to govern ourselves as an independent nation will be weakened by further integration into the EU.
The evidence over the last few decades shows that the Irish people far from being selfish or inward looking. The huge amount of money we spend on foreign aid and our involvement with the UN just shows how much we're prepared to sacrfice in the name of humanitarianism and international cooperation. If the sacrifices we were required to make to the EU were purely financial and had no implications for our ability to govern ourselves then I could nearly guarantee that you would see opposition to the EU disappear in this country. Euroscepticism would then be as much of an issue as UN-scepticism is now.Scofflaw wrote:Attempts by the EU to highlight fifty years of peace on a continent previously almost perpetually at war
The reason they can't highlight it is because they would also need to give an honourable mention to other factors that have played a more important role in preventing war in Europe. The benefits of American military hegemony or the nuclear deterrent in France and Britain are not the kinds of things that good-Europeans like to dwell on.Scofflaw wrote:the possibilities offered by pan-European cooperation in fields from the sciences to the arts, the advantages of political consensus on pan-European and global issues tend to be met here with the whole gamut of scepticism from friendly dismissiveness to rabid paranoia.
Those are not the things that people are sceptical about. I've never heard anybody complain about pan-European cooperation or a pan-European consensus on global issues. What people are sceptical of is the suggestion that the EU is only vehicle for achieving that cooperation, or that if it is, that it's necessary for us to sacrifice so much of our national independence in order to achieve it.Scofflaw wrote:I'm interested to see what Europe can achieve on the world stage. It's the world's largest democratic polity
Incorrect. India is the world's biggest democracy.Scofflaw wrote:and it has a strong commitment to values and goals I consider very worthwhile - the elimination of the death penalty, democracy, human rights. It has an enormous amount of soft power - which is to say it gets its way by trade and aid, not military force
And long may a non-militarised EU continue. It can play the good cop to America's bad cop.0 -
It's airy-fairy nonsense Scofflaw.
I don't see how you can say that stuff when you know that there are and were several EU states engaged in the Iraq war and in Afghanistan.
You know well that the EU wants NATO at the centre of EU defense policy.
And what is NATO bar a relic from the cold war? Currently the largest arms-trading club and convenient excuse for certain western powers to use their hard-power on pariah 3rd world countries for rather imperialistic goals.
It's revealing that the EU call for cooperation on miltary/defense matters but it's rather quiet on promoting and cooperating science.
Priorities huh.0 -
It's airy-fairy nonsense Scofflaw.
I don't see how you can say that stuff when you know that there are and were several EU states engaged in the Iraq war and in Afghanistan.
You know well that the EU wants NATO at the centre of EU defense policy.
And what is NATO bar a relic from the cold war? Currently the largest arms-trading club and convenient excuse for certain western powers to use their hard-power on pariah 3rd world countries for rather imperialistic goals.
It's revealing that the EU call for cooperation on miltary/defense matters but it's rather quiet on promoting and cooperating science.
Priorities huh.
QED.
Scofflaw0 -
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O'Morris wrote:
Incorrect. India is the world's biggest democracy.Scofflaw wrote:I'm interested to see what Europe can achieve on the world stage. It's the world's largest democratic polity
Quite true - I stand corrected! However, it doesn't change the point of the argument. The EU is certainly the largest measured in terms of global influence, economic size, and so overall is undoubtedly the more "important" of the two.
standing correctly,
Scofflaw0 -
It seems only fair to also address the substance of this post, rather than just dismissively saying "QED".It's airy-fairy nonsense Scofflaw.
I don't see how you can say that stuff when you know that there are and were several EU states engaged in the Iraq war and in Afghanistan.
That would be because it's entirely irrelevant. The EU is a project of sovereign countries. Apart from the EU, those countries continue to operate as they always have done - as sovereign countries engaged in various other alliances and actions. To point out that they are "EU states" is like saying they're "UN states" - factually accurate, but entirely irrelevant.You know well that the EU wants NATO at the centre of EU defense policy.
And what is NATO bar a relic from the cold war? Currently the largest arms-trading club and convenient excuse for certain western powers to use their hard-power on pariah 3rd world countries for rather imperialistic goals.
Again, the EU has no choice but that - it recognises that NATO is the centre of European defence arrangements (not "EU defence policy" - read the treaties). Over three-quarters of the EU states are members of NATO, which is their military framework just as the EU is their civil one.It's revealing that the EU call for cooperation on miltary/defense matters but it's rather quiet on promoting and cooperating science.
Priorities huh.
It's revealing that you think that to be the case - probably because you have no idea what scientific cooperation the EU promotes: Framework 7.
Overall, this post is a fine example of a particular form of scepticism - one that says "because the European countries were evil colonial powers in the past, they clearly must be now, and the EU, as their project, is therefore obviously an evil colonial project, whatever it may say on the tin". A narrative that is naturally appealing to anti-British kneejerk nationalism.
regards,
Scofflaw0 -
Overall, this post is a fine example of a particular form of scepticism - one that says "because the European countries were evil colonial powers in the past, they clearly must be now, and the EU, as their project, is therefore obviously an evil colonial project, whatever it may say on the tin". A narrative that is naturally appealing to anti-British kneejerk nationalism.
regards,
Scofflaw
It's also picking the countries that suit the argument, ignoring the fact that some EU countries where the biggest opponents of the Iraq war.Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.
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Well, France was a major opponent of the Iraq war, that's one.
Who were the other European countries that were the "biggest opponents" of the Iraq war?
I reckon more EU countries participated, then were it's "biggest opponents".
Whatever that even means.
BTW i'd count Ireland as one of those EU countries on the Pro side of the Iraq war, since they didn't oppose it.
You're either with us or against us, you know.
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Well, France was a major opponent of the Iraq war, that's one.
Who were the other European countries that were the "biggest opponents" of the Iraq war?
I reckon more EU countries participated, then were it's "biggest opponents".
Whatever that even means.
BTW i'd count Ireland as one of those EU countries on the Pro side of the Iraq war, since they didn't oppose it.
You're either with us or against us, you know.
Germany for one. Don't you remember Rumsfelds speech referring to 'old Europe' dismissing anyone who didn't support the Iraq war?0 -
Well, France was a major opponent of the Iraq war, that's one.
Who were the other European countries that were the "biggest opponents" of the Iraq war?
I reckon more EU countries participated, then were it's "biggest opponents".
Whatever that even means.
BTW i'd count Ireland as one of those EU countries on the Pro side of the Iraq war, since they didn't oppose it.
You're either with us or against us, you know.
Germany was also a major opponent - making two out of the EU "big three". Still, whatever the facts, you're so keen to tar the EU with the brush you've got in your hand that it's barely worth pointing out your errors, since it only drives you to find new ways of dismissing the facts.
regards,
Scofflaw0 -
Ah, fair enough I forgot about Germany.
I suppose France took the limelight via threatening UN veto.
Still though, the fact that there were lots of EU governments supporting the war despite 2 of the "big 3" being opposed, doesn't really make a strong case for common foreign policy.
It shows division if anything.0 -
Ah, fair enough I forgot about Germany.
I suppose France took the limelight via threatening UN veto.
Still though, the fact that there were lots of EU governments supporting the war despite 2 of the "big 3" being opposed, doesn't really make a strong case for common foreign policy.
It shows division if anything.
It does show, however, that EU foreign policy is unlikely to follow a US lead. On the other hand, what is perhaps unappreciated is that the EU already has foreign policy - it's not something Lisbon introduces. The only thing that Lisbon introduces is a single person to represent that foreign policy, as opposed to the current spread-out system. The advantage of that is that the Russians can't then pretend nobody speaks for the EU, as they did over the Georgia crisis and the gas crisis.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
What's wrong with the Libertas website? Does it contain any inaccurate information about the Lisbon Treaty?
Libertas' "8 Reasons to Vote No" have, for the most part, been debunked as either gross misrepresentations of the truth, or just outright lies. A bit of searching both here and on politics.ie will show that. No offense, but using Libertas (and most other eurosceptic sites) as a source of information seriously damages the credibility of any argument.0 -
What's wrong with the Libertas website? Does it contain any inaccurate information about the Lisbon Treaty?
It has contained at various stages all kinds of inaccurate information about it - heck, it's even contained inaccurate information about Libertas.I don't think that's fair. I think the focus of the debate in this country has far more to do with how much sovereignty we will lose and how much our ability to govern ourselves as an independent nation will be weakened by further integration into the EU.
I don't think that's the case at all. I'd agree that it is the underlying argument behind a lot of other arguments, but it doesn't really ever come into focus as an argument itself.The evidence over the last few decades shows that the Irish people far from being selfish or inward looking. The huge amount of money we spend on foreign aid and our involvement with the UN just shows how much we're prepared to sacrfice in the name of humanitarianism and international cooperation. If the sacrifices we were required to make to the EU were purely financial and had no implications for our ability to govern ourselves then I could nearly guarantee that you would see opposition to the EU disappear in this country. Euroscepticism would then be as much of an issue as UN-scepticism is now.
You may have missed out on the quite regular discussions about how we ought not to spend so much on ODA - and I certainly don't see how you've missed out on the discussions on how our UN involvement with Chad makes us neo-colonialist lackeys of France.
On the other hand, we have yet to make any financial sacrifices to the EU (nor are we expected to before 2013 at the very earliest), and it's very noticeable how "euroscepticism" has risen hand in hand with the declining subventions from the EU. For certain sections - notably the IFA - the argument has always been nakedly about CAP payments.
So I rather doubt that one can use our traditional willingness to give money overseas as an indicator that the argument about the EU is not venal - which is not to say that the argument for those who are explicitly concerned about national sovereignty is venal.The reason they can't highlight it is because they would also need to give an honourable mention to other factors that have played a more important role in preventing war in Europe. The benefits of American military hegemony or the nuclear deterrent in France and Britain are not the kinds of things that good-Europeans like to dwell on.
I don't think that's a problem, although both of those came with rather more downside, and rather less attendant benefits, than the EU - plus, of course, one of them is no longer really relevant.Those are not the things that people are sceptical about. I've never heard anybody complain about pan-European cooperation or a pan-European consensus on global issues. What people are sceptical of is the suggestion that the EU is only vehicle for achieving that cooperation, or that if it is, that it's necessary for us to sacrifice so much of our national independence in order to achieve it.
Then it's curious the extent to which alternatives are never explored - the anti-EU argument is rejectionist rather than providing positive alternatives.
What are the alternatives to the EU? And do we really "sacrifice our national independence"?
I'm going to deal with those as a separate post, because I think those questions are worth going over in detail.And long may a non-militarised EU continue. It can play the good cop to America's bad cop.
Personally, I'm not interested in a militarised EU, but I don't regard the very small force provided by the battlegroups as "militarising" the EU, particularly since they're very restricted in their agreed function.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
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Those are not the things that people are sceptical about. I've never heard anybody complain about pan-European cooperation or a pan-European consensus on global issues. What people are sceptical of is the suggestion that the EU is only vehicle for achieving that cooperation, or that if it is, that it's necessary for us to sacrifice so much of our national independence in order to achieve it.
Perhaps it's worth examining the alternatives to the EU, and whether we really do sacrifice our national independence to it.
The main function of the EU is to provide the common market - the majority of the EU's time is taken up by regulation of that common market, and the majority of EU legislation relates to regulating that common market. If we are to have a common market, then 90% or so of the EU is unavoidable anyway - we can't avoid things like the Commission or the Council, which were (and still are) EC institutions, and we can't avoid most of the regulations that the EU produces - "straight bananas" included.
What of the other competences of the EU? How could they alternatively be organised? Obviously, they could be done by a series of bilateral or multilateral treaties.
In order for us to engage in such treaties, we would need to agree that we would make the decisions jointly, and agree to abide by those decisions. Assuming we entered freely into those treaties, would we be abrogating our sovereignty by agreeing to those very basic stipulations? Well, we are already party to various bilateral and multilateral treaties with those characteristics, and nobody has complained yet that they abrogate our sovereignty. Presumably some kind of body would be set up to articulate the common part of the treaty, possibly by way of joint working groups from the two civil services - in the case of multilateral treaties, it may be more efficient to set up by treaty a jointly administered central body of bureaucrats.
It seems, then, that the act of agreeing to a treaty that binds us to joint decision-making, and that further binds us to observe the joint decisions, is not in itself something that is regarded as diminishing sovereignty. Nor is setting up either bilateral groups (such as the British-Irish groups) or multilateral central bodies (such as the UN).
Obviously, if we were compelled to agree to a treaty - that is, it was signed under duress - we could certainly be said to be acting less than freely, and our sovereignty thereby impugned, However, the free decision to enter into a treaty is, if anything, one of the characteristics of a sovereign state - and since treaties are binding contracts, I don't see how anyone can argue that sovereignty is diminished by freely entering treaties.
What, then, is the difference between a multilateral treaty and the EU? The EU is a permanent body established by multilateral - as is the UN. It is a jointly administered central body of bureaucrats - again, so is the UN, the WTO, the FAO, and countless other international bodies to which Ireland is party by treaty. It engages in joint decision-making through its institutions, as do most of those bodies, and we agree to be bound by those decisions - as, again, we do with those bodies. In the case of at least one organisation - the UN - we don't even have a seat at the top table, yet we are bound by the decisions of that body as to where we can lawfully deploy our troops!
So, forgive me, but I cannot see where the important difference lies - where agreeing to do things via the EU rather than any other multilaterally established body imperils our sovereignty in ways that they would not.. The EU is a central body established by multilateral treaty. It engages only in those areas of policy that have been determined by the treaty signatories. We are bound by the joint decisions, and the central body determines whether we are discharging our obligations or not. What exactly is so different about that?
The main advantage of the EU is that the common market provided by the EC element requires a permanent structural framework and core bureaucracy which is extremely easy to adapt to other areas of joint action. Running as many bilateral treaties and joint bodies as would be required to replicate the functionality of the EU would be a good deal more impractical and unwieldy, and a good deal more costly.
I can understand that the very idea of agreeing to joint decision-making, or agreeing that any extra-state body should have any jurisdiction gives some people great difficulties - to take the UN as an example, there are plenty of militias across the US who stand ready to resist with armed and deadly force the expected UN invasion of the US, and that's clearly a result of the same kind of objection as some people have to the EU - but I cannot see how it is possible for the government of a modern state to discharge its obligations to its citizens without multilateral engagement. Even the mighty US binds itself to observe the decisions of some extra-state bodies, and the unilateralism of the Bush administration has decreased the strength of the US in the world, not increased it.
If the EU did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it, if we want the things that it provides. In providing them, it does not impugn our national independence, because we have voluntarily agreed - or our government has agreed on our behalf - to bind ourselves to the decisions thus jointly made, and we can leave that arrangement at any time. If, on the other hand, we do not want the things that it provides, or feel that our government has agreed to do things through the EU that we do not wish it to do, it seems to me that the blame does not lie with the EU, but rather with our national inability to control our own government - something that stems, perhaps, from the problems identified by FionnMathew. It does not seem to me that we are at any point giving up any sovereignty to the EU - instead, we are giving up the sovereignty of the people to the government - and instead of trying to remedy that dereliction, we are endeavouring to place the blame as far away as possible.
cordially,
if lengthily,
Scofflaw0 -
I don't think the case you make over Iraq demonstrates that Eu foreign policy is unlikely to follow a US lead.
If more EU countries supported the war than were opposed, surely that may mean that in the event of a united EU position, the EU would come out supporting the invasion.
But there's another principle at stake here.
Your position would saddle opposing EU countries, with the positions of the other side.
I don't think that's desireable, or democratic for that matter.
Surely, if an EU country chooses to be an American lackey regarding some foreign policy situation, they should have that right. They shouldn't be forced into a contrary position.
You say that Russians pretend that nobody speaks for the EU, and that i think is true.
And so it should be.
We are a diverse community of nation-states. It is unrealistic to expect all to share the same point of view in some international situation.
Each country should be entitled to their views, why try to force a position on anyone?
This seems to be bit of a theme of yours.
You don't want the UK to have a referenda on Lisbon either.0 -
Well, well - two straw men in one post:I don't think the case you make over Iraq demonstrates that Eu foreign policy is unlikely to follow a US lead.
If more EU countries supported the war than were opposed, surely that may mean that in the event of a united EU position, the EU would come out supporting the invasion.
But there's another principle at stake here.
Your position would saddle opposing EU countries, with the positions of the other side.
I don't think that's desireable, or democratic for that matter.
Surely, if an EU country chooses to be an American lackey regarding some foreign policy situation, they should have that right. They shouldn't be forced into a contrary position.
You say that Russians pretend that nobody speaks for the EU, and that i think is true.
And so it should be.
We are a diverse community of nation-states. It is unrealistic to expect all to share the same point of view in some international situation.
Each country should be entitled to their views, why try to force a position on anyone?
Common EU foreign policy positions are adopted by unanimity, not majority. That's the case at present, and it's the case under Lisbon. Far from being forced to adopt a pro-US position on something, the objecting country can prevent a pro-US EU common position.This seems to be bit of a theme of yours.
You don't want the UK to have a referenda on Lisbon either.
I don't mind either way - what I pointed out was that most people who claim to want a UK referendum "for democracy" actually want one because they expect a No. They're not calling for Luxembourg to have a referendum, because it would equally inevitably be a Yes.
To be honest, if our referendum is likely to return another No, it would be more convenient to have the UK carry the can.
regards,
Scofflaw0 -
Some interesting points raised about Lisbon's proposed changes to EU foreign policy here:
http://www.eunow.eu/Foreign_policy_treaty_lisbon.html0 -
Some interesting points raised about Lisbon's proposed changes to EU foreign policy here:
http://www.eunow.eu/Foreign_policy_treaty_lisbon.html
If by "interesting" you mean "grossly inaccurate" then I agree. Let's have a look:Claim#1 wrote:EU will establish an EU foreign office It will set up the EU's own foreign service of experts to study and talk to foreign governments and businesses. Some of our own Foreign Office civil servants will take part in this. Over a period of years more and more responsibility will pass to this new EU body.
In fact the EU is not waiting for the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon before setting up the Foreign Office of the European Union. It is being set up now.
In fact the EU already has this, and has done for years. That's how it is that John Bruton is the Ambassador of the EU in the US. That's what the EU's worldwide network of EU Delegations is. That's what DG External Relations handles. Just how far behind the times are these guys?Claim#2 wrote:The EU will develop the European arms industry The Treaty of Lisbon will set up a body of experts to tell member states what they should do to improve their military capability and will commit member states to year on year increases in military spending. The new body is called The Defence Agency.
The EU is not waiting for the Treaty of Lisbon to be ratified before setting up the Defence Agency. It has already been set up. Denmark has said that it will not be part of or bound by the Defence Agency.
The European Defence Agency (for this is they!) was set up in 2004.Claim#3 wrote:EU will have its own Foreign Minister The Treaty of Lisbon establishes the role of supremo for EU relationships with other countries. The Constitution would have called this role "Minister for Foreign Affairs". This would have been an accurate and simple job title. In a move towards making the title too long to be usable, and to take away a title which might suggest that the holder of the title is a minister of a state, the Treaty of Lisbon will rename the Minister for Foreign Affairs "The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy" - perhaps HRUFASP for short.
The HRUFASP will speak for the European Member States on policies agreed by EU leaders. This role can be predicted to increase in importance and the role of Foreign Minister of member states can be expected to diminish in time.
There's a reason why they changed the name - a Foreign Minister would set foreign policy. As even these lads can see, the High Representative will not be doing that - the best they can do is claim rather weakly that "the role can be predicted to increase in importance". Indeed, but if we're in the field of not bothering to provide evidence (as the lads obviously are), we can equally well predict it won't.Claim#4 wrote:Member states will have limited independence in foreign policy. This is a complex topic. The first difficulty is that the Treaty of Lisbon makes contradictory arrangements. We will set these out. Having done this we will see that, in practice, member states have severe limitations and whole no-go areas in foreign policy.
"This is a complex topic"? Oh dear - indeed it is, and what a dog's breakfast the lads do make out of it. Variously: they interpret the statement that the EU isn't limited to particular foreign policy areas as meaning the EU takes precedence in all foreign policy areas; they describe immigration policy as part of foreign policy (because it allowed you to keep foreigners out, see?); they assert that the foreign policy of the EU, once decided, cannot be changed by anyone ever, and that all member states must comply in perpetuity with the decisions of their predecessors on the Council; they are apparently unaware that the stipulation that member states must consider the interests of other member states in setting out foreign policy formed the successful basis of the Crotty case against the SEA in 1987; they consider trade as an area of foreign policy that Lisbon will take away from the states.
In all these things, the lads show themselves unable to comprehend legal texts, and anything up to 20 years out of date. "Interesting" isn't the word.
amused,
Scofflaw0 -
If anything, it shows that a common foreign policy is not as dangerous a thing as some would have us believe. The fear is that, now that the EU would be able to take a unified stand on sensitive and controversial issues, they might take the wrong side. But on any issue even bordering on sensitive or controversial, the EU cannot agree so no common position can be taken. AFAIK adoption of a common foreign stance requires unanimity. Which means, for example, that the EU could never have supported the Iraq war with such a provision in place, and are unlikely to be able to support such a war in the future.Ah, fair enough I forgot about Germany.
I suppose France took the limelight via threatening UN veto.
Still though, the fact that there were lots of EU governments supporting the war despite 2 of the "big 3" being opposed, doesn't really make a strong case for common foreign policy.
It shows division if anything.0 -
Under Current EC/EEC/EU Treaties, There is no legal way for us to leave the EU even if we wanted to and with the support of all the other EU members unanimously wanted us to leave. A New Ratified Treaty will have to be unanimously passed first to allow that.PeakOutput wrote: »ok to put it another way if we vote no we deserve to be kicked out of the eu. who are we to decide what the rest of europe does?
someone said the eu is meant to be unanimous. fine. but if the majority of people now want it to change then they should be allowed to if they have to change the rules or change the organisation then they should as long as its the will of the majority. like everything institutions evolve over time and they should be allowed to imo
Lisbon Treaty provides a way out, but only through negotiation with other EU members. There is no limit on those negotiations nor format nor procedure to take for us to leave. It will set a precedence for other EU members if they want to leave or other European Nations deciding if they want to Join the EU.
Voting NO to the Lisbon Treaty does not mean we wanted to leave The EU. EU Commission poll which was conducted on the day of the First Lisbon Referendum, showed that we are nation of Pro-EU, despite rejecting the Lisbon Treaty the First time round. This threw salt on false rumours that we wanted to leave the EU.0 -
Under Current EC/EEC/EU Treaties, There is no legal way for us to leave the EU even if we wanted to and with the support of all the other EU members unanimously wanted us to leave. A New Ratified Treaty will have to be unanimously passed first to allow that.
Lisbon Treaty provides a way out, but only through negotiation with other EU members. There is no limit on those negotiations nor format nor procedure to take for us to leave. It will set a precedence for other EU members if they want to leave or other European Nations deciding if they want to Join the EU.
Voting NO to the Lisbon Treaty does not mean we wanted to leave The EU. EU Commission poll which was conducted on the day of the First Lisbon Referendum, showed that we are nation of Pro-EU, despite rejecting the Lisbon Treaty the First time round. This threw salt on false rumours that we wanted to leave the EU.
Hmm. There's no formal mechanism for withdrawal from the EU in the treaties because there's no need for one. Withdrawal from the EU is accomplished in exactly the same way as withdrawal from any other international treaty, the mechanisms for which are well established in international law. Greenland has already left.
Nor does Lisbon establish a mechanism for leaving - it stipulates how the continuing relationship with the EU will be determined.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
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Ah the lisbon treaty. Are we ready for actual common sense. You better hear it.
RIGHT. Let's begin. Take a deep breath. Filter the lisbon bull**** out of your head.
NOW.
Irish government disrespected our vote.
EU elite and media (not the majority of the ppl btw)
1. We are a democracy. This was clearly breached and disrespected.
2. The elite represent we the people, in this case they clearly don't.
3. The lisbon treaty was designed to be misrepresented, the government foolishy thought we the irish ppl would vote yes out of ignorance.
4. The lisbon treaty is not about irish or European interests. It's about absaloute power, united states of Europe, "dumb replica of America"
Now all I'll say to all you Irish fellows. If you vote yes, your quite simply a sheep. To be really precise you have no self respect, since your leader's and Europe did not respect your voice, so if you vote yes, then your not far from been in an idiot.0
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