Frank opinions from the Yes campaign

StealthRolex

In fairness these are all Lisbon 1 but giving that all that has changed are our "guarantees" these are still relevant...

“Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly … All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”
- Former French President V.Giscard D’Estaing, who helped to draw up the EU Constitution which the French and Dutch rejected in their 2005 referendums and which is now being implemented through the Lisbon Treaty, Le Monde, 14 June 2007
_______

“France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting No. It would happen in all Member States if they have a referendum. There is a cleavage between people and governments … There will be no Treaty if we had a referendum in France, which would again be followed by a referendum in the UK.”
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy,at meeting of senior MEPs, EUobserver, 14 November 2007
_______

“The difference between the original Constitution and the present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach, rather than content … The proposals in the original constitutional treaty are practically unchanged. They have simply been dispersed through the old treaties in the form of amendments. Why this subtle change? Above all, to head off any threat of referenda by avoiding any form of constitutional vocabulary … But lift the lid and look in the toolbox: all the same innovative and effective tools are there, just as they were carefully crafted by the European Convention.”
- V.Giscard D’Estaing, former French President and Chairman of the Convention which drew up the EU Constitution, The Independent, London, 30 October 2007
______

“They decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception. Where they got this perception from is a mystery to me. In order to make our citizens happy, to produce a document that they will never understand! But, there is some truth [in it]. Because if this is the kind of document that the IGC will produce, any Prime Minister - imagine the UK Prime Minister - can go to the Commons and say ‘Look, you see, it’s absolutely unreadable, it’s the typical Brussels treaty, nothing new, no need for a referendum.’ Should you succeed in understanding it at first sight there might be some reason for a referendum, because it would mean that there is something new.”
- Giuliano Amato, former Italian Prime Minister and Vice-Chairman of the Convention which drew up the EU Constitution, recorded by Open Europe, The Centre for European Reform, London, 12 July 2007
_____

“Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empires. We have the dimension of Empire but there is a great difference. Empires were usually made with force with a centre imposing diktat, a will on the others. Now what we have is the first non-imperial empire.”
Commission President J-M Barroso, The Brussels Journal, 11 July 2007
_______

“The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable … The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this treaty had to be unclear. It is a success.
- Karel de Gucht, Belgian Foreign Minister, Flandreinfo, 23 June 2007

---

”If the perspective of a second vote in Ireland has been raised it is because it has happened before,” said Mr Sarkozy.

“We need some kind of vote to get out of the situation - Parliament or referendum I don’t know. But when democratic society says 'No’, you need some kind of democratic solution.”

Any means necessary to get an Irish Yes, is what the French President is getting at here. There is no other answer.

(Telegraph, UK, July 2008)

---

Food for thought as to why the Yes camp are accused of misrepresentation as often as the No camp.

ei.sdraob

StealthRolex wrote: »

Food for thought as to why the Yes camp are accused of misrepresentation as often as the No camp.

1. Telegraph are the UK euro skeptic paper, they predict daily the euro would collapse (despite their own currency going down gutter)

2. none of the people you mentioned are in the Yes campaign, and are citizens of other countries...

Scofflaw

Anyone who wants to read these can read the old threads. They can also read the various warnings about making posts that are nothing but quotes.

For those who have missed all such warnings, and the reasoning behind them, here it is again: unless you're the person quoted, you can neither explain nor update your quote, because it's not your opinion, but someone else's, which may or may not be entirely out of context. Occasional quotes are acceptable, but a post made entirely of quotes is not, and an OP like this one is not even slightly acceptable.

Your own opinions, or GTFO.

moderately,
Scofflaw