Veto's and Power - Negative Thinking

PopeBuckfastXVI

I'm wondering what the obsession is with retaining 'Ireland's' veto in common policy areas?

On the face of it you might say, 'Well PBXVI, the veto keeps us all powerful, we can block any legislation we want', and you are correct. Up to a point.

I would say that retention of veto's makes us severely weak by the same token. Every other member state also retains a veto, enabling any of the other 26 member states to block any legislation we want to get through, all it takes is one, no matter how important it is to us, no matter how many we convince, there could be just one that would block us, for any reason they chose.

Both views presented here are obviously based on an EU that doesn't work by seeking consensus, and doesn't work for the betterment of all it's members. An EU that doesn't exist, that is.

Still, for the people who believe that's how the EU works remember:

Vetos are double edged swords and cut both ways.

K-9

I wonder how many times it actually has been used.

Scofflaw

K-9 wrote: »

I wonder how many times it actually has been used.

Apparently we nearly used ours in the early 1980s, over milk quotas.

cordially,
Scofflaw

anonymous_joe

Milk - white gold.

The veto is to assuage the fears of people who think the EU's some kind of Byzantine organisation plotting to enslave us all.

Scofflaw

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Milk - white gold.

The veto is to assuage the fears of people who think the EU's some kind of Byzantine organisation plotting to enslave us all.

Who are surprisingly common online - but then, so are 9/11 truthers, JFK conspiracy theorists, climate change deniers, creationists, and moon-hoaxers. What is it about the net that brings out the zanies?

cordially,
Scofflaw

anonymous_joe

Scofflaw wrote: »

Who are surprisingly common online - but then, so are 9/11 truthers, JFK conspiracy theorists, climate change deniers, creationists, and moon-hoaxers. What is it about the net that brings out the zanies?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Lack of laughter.

If I told my mates that I believed the world was ruled by a cabal of evil lizards they'd laugh at me.

If I told my friends that the EU was going to conscript me and all of them into an army, they'd laugh at me.

The internet offers the freedom of anonymity, you can say these things without being labelled a fúcktard, or a liar, or any number of things.

In the case of the veto, which is almost never used by anyone as far as I'm aware, people love to talk about how this drags us away from independance etc.

FutureTaoiseach

They constitute important leverage and actually provide an incentive for consensus.

Scofflaw

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

They constitute important leverage and actually provide an incentive for consensus.

A refreshingly accurate and unhysterical point! They also have a chilling effect on the proposal of legislation in veto areas.

While all of that makes the vetoes useful, it hardly suggests that giving them up is the total surrender of national sovereignty it's being made out to be.

cordially,
Scofflaw

conchubhar1

K-9 wrote: »

I wonder how many times it actually has been used.

so it will not be used in the future

bad argument against keeping it

K-9

conchubhar1 wrote: »

so it will not be used in the future

bad argument against keeping it

Don't think that was the point being made. They do seem rather redundant in practice.

Daftendirekt

What I really want to know, is which vetoes some people are opposed to using?

I mean, if we were losing our veto on taxation or something like that, I could probably understand, but why oppose the move to QMV on principle?

meganj

I think many people who fear the EU or what it supposedly has the potential to develop into like the veto because in many ways they see it as an insurance policy, that Ireland can if it wishes stop any legislation that may adversely affect Ireland.

Although I do think the veto is more of a hindrance then a help in some ways, it's not wholly democratic much less so then QMV and while Ireland can use it to further (or protect) our own causes it is as already stated here a double edged sword! Where as at least with QMV it is a democratic process which even if it goes wrong at east it was fairly decided and not just one country opposing it for god knows what reason.
But once again at least each country retains it right to object to something for "the national interest".

As with most things in the EU a case can be made for both sides at least with the veto though there is a valid argument for both sides and not a valid argument for one and an abortion/conscription/flying monkeys running our lives argument usually so prevalent in this forum