Ireland to reject Nice treaty again?

Keeks

Was reading this article in the Irish Examiner, and was wondering what its all about. It more or less says that the EU is gonna implement the nice treaty, wheather we agree to it or not. Am I interpting it write or am i missing something. It sounds like we don't have much say in anything we do does it?

They talk about a "shell" EU and a "real' EU aswell. What do they mean by that?

Elmo

Its nice to see that no matter who we vote into government they will not except what the people said the first time round. No.

Chaos-Engine

Well Sinn Fein and The Greens will be getting my vote as they have both pledged NOT to rerun and if it is rerun they will fight it with a "NO" if unimended....

PRO-EU, PRO-EnLARGEMENT, BUT PRO-REFORM AND
NO to NICE

billy the squid

Voted no to it the last time and have to say will be voting no the next time too.

the reason, I dont understand it too well and have my doubts about it.

I think that is why alot of people voted no to it, because they felt they were being railroaded into something that they werent too sure of.

and as for that forum on Europe, nothing more than a waffle shop

Keeks

But the point i'm making is that according to the article the EU is gonna implement the nice treaty regardless of wheather vote yes or no. So whats the point in having the referendum? What will the consequences be for us if we vote no and the rest of the EU goes ahead with it? How much will be lose out?

From what i've read of the nice treaty (actual doucument - not re-hased papers stuff) its a load of b*ll*x. There is way too much in it. From what I understand about it (it too big for me to read) it looks like they are trying to pass a whole load of stuff under one referendum. If they broke up the traty into smaller documents and let us decide on certain sections it would be much better and easier to understand.

Boston

The point is that they would like to have the appearance of democary.

The Eu say's where all equal, the nice treaty says some of us are more equal then others

bonkey

Originally posted by Keeks
It more or less says that the EU is gonna implement the nice treaty, wheather we agree to it or not.

Yes - and that was always the situation. Sorta like the notion that the Euro was rolled out without being ratified by all member states. Just like the Euro, if we dont ratify the Nice Treaty, we wont be bound by it.

AFAIK, the Shell EU refers to the entire group of nations who are member-nations of the EU. The "real" EU are the nations who implement all of the core agreements - Nice and the Euro being the main two at the moment.

I dunno if you hear the term in Ireland much, but "Euroland" is a common term over here to describe the EU nations who have adopted the Euro....to distinguish them from the EU as a whole.

As to all the people who've replied about the "accept a no because thats what we said the first time round"....I hope none of you would ever dream of supporting abortion or divorce referendums - after all - we've said no to those already as well.

jc

Biffa Bacon

Originally posted by Keeks
It more or less says that the EU is gonna implement the nice treaty, wheather we agree to it or not. Am I interpting it write or am i missing something.

No, I think you're wrong there. The Nice Treaty cannot come into effect until all signatories have ratified it. Therefore if we don't agree to it the whole thing has to be discarded.

Victor

Originally posted by bonkey
As to all the people who've replied about the "accept a no because thats what we said the first time round"....I hope none of you would ever dream of supporting abortion or divorce referendums - after all - we've said no to those already as well.

But we have divorce!

bonkey

Originally posted by Victor

But we have divorce!

I know - but why arent these zealots crying out to have that one removed too?

After all - the populace said no first time round. That should have been enough, shouldnt it?

jc

Victor

Originally posted by bonkey
I know - but why arent these zealots crying out to have that one removed too? After all - the populace said no first time round. That should have been enough, shouldnt it?

(a) there was 10 years between the divorce referendums.
(b) the proposal was different.

mike65

Arn't we getting ahead of ourselves a little, the ref wont be held until the autumn and as things stand we don't know what final
tweaks my be made to keep Ireland on board.

I don't know why I said "we", sadly I can't vote in referenda so this is all by-the-by...:(

Mike.

Keeks

Originally posted by bonkey


Yes - and that was always the situation. Sorta like the notion that the Euro was rolled out without being ratified by all member states. Just like the Euro, if we dont ratify the Nice Treaty, we wont be bound by it.

This below is what confuese me on this subject. This passage is taken from the Governments White paper on the Nice treaty. It can be found here

The Treaty will come into effect only if it is ratified by each of the 15 Member States of the Union. Present indications are that in most if not all other Member States, ratification will require only parliamentary approval. The Government have decided that a Referendum will be held here, in view of the fact that ratification of the Treaty will require constitutional change. The Member States aim to complete the ratification process throughout the Union before the end of 2002.

This states that it will only come into effect if it is ratifed by all 15 member states. Can the EU suddenly create a 2-tier union as we looking like the only nation to not ratify it?

I think it's more like a 15 tier union at the moment as there are so many areas dealt with so differently, on a country by country basis.
Fish quotas and Milk quotas being two examples.
The original spirit of the E.U was a common market, but when you have all sorts of foreign boats flying European "flags of convenience" just to pillage our waters of what little fish is left...
Then the E.U is a mockery, it's not a union at all.

Regarding milk quota's: These are regulated differently in all E.U countries, thereby making a dairy farmers cost base different in every European Union Country.Effectively this causes unfair competition between the agricultural produce of the different states.
Currently for instance if you are a dairy farmer in Northern Ireland, you have unlimited access to the purchase of Milk quota from Great Britain(since Foot and mouth , last year thousands have had enough and are selling theirs).They are expanding like crazy and flooding the Republics market with Milk.
The Republics farmers have virtually no access to new quota so cannot expand and must take the resulting price drop.
It has caused a drop of 10% so far and is likely to hit 20% by the end of this year.
Incidently none of this is being felt in the shops, it's the farmer thats taking the hit.

Mind you This is not an argument against agricultural spending in the E.U,subsidies etc a different issue entirely.
I'm just pointing out how politicians make their own rules regardless of what should be a "common market" and am sceptical of the Nice treaty in that regard.
mm

Cork

I did not vote the last time and have to say I will be voting no the next time. I have doubts about the agenda behind the EU and I am worried about this treary being pushed at us.

sceptre

Funny thing, re-running referendums.

I'd like to think of myself as a somewhat educated voter - I usually weigh up all the issues that the proposal concerns.

The divorce referendum, as was pointed out, is likely to differ from the re-running of the Nice referendum in that the proposals in the two referendums were different. The 80s one was far more of a free-for-all compared with the 90s vote. Personally, I voted no in the last divorce referendum. Not because I was against divorce - actually I was very much in favour. I just didn't agree with the actual amendment - especially with hot-wiring the four-year waiting period into the constitution.

The Nice amendment was good enough for me to vote "no" to it last time. Short of a treaty amendment (which is unlikely to happen), I'll be voting "no" again.

Keeks

i think ppl have missed the point of the question i posed.

What happens to us if we vote no again?

Fron the Govenments white paper the tray can only be ratified if the 15 nations agree but accounding to the article above it could create a two tier society. So what happens?

sceptre

AFAIK four other countries haven't officially ratified the treaty yet.

The UK and Greece are two, can't remember the others.

Which may not act as any better of an answer to your question, Keeks, but we're not alone yet.

(correctable on the above, it was said by someone who should know to me recently)

Biffa Bacon

Originally posted by Keeks
i think ppl have missed the point of the question i posed.

What happens to us if we vote no again?

The political establishment, the Irish Times, the EU Commission, Romano Prodi will all call us bad boys and girls and how could we be so selfish. But I think the Nice Treaty will be scrapped and they'll have to come up with another one.
What won't happen is half the EU going ahead with it and leaving us behind.

johnKarma

this is slightly off-topic, but there is an argument that we never needed to amend the constitution to go ahead with the nice treaty anyway. the reason there was a perceived need to amend the constitution is due to the ruling of the supreme court in the crotty case back in 1987. crotty challenged the ratification of the single european act without an amendment because, rightly, he felt the government were ceding sovereignty to europe without a popular mandate. the court decided that the terms of the SEA were beyond the "essential scope" of the treaties that had already been given constitutional approval. hence we needed a referendum.

i'm not sure about the specifics of the nice treaty, but, combined with general unease about the democratic deficit and future direction of the union, the specific part of the treaty of nice people seem to have objection to is the rotating commission membership. is this beyond the "essential scope" of the treaties? enlargement is a goal specifically mentioned in all the treaties so far. it is only natural that institutional reform should occur to facilitate this enlargement. it seems to me that the treaty of nice, which is modest compared to the earlier treaties, was just "at the wrong place at the wrong time"

of course, it is now politically impossible for our government to ratify the treaty without approval by the people. and i'm not expressing an opinion that the government SHOULD have tried to ratify without putting it to a referendum. but its food for thought nonetheless.

Keeks

Originally posted by sceptre
AFAIK four other countries haven't officially ratified the treaty yet.

The UK and Greece are two, can't remember the others.

Which may not act as any better of an answer to your question, Keeks, but we're not alone yet.

(correctable on the above, it was said by someone who should know to me recently)

The other four countries only need to put pen to paper. The Uk plans on doing it later this month (i think) as it has been agreed by both houses of parliment. It s more or les the same with the others. We're the only country thats seems to be against it.