Vote yes, sure you can trust all politicians..

Scofflaw

netron wrote: »

because the Lisbon Treaty reorganises the European Union, which includes the EU Commission.

'Reorganises' is far too strong a word.

netron wrote: »

As well as an unelected EU Commission, Lisbon introduces an unelected EU Foreign Minister and an unelected EU President. The unelected EU Foreign Minister will have an army of EU civil servants in EU Embassies worldwide.

Well, we already have the Commission, the 'Foreign Minister' amalgamates two existing roles, the Presidency of the Council (not 'EU President') currently rotates (and is a much more limited role in Lisbon), while the EU already has a network of Representations and Delegations around the EU and the world respectively.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

P. Breathnach wrote: »

So you know the facts and deny them in the one paragraph! The US President is not directly elected and can in fact be elected with a minority of the popular vote, even in a two-candidate contest.

Hush - this is rhetoric. He has already dismissed all upper houses, and made it clear he's only interested in legislative initiative.

cordially,
Scofflaw

netron

Scofflaw wrote: »

'Reorganises' is far too strong a word.



Well, we already have the Commission, the 'Foreign Minister' amalgamates two existing roles, the Presidency of the Council (not 'EU President') currently rotates (and is a much more limited role in Lisbon), while the EU already has a network of Representations and Delegations around the EU and the world respectively.

cordially,
Scofflaw

And who are these delegations and representations accountable to?

I am aware of an EU Embassy in Cuba , for example.

Who asked me if we should have an embassy with that communist dictatorship?

netron

RandomName2 wrote: »

The US President is directly elected. You needn't bother quoting the preceeding line with a tangent about the Electoral College and then my re-replying picking obvious holes in your reply.

errr.. the US President is not directly elected. He's elected via an electoral college system.

But yeah - on the ballot it would be "Obama" or "McCain". but the college system is what really elects him - quite a clever system - designed to prevent a US President building a power base in a region of America.
(so as to prevent, for example, nothing but a string of Presdents from the North East )

wiki link is interesting reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)

i honestly cant see why we cant use such a system to elect EU Commissioners.

Pro-EU advocates are always complaining about the low voter turnout for the EU Parliament. Why not advocate directly elected EU Commissioners?

Surely that would make the EU bigger idea in voters minds? Or maybe thats exactly what they want to avoid?

Scofflaw

netron wrote: »

And who are these delegations and representations accountable to?

They're accountable to the Commission, Council, and Parliament.

netron wrote: »

I am aware of an EU Embassy in Cuba , for example.

Who asked me if we should have an embassy with that communist dictatorship?

Who asked me if we should have an Irish Embassy in China? Of the two, I prefer Cuba (our Embassy in Mexico handles Cuba).

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

netron wrote: »

errr.. the US President is not directly elected. He's elected via an electoral college system.

But yeah - on the ballot it would be "Obama" or "McCain". but the college system is what really elects him - quite a clever system - designed to prevent a US President building a power base in a region of America.
(so as to prevent, for example, nothing but a string of Presdents from the North East )

wiki link is interesting reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)

i honestly cant see why we cant use such a system to elect EU Commissioners.

Pro-EU advocates are always complaining about the low voter turnout for the EU Parliament. Why not advocate directly elected EU Commissioners?

Surely that would make the EU bigger idea in voters minds? Or maybe thats exactly what they want to avoid?

What we want to avoid is Commissioners with manifestos. Any elected Commissioner has to promise the voters something, and then deliver it in the Commission. That means the EU Commission, which is supposed to work on behalf of Europe, is working instead for sectoral and sub-national interest groups.

cordially,
Scofflaw

netron

Scofflaw wrote: »

What we want to avoid is Commissioners with manifestos. Any elected Commissioner has to promise the voters something, and then deliver it in the Commission. That means the EU Commission, which is supposed to work on behalf of Europe, is working instead for sectoral and sub-national interest groups.

cordially,
Scofflaw

so who are the Comissioners working for?

themselves?

considering that Neil Kinnock and his wife troughed at taxpayer expense in the region of £10 million with about 6 different pensions, i would guess they are working for themselves.

netron

Scofflaw wrote: »

What we want to avoid is Commissioners with manifestos. Any elected Commissioner has to promise the voters something, and then deliver it in the Commission. That means the EU Commission, which is supposed to work on behalf of Europe, is working instead for sectoral and sub-national interest groups.

cordially,
Scofflaw

"which is supposed to work on behalf of Europe"

what is this "Europe" you speak of? The political class or the electorate?

Scofflaw

netron wrote: »

"which is supposed to work on behalf of Europe"

what is this "Europe" you speak of? The political class or the electorate?

All of Europe - that is, the whole population (of citizens and other legal entities) and future generations.

If you are entirely unwilling to believe that those in positions of power are in it for anything other than personal gain, I'm sorry for you.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg

netron wrote: »

"which is supposed to work on behalf of Europe"

what is this "Europe" you speak of? The political class or the electorate?

the common market mostly.

THe European Council (made up of the national head of states of every member state) meet quartarly (or is it more often?) to discuss common issues and desires, and from this a policy for the EU in the immediate future is decided on based on what each member state wants and what they dont want. So as you expect alot of chest bumping, braying etc this policy is passed onto the commission who's job is to draw up legislative in the specific areas outlined that is balanced for all member states.

So if for example the European Council came out with an agreement on higher Green output across the EU, it would be the commission who would draw up laws in the common market that would encoruge this.

THen its passed over to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament for the national governments and directly elected representatives to scrutinize and finally aprove, and I think it goes back to the European Council at their next meeting to get a final stamp. So all in all out of 4 EU bodies, 3 of them will have directly elected representatives in control of the propossed law. THen of course there is the final step which is when it shows up officially at our national governments and they tend to have some leway on how the law is applied so there is a bit of scrutinizing there.

And thats it at the moment, it opens up alot more under Lisbon with national governments (including opposition in parliament/Dail) being able to step in before a legalistive is even finished if they have a serious issue with it. So you could clock it up to 4 directly elected representative bodies in control of a legalistive process.

the_dark_side

Scofflaw wrote: »

Hush - this is rhetoric. He has already dismissed all upper houses, and made it clear he's only interested in legislative initiative.

cordially,
Scofflaw

expand on this please, I am keen to know what your point is

the_dark_side

Scofflaw wrote: »

All of Europe - that is, the whole population (of citizens and other legal entities) and future generations.

If you are entirely unwilling to believe that those in positions of power are in it for anything other than personal gain, I'm sorry for you.

cordially,
Scofflaw

'...and other legal entities'

please clarify who you mean here

conchubhar1

rhetoric is used on this forum lately by scofflaw and oscarbravo

used in the manner in which rthetoric is by definition, irony at its most obvious-ness.

Scofflaw

the_dark_side wrote: »

'...and other legal entities'

please clarify who you mean here

Businesses, mostly, but also the European environment, and so on.

rhetoric is used on this forum lately by scofflaw and oscarbravo

used in the manner in which rthetoric is by definition, irony at its most obvious-ness.

Well, rhetoric is "the art of using language to persuade". Mostly, I mean by it that someone is interjecting an emotive point into a factual debate - which is usually done in order to persuade by the power of the emotion involved, rather than by the force or logic of the argument itself. The obvious example is the constant rhetoric about 'democracy' - virtually everybody's in favour of democracy, but there's no single 'right' form of democracy (First past the post? PR-STV? List systems? Elected judges?), so it's mostly being used as a rhetorical device - to add weight to what are weak arguments, or to paper over the holes in their logic.

For example:

1. democracy involves elections
2. ergo, democracy equals elections
3. everyone with power should be elected
4. anyone who disagrees with 3 is anti-democratic

There's a quick sleight of hand at step 2, but it can be concealed by dazzling the listener with the power of the word 'democracy' itself. That's rhetoric.

cordially,
Scofflaw

conchubhar1

im not using rhetoric - elections are key to democracy

point out what is wrong with the above statement?

what system of democracy or voting is used can be decided eu wide

but you wont find much people against having directly elected officals, is this not true?

cooperguy

conchubhar1 wrote: »

im not using rhetoric - elections are key to democracy

point out what is wrong with the above statement?

what system of democracy or voting is used can be decided eu wide

but you wont find much people against having directly elected officals, is this not true?

Whats wrong with that statement is that although elections are key to democracy this does not mean everybody in every department has to be elected for democracy to happen.

It was either in the last page or the page before where it was explained why the commissioners were not elected i.e. you cant have a politician who has promised something to a small group of people work for the EU people as a whole. There are enough checks and balances outside of the commission to make this work in a democratic way.

K-9

In many ways the Commission is more like a civil service with the Commissioner being similar to a Department Head. The problem with electing them is as Scofflaw pointed, it will bring a form of localism and "parish pump" politics to the process. If it doesn't, people will just get bored!

Scofflaw

conchubhar1 wrote: »

what system of democracy or voting is used can be decided eu wide

but you wont find much people against having directly elected officals, is this not true?

You'll find a lot of people opposed to the idea of elected judges or gardai. There are also all kinds of reasons why planning officials should not be elected. Nor do we elect juries - they are chosen by lot (which is a historically common alternative to elections).

conchubhar1 wrote: »

im not using rhetoric - elections are key to democracy

point out what is wrong with the above statement?

If we decided everything by direct vote, we would not require any elections, but we would still be a democracy.

So, it might seem that voting is the key, rather than elections. However, voting itself is simply a way of people expressing their preference - what is really key is that decisions should be made according to the wishes of the majority - voting is one way of determining that, consensus is another.

For decisions to be made according to the wishes of the majority, there are two possible parts. The first is the proposing of questions to be decided, and the second is the decision itself.

For a system to be democratic, it is obviously necessary for the decision itself to be taken according to the wishes of the majority, and for the minority to accept that they are bound by it.

However, the issue of who can propose the questions is neither trivial, nor clear-cut. If we say that proposals must be 'democratic' (ie, voted on as to whether they should become questions), then we're simply moving the problem back a bit. If we allow anyone and everyone to make suggestions, then we run into practical difficulties.

Usually, therefore, the ability to propose the questions rests with some smaller body. In the case of Ireland, the right to propose legislation effectively rests with the Cabinet (although Private Members' Bills also exist, they are infrequent, and usually defeated), even though the Cabinet are actually party appointees within the majority party (or coalition parties). It is assumed that having won the backing of the overall majority in the country, the winning party has the right to form the government (ie Cabinet) - strictly speaking this is not always the case, and the government can be formed of a minority instead. The Cabinet then proposes the legislative agenda, and the legislation proposed is decided on democratically by the wider assembly of representatives (leaving aside the party whip system for the moment). In the case of referendums, the process is slightly longer - the government moves a Bill proposing a referendum, which is then voted on by the Oireachtas, and then by the people.

Now, in the case of the EU, there is no 'government', because if there was, it would automatically be above the member state governments within the EU's competences. As such, the right of proposing the decisions (legislative initiative) has no 'natural' home. If it belonged to either of the decision-making bodies (Parliament or Council), that body would become, by virtue of being able to both set the agenda and decide on the outcome, as well as its own democratic legitimacy, the dominant institution in the EU - over time, it would form an 'EU government'.

The solution has been to place the right of proposal in the hands of a body with no democratic legitimacy of its own. That prevents the Commission from becoming a threat to the other institutions, since it would be unacceptable for the Commission to try and run the EU on its own - as can be seen by the strenuous objections from those who incorrectly think this is the case, and which would be widespread if it were actually true.

The appointment of the Commission as a technocratic body means that the Commissioners have no tendency to 'activism'. There is no requirement for the Commissioners to propose legislation except where there is pressure to do so (usually from the Council or Parliament), and there is nothing to be gained except loss of face from doing so where either the Council or Parliament is likely to strike down such legislation. That, in itself, is an important principle (and explicit in the treaties) - that there should be no EU legislation if there is no need for any. An elected Commission would, to the contrary, be 'activist' - Commissioners would want to be seen to propose legislation that accorded with the manifesto they had put before the electorate, whether there was a need for it or not. Not really a useful result.

cordially,
Scofflaw

ixtlan

With all this back and forth about democracy and voting, it's worth noting that we have just had an election.

We went into it with 13 MEPS, 2 against Lisbon, 11 for.

We have come out of it with 12 MEPs, 1 against Lisbon, 11 for.

That appears to suggest that the public favour the pro-Lisbon politicans. Of course it is a lot more complex than that I agree, but the place to affect EU treaties, Lisbon and future ones, is in the election of those politicans negotiating those treaties.

What fools we make of our politicans, resending for example Brian Crowley and Mairead McGuinness to the top of the polls while at the same time apparently thinking they are idiots incapable of making the right decisions for the country. The EU would be somewhat justified in thinking we the electorate fools. I mean if we elected Sinn Fein/Libertas/Kathy Sinnot then at least we would be consistent, but to elect our usual pro-Lisbon parties and then reject Lisbon again, who on Earth would be able to figure that out?!

Ix

Tony EH

The recent turn about in elections had more to do with the domestic situation rather than anything in Europe.

In fact, I'd say that Lisbon was extremely low on most people's minds when they cast their vote.

P. Breathnach

Tony EH wrote: »

The recent turn about in elections had more to do with the domestic situation rather than anything in Europe.

In fact, I'd say that Lisbon was extremely low on most people's minds when they cast their vote.

That seems like a good argument for not having referendums on anything to do with the EU.

Tony EH

There are no good arguments for not having referenda regarding treaties that affect peoples lives.

Riskymove

Tony EH wrote: »

There are no good arguments for not having referenda regarding treaties that affect peoples lives.

Unfortunately people will vote for many different reasons....voting in any referendum simply as a kick to the Government is a concern

people often overlook that a change of around 50,000 was all that was needed for a Yes vote last time..I am sure many people considered the treaty to some level but many simply voted no out of confusion or because they were against the Government

the aim has to be for the State to make its best go at explaining the issues and arguing issues raised rather than just ignoring them (like the issues last time)

Tony EH

Few, if any, voted 'No' simply because they were "...against the Government". All of the major parties are pro-Lisbon.

They voted 'No' by and large, because they are not happy with the way that Lisbon seems to be getting forced through and that makes people rightfully suspicious.

Whether the 'Yes' camp want to acknowledge it or not, that is why Lisbon didn't go through last time. It's the major point, as far as I can tell, why the majority of people voted 'No'.

Riskymove

Tony EH wrote: »

Few, if any, voted 'No' simply because they were "...against the Government". All of the major parties are pro-Lisbon.

They voted 'No' by and large, because they are not happy with the way that Lisbon seems to be getting forced through and that makes people rightfully suspicious.

Whether the 'Yes' camp want to acknowledge it or not, that is why Lisbon didn't go through last time. It's the major point, as far as I can tell, why the majority of people voted 'No'.

ah come on...that's speculation, probably based on why you voted no

every anti-lisbon group claimed people voted no because of their reason, be it SF, Libertas or whoever

as for "not happy with the way that Lisbon seems to be getting forced through "...how was it being forced through exactly..it was put to a vote

the_dark_side

Before we go on I think it must be noted, that despite his very busy schedule, Robbie Keane has found time to read the Lisbon Treaty and is advising a 'Yes' vote in October

Tony EH

Riskymove wrote: »

ah come on...that's speculation, probably based on why you voted no

every anti-lisbon group claimed people voted no because of their reason, be it SF, Libertas or whoever

as for "not happy with the way that Lisbon seems to be getting forced through "...how was it being forced through exactly..it was put to a vote

How do you know I voted 'No'?

It wasn't put to the vote by the people of Europe though, that's the issue and when the Irish voted 'No', that was dismissed and we are being asked to vote again.

That's not forcing something through?

Are you kidding?

Look, I'm pro-Europe. I believe that it can be the best thing to happen to the continent in Centuries. However, I believe that items, such as the Lisbon treaty should be put to the vote by the people it's going to effect.

oscarBravo

Tony EH wrote: »

It wasn't put to the vote by the people of Europe though, that's the issue...

No, the issue (for us) is whether Ireland should ratify the Lisbon treaty. End of.

Tony EH

We voted 'No' on that last year.

As far as I'm aware the Lisbon Treaty should now be dead.

Riskymove

Tony EH wrote: »

when the Irish voted 'No', that was dismissed and we are being asked to vote again.

That's not forcing something through?

.

surely that's a reason for voting no this time not last time?