Lisbon vote October 2nd - How do you intend to vote?

Sam Vimes

I emailed Sinn Fein about article 48 and this is some of what I got back

"Article 48 of the Lisbon Treaty gives the EU powers to amend its own treaties, without recourse to an intergovernmental conference or a new Treaty. It is also unclear whether this 'simplified revision procedure' would be subject to a referendum.


"Up to now revisions of EU treaties required such stages so as to ensure that member state parliaments, and in the case of Ireland, populations can have a say in the decision making process of the EU.


"Article 48 dispenses with this and allows the European Council to make amendments by unanimity and in certain cases by qualified majority voting, without the guarantee of any process of member state ratification. In real terms this means that in the future significant changes could be made to the structure, procedures or competencies of the EU without the guarantee of a referendum."

The issue at stake for us is what kinds of changes would the Council seek to make useing the Simplified Revision Peocedure and whether such changes would require a referendum under the Irish Constitution.

I'm not a Constitutional lawyer, but my understanding is that referenda are only required in this member state where new competencies are being transfered from to the EU, on matters of defence policy, or where there is a clear conflict between the EU propsoal and the content of the Constitution.

The overwhelming majority of the content of both Nice and Lisbon do not fall into these categories and would therefore strictly speaking not require a referenda under the terms of the Simplified Revision Procedure. However because the existing rules only allow Treaty Revision's in a package of proposals, and that those packages always include somthing that does require a referendum in this member state, the people get to debate and vote on the entire package. This means that the people get to have a say on important changes to what the EU does and how it operates even when these changes do not strictly require a referendum. We believe that this is good for democracy and increases public knowledge and awareness of the issues involved.

Does he have a point?

PopeBuckfastXVI

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I emailed Sinn Fein about article 48 and this is some of what I got back




Does he have a point?

In a word no.

"Article 48 of the Lisbon Treaty gives the EU powers to amend its own treaties, without recourse to an intergovernmental conference or a new Treaty. It is also unclear whether this 'simplified revision procedure' would be subject to a referendum."

It is very clear that the 'simplified revision procedure' would be subject to a referendum, where a treaty making the same amendment would also be subject to a referendum.

"Up to now revisions of EU treaties required such stages so as to ensure that member state parliaments, and in the case of Ireland, populations can have a say in the decision making process of the EU."
This is not true, he's inferring that it was the procedure which allowed 'in the case of Ireland, populations can have a say in the decision making process', we are given a say by our Constitution, not by any EU law. The simplified revision procedure dispenses with the need to convene a convention, if a simple majority of the council decide a convention is not necessary. A convention is:

TEU wrote:

composed of representatives of the national
Parliaments, of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States, of the European Parliament
and of the Commission. The European Central Bank shall also be consulted in the case of institutional
changes in the monetary area.

This is basically to allow a relatively small change to not have to bring together all of the above to discuss it first. Again it would still have to go before a referendum in Ireland, where a similar change in a full treaty would.

"Article 48 dispenses with this and allows the European Council to make amendments by unanimity and in certain cases by qualified majority voting, without the guarantee of any process of member state ratification. In real terms this means that in the future significant changes could be made to the structure, procedures or competencies of the EU without the guarantee of a referendum."

This is an outright lie.
Ordinary revision procedure states of amendments:

Ordinary Revision Procedure wrote:

The amendments shall enter into force after being ratified by all the Member States in accordance with
their respective constitutional requirements.

Simplified Revision procedure states of amendments:

The European Council may adopt a decision amending all or part of the provisions of Part Three of the
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The European Council shall act by unanimity after
consulting the European Parliament and the Commission, and the European Central Bank in the case
of institutional changes in the monetary area. That decision shall not enter into force until it is
approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.

The absence of the 'all' in the second quote, is that these decisions may be taken by a subset of member states acting under enhanced cooperation, it must be ratified by any affected states.

There is no getting around the need for a Referendum in Ireland.

"The issue at stake for us is what kinds of changes would the Council seek to make useing the Simplified Revision Peocedure and whether such changes would require a referendum under the Irish Constitution.

I'm not a Constitutional lawyer, but my understanding is that referenda are only required in this member state where new competencies are being transfered from to the EU, on matters of defence policy, or where there is a clear conflict between the EU propsoal and the content of the Constitution.

The overwhelming majority of the content of both Nice and Lisbon do not fall into these categories and would therefore strictly speaking not require a referenda under the terms of the Simplified Revision Procedure. However because the existing rules only allow Treaty Revision's in a package of proposals, and that those packages always include somthing that does require a referendum in this member state, the people get to debate and vote on the entire package. This means that the people get to have a say on important changes to what the EU does and how it operates even when these changes do not strictly require a referendum. We believe that this is good for democracy and increases public knowledge and awareness of the issues involved."

He's sort of right here, however the Crotty judgement made no determination on the legality of future treaties with respect to the areas they cover. Any amendment is open to constitutional challenge, and where it conflicts with the constitution, or dilutes the sovereignty of the state a referendum is required.

I personally feel that it would be better to vote on the individual tenets of EU agreements, to determine exactly what we do and don't want, so the baby doesn't get thrown out with the bathwater.

Where a referendum is not constitutionally required it's within the governments remit to provide one if they want. If SF ever get into government they could give us referenda on absolutely anything that they choose.

RandomName2

Does anybody care to guess how many eu states would reject Lisbon if they were granted referendums?

Imo, I would say around nine.

Mario007

RandomName2 wrote: »

Does anybody care to guess how many eu states would reject Lisbon if they were granted referendums?

Imo, I would say around nine.

in that case we have 18 states saying yes, which 66%...ie a majority, so using your idea of democracy the Lisbon would pass...you need to think of some new argument

RandomName2

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

I personally feel that it would be better to vote on the individual tenets of EU agreements, to determine exactly what we do and don't want, so the baby doesn't get thrown out with the bathwater.

I totally agree - one of the reasons I'll be voting no [Lisbon has some things that I agree with, but are vastly outweighed by other matters]. Moreover the nature of these massive treaties has been one of the reasons given for a lack of referenda across europe - that there could be no consensus reached on such broad, sweeping changes.

I hope they take the hint - no more sweeping changes!

Scofflaw

RandomName2 wrote: »

Does anybody care to guess how many eu states would reject Lisbon if they were granted referendums?

Imo, I would say around nine.

Your guess is as good as any other - pick any number from 0 to 27.

cordially,
Scofflaw

RandomName2

Mario007 wrote: »

in that case we have 18 states saying yes, which 66%...ie a majority, so using your idea of democracy the Lisbon would pass...you need to think of some new argument

1. Hey I wasn't arguing, and besides, that isn't in the rules as it stands, which requires unaminity - in fact, with the ratification in other eu countries there is the assumed support of that country's people; regarless of whether the people actually support it or not.

2. If you take population into account it might make things interesting... a no in France, UK and Poland would be a hell of a lot of votes.

bijapos

Eh. Seemingly if ONE says no the treaty is dead (supposedly). Methinks if 9 say no, then it would definitley be off (but they would probably all get a few more chances to vote).

What countries do people reckon?
Ireland, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, UK, Austria, Germany ?? All or any of these??

Not too well up on the newer states but some of them would have a largish eurosceptic/nationalist voting bloc so what do people think?

AuRevoir

One thing we know for sure, is that if Ireland says no again, then Britain also won't ratify and neither will the Czechs. Suddenly we're not looking so isolated.

RandomName2

bijapos wrote: »

Eh. Seemingly if ONE says no the treaty is dead (supposedly). Methinks if 9 say no, then it would definitley be off (but they would probably all get a few more chances to vote).

What countries do people reckon?
Ireland, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, UK, Austria, Germany ?? All or any of these??

Not too well up on the newer states but some of them would have a largish eurosceptic/nationalist voting bloc so what do people think?

Don't know about Italy. I honestly couldn't see Netherlands or Denmark ratifying if given a legally binding public vote. Many of the new smaller eastern eu states have been hard hit by the recession, and would probably say yes in order to gain favour in Brussels - although Poland would also be quite likely to reject the treaty as well if given a public vote.

Mario007

RandomName2 wrote: »

Don't know about Italy. I honestly couldn't see Netherlands or Denmark ratifying if given a legally binding public vote. Many of the new smaller eastern eu states have been hard hit by the recession, and would probably say yes in order to gain favour in Brussels - although Poland would also be quite likely to reject the treaty as well if given a public vote.

coming from easter europe myself, i can tell you poland would say yes as would czech republic for that matter...

EDIT:

france would most likely say yes too, given that they're happy with sarkozy's position on the treaty(looking a the polls form eu elections) and same applies to germany where virtually everyone apart from the radical parties support the treaty.UK would be most likely no, though it would be close, Italy is a yes both berlusconni and prodo support lisbon, sweden would be a yes, epsecially right now as they are the presidency, austria is maybe no, netherlands probably no as well if you want to go country by country. but that is all irrelevant because we need to respect their consitution.

Oh btw did you hear UKIP wants to help the 'no' side in ireland, apparently...

RandomName2

Mario007 wrote: »

coming from easter europe myself, i can tell you poland would say yes as would czech republic for that matter...

EDIT:

france would most likely say yes too, given that they're happy with sarkozy's position on the treaty(looking a the polls form eu elections) and same applies to germany where virtually everyone apart from the radical parties support the treaty.UK would be most likely no, though it would be close, Italy is a yes both berlusconni and prodo support lisbon, sweden would be a yes, epsecially right now as they are the presidency, austria is maybe no, netherlands probably no as well if you want to go country by country. but that is all irrelevant because we need to respect their consitution.

Oh btw did you hear UKIP wants to help the 'no' side in ireland, apparently...

You are mostly judging this by the parties in these countries. By that logic the last Irish lisbon vote was a landslide 'yes'. I would expect a second no in France.

bijapos

+1

Its the view of the political parties, not the people. I think germany would run it close too. Lot of people still pissed off with the Euro and would like the Deutschmark back. Germany has always been a net payer in the EU and at a time of economic difficulty this will always sway some people regardless as to whether the argument is valid or not.

French right now would also vote no, to piss Sarko off more than anything else really.

Scofflaw

bijapos wrote: »

+1

Its the view of the political parties, not the people. I think germany would run it close too. Lot of people still pissed off with the Euro and would like the Deutschmark back. Germany has always been a net payer in the EU and at a time of economic difficulty this will always sway some people regardless as to whether the argument is valid or not.

French right now would also vote no, to piss Sarko off more than anything else really.

This is all good, entertaining speculation, and you're free to believe it, because we don't have any real idea one way or the other. What's the point of it, though?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Agent J

I voted No orignally.

My reasons are for the moment irrelevant.

I was considering a change of mind because to be frank right now i dont think the EU could do a worse job then our current government anyway.

However recieving that damn postcard in the mail just annoyed the hell out of me.

"Yes we've recieved all of this stuff which means you can all vote the way we want you to. Europe has listened to our concerns"

I'm left with a single thought.

If they can't hear us when we say NO then what good is it to have a louder voice within the EU?

K-9

RandomName2 wrote: »

2. If you take population into account it might make things interesting... a no in France, UK and Poland would be a hell of a lot of votes.

And there would be little point in maybe 6/7 countries voting, including ourselves as we'd be insignificant.

P. Breathnach

Agent J wrote: »

...
However recieving that damn postcard in the mail just annoyed the hell out of me.

"Yes we've recieved all of this stuff which means you can all vote the way we want you to. Europe has listened to our concerns"

I'm left with a single thought.

If they can't hear us when we say NO then what good is it to have a louder voice within the EU?

Let's see: the people voted no; the government tried to figure out why and deal with the reasons people gave; they then told you what they had done; and because they told you, you are annoyed.

What if they hadn't told you?

Agent J

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Let's see: the people voted no; the government tried to figure out why and deal with the reasons people gave; they then told you what they had done; and because they told you, you are annoyed.

What if they hadn't told you?

And throwing out a postcard before the offical annoucement of the referendum date to manever around rules about funding for both sides is the mark of a reasonable and fair government?

I don't recall the ballot paper having spefic section in which you had to list reasons. It simply had yes or no.

If we had voted yes would have they have bothered to figure out and deal with the reasons presented for that decision? The answer to that is the key to this whole debate.

I dont like the result of the 2007 general election. Can we have a re run of that after we ask the people what there reasons were for voting the way they did?

PopeBuckfastXVI

Agent J wrote: »

I dont like the result of the 2007 general election. Can we have a re run of that after we ask the people what there reasons were for voting the way they did?

I'm all up for that...

the-island-man

That poll looks awful similar to the result in the last referendum!
Thats what you get when you fire out the exact same treaty people shot down last june!
Them "legal guarantee's" are a joke, if they really wanted to assure people they would have changed the treaty itself. Same thing happened in Britain where Britain wanted to keep control over its working times 16 years ago so it got legal gurantees from E.U. For any change in their working times the european council would have to vote unanimously to change it as the British thought but what they didn't know was the E.U slyly put the working time directive under the health and safety area of legislation and not the social area which would have meant the european council would have had to vote unanimously to change but with it being under health safety a majority of the council vote was all that was needed so in affect Britain got dictated to by the E.U and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it!

Keep our state free and vote NO

bijapos

Scofflaw: What do you mean whats the point of it? Like you said its speculation. Harmless pondering nothing more. Like asking whose going to win the all ireland. :rolleyes:

Goodnight

the-island-man

Scofflaw wrote: »

...amazing! You think you can reclassify a direct tax as an indirect tax? Reclassify corporation tax - a tax on profits - as a sales tax? And you're basing your concerns on this piece of absolute fiction?

Look, this is a forum for political discussion. It's not a forum for people who are literally going to invent impossible things, and run their "politics" around those impossibilities. If you're going to come out with this kind of nonsense, you'll have to post in After Hours or Conspiracy Theories, because you're not sufficiently in touch with the real world to discuss the real world's politics.

Sorry to be so blunt, but people are trying to discuss reality here. Other posters have put forward things that are arguable, but this point is not arguable. You are simply saying that black can be reclassified as white, and therefore zebras are really unicorns. Take it elsewhere.

moderately,
Scofflaw

wow what arrogance!
Ya thats right its a political discussion on boards a website that provides a platform for people to express their own opinions even if they don't know a whole lot about certain subject areas such as law/politics, i thought moderators were appointed to give knowlegable opinions and advice not to ridicule somebody because they don't agree with your point of view!

P. Breathnach

Agent J wrote: »

And throwing out a postcard before the offical annoucement of the referendum date to manever around rules about funding for both sides is the mark of a reasonable and fair government? ...

Given that the postcard contained information, and not exhortation, yes it is a reasonable and fair thing to do. Legal, too.

K-9

the-island-man wrote: »

wow what arrogance!
Ya thats right its a political discussion on boards a website that provides a platform for people to express their own opinions even if they don't know a whole lot about certain subject areas such as law/politics, i thought moderators were appointed to give knowlegable opinions and advice not to ridicule somebody because they don't agree with your point of view!

OK, Future Taoiseachs point makes no sense whatsoever. VAT is a tax on sales, so an indirect tax. If I buy a Vatable product, I pay the tax.

Corporation and indeed Income Tax is a direct tax on income, eg. wages or with companies, Profit.

So:

FutureTaoiseach wrote:

I have concerns that corporation-tax could be remodelled as a turnover tax under the CCCTB proposals. A turnover tax is a tax on sales after all, and CCCTB is about paying the taxes proportionately to the govts of the countries of sales-destination.

If it was changed to a sales tax, it would no longer be a direct tax. It ceases to be Corporation tax. It is now an indirect tax, VAT.

The Irish Taxation Institute endorsed this.

P. Breathnach

the-island-man wrote: »

wow what arrogance!
Ya thats right its a political discussion on boards a website that provides a platform for people to express their own opinions even if they don't know a whole lot about certain subject areas such as law/politics, i thought moderators were appointed to give knowlegable opinions and advice not to ridicule somebody because they don't agree with your point of view!

FutureTaoiseach holds that a turnover tax is much the same as a profits tax, something that is patently nonsensical. You seem to regard that as "opinion". It's opinion only in the same sense that to affirm that Paris is the capital of Germany is opinion.

Moderators, as I understand the role, are free to join in the hurly-burly of discussion here pretty well as they like except when actually discharging their function as moderator. Scofflaw (who needs no defence from me) was exercising that freedom and was, in my judgement, also expressing a "knowledgeable opinion" on FutureTaoiseach's absurd claim.

Hitman Actual

the-island-man wrote: »

wow what arrogance!
Ya thats right its a political discussion on boards a website that provides a platform for people to express their own opinions even if they don't know a whole lot about certain subject areas such as law/politics, i thought moderators were appointed to give knowlegable opinions and advice not to ridicule somebody because they don't agree with your point of view!

Read Charters much? It was blatant misinformation from FutureTaoiseach.

the-island-man

I wasn't agreeing with futuretaoiseach i was pointing out that Scofflaws response was inadequate.
He could have given either of your responses instead he said:

Scofflaw wrote: »

you're not sufficiently in touch with the real world to discuss the real world's politics.

Maybe its just me but i thought that was very condescending.

K-9

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Moderators, as I understand the role, are free to join in the hurly-burly of discussion here pretty well as they like except when actually discharging their function as moderator. Scofflaw (who needs no defence from me) was exercising that freedom and was, in my judgement, also expressing a "knowledgeable opinion" on FutureTaoiseach's absurd claim.

There are also certain standards here, higher than some other "political discussion" sites. Soap boxing in particular, is frowned upon and that would tie in with his post. There is absolutely no evidence or precedent to believe that any country, never mind the EU, would change the goalposts like that. It seems the only goalposts being moved was Future Taoiseachs, in a last ditch attempt to justify his view. It would be a shame for some naive reader to actually read that and see it unchallenged as crap.

alphamale 1

Im voting NO after the way FF have run the country into the ground even though I voted YES originally and because of the sneakiness of Brendan Smyth to cut the REPS scheme despite 55 % of the funding coming from Brusels and considering all the spin-off employment and Taxes that is generated, Sorry gone of theme of thread:)

I mite be on the dole becuase of the closure of the

K-9

the-island-man wrote: »

Maybe its just me but i thought that was very condescending.

It can be hard when somebody is clinging to already tenuous evidence and then comes out with something that is nonsensical.

The reason direct and indirect tax is so important is, the EU has competence over indirect tax, not direct tax. It hasn't been granted jurisdiction in direct taxes. It's an extremely important distinction.

All this talk of the EU changing our CT rate ignores the fact that they have failed to meddle in our exorbitant VRT rates, something they arguably have power over.