Why voting no?

Rb

turgon wrote: »

So its alright for you to not care about the content yourself, but you can demand content of the Yes side.

Yep, because they're the ones demanding content of the No side and dismissing any non-treaty reasons for voting. Anyway, you're singing a very different tune to a few months ago, quite disappointing!

blackgold>>

Why vote no !

Imagine for a moment I'm an holocaust revisionist.I can be taken from my country and sent to Germany to stand trial for a crime thats not even a crime in Ireland.This is where the european union is heading.

Is this not a valid enough reason?

P. Breathnach

blackgold>> wrote: »

Imagine for a moment I'm an holocaust revisionist.I can be taken from my country and sent to Germany to stand trial for a crime thats not even a crime in Ireland.This is where the european union is heading.

Is this not a valid enough reason?

Where and how does the Lisbon Treaty provide for that?

gizmo555

turgon wrote: »

Oh yes, no bother, lets make a treaty governing an inter-governmental organisation of 27 member states readable to the public!! Hell, lets make it 8 pages long because thats been demanded too!! Surely the current hundreds of pages can be slimed down!!!

The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be clear . . . the aim of this [the Lisbon] treaty is to be unreadable . . . The constitution was intended to be clear just as this treaty had to be obscure. It's a success.

Karel de Gucht, Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Flandre info, 23 June 2007.

It was decided that the document must be unreadable. If it's unreadable it's not constitutional, that was the idea. If you can understand the text at first glance one risked calls for a referendum because that would mean there was something new.

Giuliano Amato, former Italian prime minister, former vice president of the Council for the Future of Europe, meeting of the Center for European Reform in London, 12 July 2007.

Scofflaw

blackgold>> wrote: »

Why vote no !

Imagine for a moment I'm an holocaust revisionist.I can be taken from my country and sent to Germany to stand trial for a crime thats not even a crime in Ireland.This is where the european union is heading.

Is this not a valid enough reason?

No, and for two reasons. First, because the European Arrest Warrant is a simplified extradition mechanism, and you cannot be extradited to Germany for holocaust revisionism committed outside Germany:

An EAW may be issued by a national court if the person whose return is sought is accused of an offence for which the penalty is at least over a year in prison or if he or she has been sentenced to a prison term of at least four months. Its purpose is to replace lengthy extradition procedures with a new and efficient way of bringing back suspected criminals who have absconded abroad and for people convicted of a serious crime who have fled the country

Second, because the Warrant already exists:

The Member States of the European Union were required to introduce legislation to bring the European arrest warrant (EAW) into force by 1 January 2004. On 13 June 2002, the EU Council of ministers adopted a framework decision on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States of the European Union.

New reasons needed...

briefly,
Scofflaw

turgon

Rb: do you think that voting No on non-Lisbon issues will change anything? What do you hope to get out of voting No?

gizmo555 wrote: »

The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be clear . . . the aim of this [the Lisbon] treaty is to be unreadable . . . The constitution was intended to be clear just as this treaty had to be obscure. It's a success.

Karel de Gucht, Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Flandre info, 23 June 2007.

It was decided that the document must be unreadable. If it's unreadable it's not constitutional, that was the idea. If you can understand the text at first glance one risked calls for a referendum because that would mean there was something new.

Giuliano Amato, former Italian prime minister, former vice president of the Council for the Future of Europe, meeting of the Center for European Reform in London, 12 July 2007.

So whats you solution to the Lisbon Treaty being unreadable? Bearing in mind it is an amending Treaty. Or is demanding solutions a bit too much for the No-side ho just like to through criticism everywhere they conceivably can.

storinius

tonycascarino wrote: »

Even though YES campaigners are trying to sell off this treaty as being the best thing since sliced bread while purposely ignoring the cons, here are possibly just some reasons one might say NO.


1. Guarantees promised are not legally binding - Treaty remains exactly the same

The guarantees promised are neither legally binding nor can ever be. The important point is that the Lisbon Treaty remains exactly the same. Not a single comma in the 100's of pages has been altered. No European country will have to ratify Lisbon again, which they would have had to do if anything had changed in law. To call the guarantees legally binding is simply false and less than honest. Only the words of the treaty itself count in the European Courts.


2. Ireland's role in Europe will diminish
If the Treaty is passed unchanged - that is the treaty the Irish people rejected last year - Ireland's role & influence in Europe will diminish severely. The Lisbon Treaty as it stands creates a fundamental change in the country's governance, with European Law taking precedence over our Constitution in most areas.


Germany's voting weight on the EU Council of Ministers will rise to 17% from it's previous 8%. France's vote will go from 8% to 13% & Britain and Italy's will rise from their current 8% to 12%. However Ireland's voting weight will be halved from 2% to 0.8%.


3. No respect of democracy

Whether YES campaigners like it or not, most Irish people will see the ignoring of the last vote as a disrespect of the people's will and therefore disrespect shown to democracy. YES campaigners will have a hard time trying to convince the ordinary Irish person otherwise.

We can argue over the legal guarantees, as I believe that they legally ensure a particularly interpretation of existing treaty text, the interpretation that the Irish people wanted.

Be that as it may, surely the commissioner can be seen as a big change in the treaty. After not being given enough information, the commissioner issue was cited as the most important to the Irish people. WE ARE GOING TO PERMANENTLY KEEP OUR COMMISSIONER. How does that not count as a major change, and one that the Irish people should be allowed to decide to accept or reject?

gizmo555

turgon wrote: »

So whats you solution to the Lisbon Treaty being unreadable? Bearing in mind it is an amending Treaty. Or is demanding solutions a bit too much for the No-side ho just like to through criticism everywhere they conceivably can.

My solution would have been for the EU to respect the outcome of the referenda in France and Holland and not draft a treaty which had as one of it's main aims - according to Messrs de Gucht and Amato - to be unreadable so as to obscure the fact that it is to all intents and purposes the same thing as the rejected Constitution. This is the key point - the treaty is not hard to read as an unfortunate side effect of being an amending treaty, it is hard to read because it was deliberately designed to be. (To come back to the thread topic - this is why I'm voting no. The Lisbon treaty is a deliberate subversion of the referenda in France and Holland.)

Now that we are where we are, my solution would be for the Irish government to give the referendum commission - which is generally accepted by both sides as being unbiased - the necessary time to do an effective job of explaining the treaty to the public. If the referendum goes ahead in early October, the commission will not have enough time. Instead, what the government has done is to go through the charade of obtaining guarantees on issues which have nothing to do with the main reason people voted no or abstained the last time - they did not understand the question.

storinius

conchubhar1 wrote: »

the veto is the only through safeguard or power we have in the eu

we loose it in many areas

In 36 years the veto has been used once. Just to reiterate that point that someone else has already made.

K-9

gizmo555 wrote: »

My solution would have been for the EU to respect the outcome of the referenda in France and Holland and not draft a treaty which had as one of it's main aims - according to Messrs de Gucht and Amato - to be unreadable so as to obscure the fact that it is to all intents and purposes the same thing as the rejected Constitution. This is the key point - the treaty is not hard to read as an unfortunate side effect of being an amending treaty, it is hard to read because it was deliberately designed to be. (To come back to the thread topic - this is why I'm voting no. The Lisbon treaty is a deliberate subversion of the referenda in France and Holland.)

Now that we are where we are, my solution would be for the Irish government to give the referendum commission - which is generally accepted by both sides as being unbiased - the necessary time to do an effective job of explaining the treaty to the public. If the referendum goes ahead in early October, the commission will not have enough time. Instead, what the government has done is to go through the charade of obtaining guarantees on issues which have nothing to do with the main reason people voted no or abstained the last time - they did not understand the question.

They'll have had 2 campaigns, should be enough time. Unfortunately some even found the Commissions booklet too complicated.

oscarBravo

gizmo555 wrote: »

This is the key point - the treaty is not hard to read as an unfortunate side effect of being an amending treaty, it is hard to read because it was deliberately designed to be.

What about the Amsterdam and Nice treaties? They are also amending treaties. What's the ulterior motive behind making them unreadable?

gizmo555

oscarBravo wrote: »

What about the Amsterdam and Nice treaties? They are also amending treaties. What's the ulterior motive behind making them unreadable?

I don't know. Ask Messrs de Gucht and Amato.

oscarBravo

gizmo555 wrote: »

I don't know. Ask Messrs de Gucht and Amato.

Why do you unconditionally believe them (or, more accurately, the out-of-context quotes from them)?

The Nice treaty is an amending treaty. It's "unreadable" in precisely the same way that Lisbon is "unreadable" - it only makes sense in the context of the treaties it amends. In each case, there is a "readable" treaty in the form of the consolidated versions of the treaties, as amended.

Logically, you would have to conclude that either both treaties were designed to be unreadable, or that both treaties happen to be difficult to read in a stand-alone format by their nature as amending treaties. So, which is it?

thecraichead

I am sick of the arguement that putting the question to the public again is undemocratic.

I think the MOST democratic thing to do is to put it to the public again. The treaty has not been ratified as a result of the no vote. Has public sentiment changed in the meantime? Do the majority of the public now wish to pass the treaty given the guarantees? Polls suggest that it will be closer this time.

The UNDEMOCRATIC want to avoid this referendum for fear that they will no longer hold the majority. They do not wish to have the current will of the majority implemented. If people do not want the treaty passed, they should vote no. I may even be a no voter myself. in any case, the will of the majority and democracy will prevail.

gizmo555

oscarBravo wrote: »

Why do you unconditionally believe them (or, more accurately, the out-of-context quotes from them)?

I believe them because:

(a) They are senior European politicians who were closely involved in negotiating both the Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty, so they know what they are talking about.
(b) They are both in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, so there is no reason to suspect they made these comments out of bias against it.
(c) Their views are corroborated by other senior European politicians who are likewise in favour of Lisbon, such as Giscard d'Estaing.

As for the context, a statement such as "It was decided that the document must be unreadable." is pretty unambiguous - I don't see how any conceivable context could alter its meaning. Anyway, if you want you can listen to the speech here:

http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/amato.mp3

oscarBravo wrote: »

The Nice treaty is an amending treaty. It's "unreadable" in precisely the same way that Lisbon is "unreadable" - it only makes sense in the context of the treaties it amends. In each case, there is a "readable" treaty in the form of the consolidated versions of the treaties, as amended.

Logically, you would have to conclude that either both treaties were designed to be unreadable, or that both treaties happen to be difficult to read in a stand-alone format by their nature as amending treaties. So, which is it?

I don't accept your premise. I'm not getting into a debate with you as to which treaty is least readable, that's a purely subjective matter anyway. Whatever about Nice though, we know from people such as de Gucht, Amato and Giscard d'Estaing that a specific aim of the drafters of the Lisbon Treaty was to make it unreadable. And in the case of Nice, there was no previously rejected constitution or treaty for which it was the replacement.

Rb

turgon wrote: »

Rb: do you think that voting No on non-Lisbon issues will change anything? What do you hope to get out of voting No?

Do you think that voting Yes on non-Lisbon issues will change anything?
What do you hope to get from voting Yes?

oscarBravo

gizmo555 wrote: »

As for the context, a statement such as "It was decided that the document must be unreadable." is pretty unambiguous - I don't see how any conceivable context could alter its meaning. Anyway, if you want you can listen to the speech here:

http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/amato.mp3

I've listened to it - it's clear (insofar as anything can be clear from a poor-quality partial recording [out of context, again] of a speech) that he was speaking ironically. The chuckles from the audience would bear this interpretation out.

I don't accept your premise.

It's not a premise; it's a logical argument. If you don't accept it, you could at least do me the courtesy of explaining where my logic is faulty.

I'm not getting into a debate with you as to which treaty is least readable, that's a purely subjective matter anyway.

I'm not asking you to measure unreadability; I'm positing that the Nice treaty is "unreadable" in precisely the same sense as Lisbon is "unreadable" - they're both amending treaties. If you disagree with this premise, again you could at least explain why.

Whatever about Nice though, we know from people such as de Gucht, Amato and Giscard d'Estaing that a specific aim of the drafters of the Lisbon Treaty was to make it unreadable.

We have that interpretation of some out-of-context quotes from them, sure. I'm even willing to accept that there was a move back towards amending treaties and away from a constitutional document for the purpose of making it easier for the member states to ratify.

But I refuse to accept that to do so was nefarious in some way, unless you can explain how the Nice and Amsterdam treaties are not equally nefarious.

conchubhar1

we used the veto once it 35 years

so we dont need it ever again? - priecless

PopeBuckfastXVI

conchubhar1 wrote: »

we used the veto once it 35 years

so we dont need it ever again? - priecless

I'm not sure in what area we used it, but we are not 'losing' it in every area.

Please keep in mind also, that it's not a case of only Ireland's veto being removed, as if we are somehow being put upon by this treaty.

Every member state is agreeing, by consensus, to move to QMV in more areas.

It's not like we're even bottom of the pecking order in QMV.

People need to ditch the 'us against them' attitude when it comes to the EU. That's not what the setup is about, it's about consensus building and working for the betterment of all the peoples and states of the EU, and beyond.

The 'us and them' thing is just a rubbish attitude borrowed straight from the daily fail/torygraph reading denizens of Little England, and is tough to swallow when garnished with an Irish accent.

conchubhar1

it is not a us against them

it is a case of should an area we strongly disagree on come up, it can be passed and we can vote against us but if 55% of pop and 65% of member states etc or whatever agree it is passed


i know it is not in areas of key importance like defence and tax - but still

yes every state looses it - it is not a physical thing.

but other states have greater voting weight, others the same and a few less (few?).

the weighting is tipped in the favour of smaller nations, and that is great, but ireland has still along with other smaller states a smaller say

BlitzKrieg

Wikipedia has on Giscard d'Estaing under lisbon the following information

Giscard d'Estaing gained some notoriety in the June 2008 Irish vote on the Lisbon Treaty. One quote of his in particular, retrieved from an interview he conducted with Le Monde in June 2007, that "public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals we dare not present to them directly"[citation needed], was consistently highlighted by "No" campaigners as evidence of an alleged insidious agenda to fool the European public into accepting the text. However since this he has denied making the statement in question, claiming that it was a mistranslation, of what was a speculation about the path that others may take the treaty without proper monitoring.[citation needed]

but as you can see it has no citation to back it up, does anyone have access to the full original language text to see if there's any truth to his defence?

I have tried searching le monde's archive with my basic french, but nothing links to estaing in june 2007, but there are a few articles from april (25th to be exact). But they all require that I subscribe.

gizmo555

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

Wikipedia has on Giscard d'Estaing under lisbon the following information




but as you can see it has no citation to back it up, does anyone have access to the full original language text to see if there's any truth to his defence?

I have tried searching le monde's archive with my basic french, but nothing links to estaing in june 2007, but there are a few articles from april (25th to be exact). But they all require that I subscribe.

I don't know about the interview, but here's the full text of a piece he wrote himself for Le Monde in October 2007 in which he said essentially the same thing:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=60355584&postcount=62

(By the way, in the "Irish Times" last February, he did not deny making the other statement, nor did he say he was "mistranslated", but merely said he hadn't seen the translation:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0214/1233867937295.html)

BlitzKrieg

gizmo555 wrote: »

I don't know about the interview, but here's the full text of a piece he wrote himself for Le Monde in October 2007 in which he said essentially the same thing:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=60355584&postcount=62

I'm reading that at the moment from his blog with babel fish + original side by side (babel fish: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvge-europe.eu%2Findex.php%3Fq%3Dlisbon&lp=fr_en&btnTrUrl=Translate)

(original: http://vge-europe.eu/index.php?/page/6&q=lisbon)

Still I rather see the june interview to see if it has been misrepresented or not.

turgon

Rb wrote: »

Do you think that voting Yes on non-Lisbon issues will change anything?

Nope

Rb wrote: »

What do you hope to get from voting Yes?

Change the EU in a positive manner. A constructive outcome you would agree? I mean, you voting No will achieve nothing and the things you want to vote No for will not change. On the other hand the reasons I am voting Yes will be directly implemented through ratification.

gizmo555 wrote: »

to be unreadable so as to obscure the fact that it is to all intents and purposes the same thing as the rejected Constitution.

But, as someone who love quotes, Im sure it wont be that hard for you to find Andrea Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy admiting exactly what you said. So its actually not a secret after all.

gizmo555 wrote: »

This is the key point - the treaty is not hard to read as an unfortunate side effect of being an amending treaty, it is hard to read because it was deliberately designed to be.

As OscarBravo pointed out Nice and Maastricht were also "hard to read." Was there a conspiracy going on there too?

So how would you make an amending treaty that was easy to read?

gizmo555 wrote: »

(To come back to the thread topic - this is why I'm voting no. The Lisbon treaty is a deliberate subversion of the referenda in France and Holland.)

Will voting No change that?

gizmo555 wrote: »

Now that we are where we are, my solution would be for the Irish government to give the referendum commission - which is generally accepted by both sides as being unbiased - the necessary time to do an effective job of explaining the treaty to the public.

But sure whats the point? You have stated above that you will not be voting on the content of the Treaty, so why would you want other people to know about it?

P. Breathnach

gizmo555 wrote: »

I don't know about the interview, but here's the full text of a piece he wrote himself for Le Monde in October 2007 in which he said essentially the same thing:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=60355584&postcount=62

Ya reckon? It is amenable to other interpretations, without stretching the limits of reasonableness.

Yes, they wanted to avoid referendums, but in order to do so they re-cast the changes into the conventional style of an amending treaty (which, in essence, is what it is) and by dropping the vocabulaire constitutionnel. They also abandoned the window-dressing that alienated some people -- flag and anthem in particular. In other words, it was initially overblown, which was a mistake, and they have toned it down to the more standard style.

I also think it was a mistake to involve Giscard d'Estaing, who himself has an overblown style.

Scofflaw

Rb wrote: »

Do you think that voting Yes on non-Lisbon issues will change anything?

Not those issues, presumably.

Mind you, the No side's favourite 'non-Lisbon' reason for voting Yes is "the EU's been good for us", and when you think about it, that's a perfectly reasonable reason for voting Yes. it's shorthand for two statements, first that membership of the EU has benefited Ireland, and that the EU has acted well towards Ireland - taken together, that suggests that in the absence of any major objections, it's entirely reasonable to vote Yes, because the Treaty is being offered by an organisation whose intentions towards us have always been good, and whose actions have nearly always benefited us.

Rb wrote: »

What do you hope to get from voting Yes?

Increased democracy, increased subsidiarity, greater transparency, a little more efficiency, an end to the current aimlessness.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zuiderzee

turgon wrote: »

Rb: do you think that voting No on non-Lisbon issues will change anything? What do you hope to get out of voting No?

I hope to get something better.

What I would like to see in an EU document is:

A clearer, fairer and more democratic treaty, that is more understandable.

A treaty voted for by all citizens of the EU If the majority of the 450m citizens say yes, then so be it.

Standardized workers rights such as a minimum wage per state.

No extradition without habeus corpus to be enshrined in law.

No reference to defence or EDA, if other states want to be in a military grouping, thats their business.
As an aside I remember in 97 we were assured we would not be in the PfP without a referendum.
In 99 we were signed up to it - without a referendum.

Directly Elected commissioners, i.e no more failures like the Pee Flynns, McCreeveys, or in the future Eoin Ryan/Harney/Ahearns dumped in Europe.

I also think we should have a say in selection of the ministers sent to EU for council, these need not be politicians.
I dont vote for councillers to select my TDs.

More openess and accountability - e.g. expenses for MEPs to be available, steering comittees to be known - no oil execs dealing with environmental issues for example.

I want to see the circus that is Strasbourg/Brussel switch change.
Pick one parliament building, and stick to it.

More power to the EU parliament in terms of setting legislation, less to the council of ministers.

A trans european agency dealing with maritime / aviation safety and employment regulation to stop exploitation and improve safety.

Give me those, I'll vote yes.

conchubhar1

that is an argument for the eu - not lisbon
will the eu be less nice or worse for us should we vote no?

scofflaw - they are all great reasons.

my question - why the hell were these not part of the eu since nice?, maastricht? or since the begginning?

turgon

Zuiderzee wrote: »

A clearer, fairer and more democratic treaty, that is more understandable.

How can an international treaty be dumbed down?

Zuiderzee wrote: »

A treaty voted for by all citizens of the EU If the majority of the 450m citizens say yes, then so be it.

Zuiderzee wrote: »

Standardized workers rights such as a minimum wage per state.

We have that in Ireland. Under whose interest are you voting no?

Zuiderzee wrote: »

Directly Elected commissioners, i.e no more failures like the Pee Flynns, McCreeveys, or in the future Eoin Ryan/Harney/Ahearns dumped in Europe.

People on Boards have shown that this would be an atrocious system.

Zuiderzee wrote: »

I also think we should have a say in selection of the ministers sent to EU for council, these need not be politicians.

These are the minsters of government. What would be the point sending people to Europe who had no power back home.

anonymous_joe

The Mustard wrote: »

My opinion is that we were already asked to vote on this. We voted. We are now being asked to vote again. I don't think that it's very democratic to be made to vote again, until we vote the way the government wants us to vote. I am going to vote no for that reason.

Democracy involves allowing the people make decisions.

You've been given a chance to make a decision. That's democracy.

You're now being given another chance to make a decision. So what you're saying is, by being another chance to vote, the government is trampling on democracy.

Let's start again; if one of the principles of democracy is listening to the people, how is listening to them again undemocratic?

blackgold>> wrote: »

Why vote no !

Imagine for a moment I'm an holocaust revisionist.I can be taken from my country and sent to Germany to stand trial for a crime thats not even a crime in Ireland.This is where the european union is heading.

Is this not a valid enough reason?

Is that the worst argument ever made? 'If I was a holocaust denier...' If you were a holocaust denier I'd happily drag you to Germany myself. In fact, were any of what you said true, I'd be even more inclined to vote yes. But, as ever, it's all lies. Glad to see you sticking up for the holocaust deniers though, those lads really get a rough deal don't they?

thecraichead wrote: »

I am sick of the arguement that putting the question to the public again is undemocratic.

I think the MOST democratic thing to do is to put it to the public again. The treaty has not been ratified as a result of the no vote. Has public sentiment changed in the meantime? Do the majority of the public now wish to pass the treaty given the guarantees? Polls suggest that it will be closer this time.

The UNDEMOCRATIC want to avoid this referendum for fear that they will no longer hold the majority. They do not wish to have the current will of the majority implemented. If people do not want the treaty passed, they should vote no. I may even be a no voter myself. in any case, the will of the majority and democracy will prevail.

But giving people another chance to vote can't be democratic! :rolleyes:

As ever, very few people have any reasons to vote no that are related to the treaty itself.

My favourite is 'I don't know anything about this treaty, but I'm going to vote no because we already voted no. It's not up to me to find out anything about the treaty, instead, I'll vote no on something that I know nothing about.' If you don't understand the treaty, or don't feel you know enough about it to vote, then don't fcuking vote.

This treaty is in fact, about making the voting mechanisms of the EU fairer for all EU citizens. Not for one country over another, but for everyone. It's also attempting to make the EU a more efficient organisation.

The EU is not perfect, but without access to the common markets our country would be a lot worse off. Without the money they gave us to build ourselves up we'd be a lot worse. Voting No because you object to Fianna Fáil, or the process of voting, etc, is silly, because you're only being asked to vote on the treaty.