If No to Nice then what?

Typedef

I hate to burst your bubble, but the problems in Africa stem in a large part from the mess the Colonial era made of Africa.
Borders were drawn literally with rulers irrespective of ethnicity to suit the Colonialists of the time and those borders caused years of war once the Empires in question collapsed.

The CAP is essentially neo-Colonialism, and what's more the countries that are so debt ridden are borrowing money to pay back the interest owed on loans, while exporting crops abroad to try and pay their way out of debt, even though said countries barely have enough money to feed themselves and so have to borrow more money.

It is unfortunate that some African Countries are so Debt ridden that they do not stand a chance competing with the E.U

And if you actually take the time to do even cursory research of the topic you will find that the EU places barriers to processed materials being imported into the EU, because the EU wants to keep those Secondary level industrial activities within the EU. Thus the (ostensibly) African countries producing the raw materials (ie crops) are forever condemned to Primary (ie Agrarian) level industrial activities. That is the injustice of the CAP and is the sinister Neo-Colonial implications of the same.

Typedef

Originally posted by Paulg
Its obvious now that the NO voters are anti-european! and not just anti-Nice.

Beg to differ. My last girlfriend French, the one before, Russian the one before that German and yet I'm a No voter.

So since my last three Girlfriends have been Siberian and European that proves I am not an anti-European bigot, and since I'm voting No to the Nice Treaty and the exception invalidates the rule, I think you will find that your coy propaganda is in fact quite insular and utterly spurious.

Paulg

Anti-european, as in Ireland being part of the EU.

And what does a girl from Siberia have anything to do with Europe?

gandalf

Originally posted by Paulg
Its obvious now that the NO voters are anti-european! and not just anti-Nice.

And your proof of that is what? Nice generalised statement there.

I consider myself to be a good open minded european who makes up his own mind on important political decisions.

The fact I feel this treaty is not in the best interests of the Union, the accession countries and Ireland is the reason I am voting No.

Gandalf.

Shazbat

Originally posted by Meh
. Ireland has five times as many votes per capita than Germany....

So therefore, luxembourg has roughly 60 times as many votes per capita than Germany....

Originally posted by Typedef
I hate to burst your bubble, but the problems in Africa stem in a large part from the mess the Colonial era made of Africa.
Borders were drawn literally with rulers irrespective of ethnicity to suit the Colonialists of the time and those borders caused years of war once the Empires in question collapsed.

The CAP is essentially neo-Colonialism, and what's more the countries that are so debt ridden are borrowing money to pay back the interest owed on loans, while exporting crops abroad to try and pay their way out of debt, even though said countries barely have enough money to feed themselves and so have to borrow more money.

It is unfortunate that some African Countries are so Debt ridden that they do not stand a chance competing with the E.U

And if you actually take the time to do even cursory research of the topic you will find that the EU places barriers to processed materials being imported into the EU, because the EU wants to keep those Secondary level industrial activities within the EU. Thus the (ostensibly) African countries producing the raw materials (ie crops) are forever condemned to Primary (ie Agrarian) level industrial activities. That is the injustice of the CAP and is the sinister Neo-Colonial implications of the same.

I am well aware of the history of africa, thank you.
I simply blamed,the problems of those countries in Africa that are Debt ridden on bad governence.
I did not comment on the history of that bad governence.
Neither did I comment on your example with respect to the E.U's attitude towards processed materials from third countries,Africa or elsewhere.
What I said was:

So far they've restricted the fruits of their Economy to most of the residents of it and especially to the detriment of third world countries.

Every Country in the E.U has a democratically elected government, whose electorate can throw out if they disagree with their policies.
Regarding Collonisation:
Were we not collonised also?
It's a pretty fine Economy we have, albeit with some issues.

I made comments in another thread regarding the CAP, only in relation to how its implementation for new entrants to the EU will be handled.I did not offer any comment on the pro's or cons of same, nor do I intend to here.
mm

Meh

Originally posted by Shazbat
So therefore, luxembourg has roughly 60 times as many votes per capita than Germany....

25.73 times, to be exact. Yes, the voting weights are biased in favour of the smaller countries such as Luxembourg and Ireland.

Whether this is unfair to the larger countries, or merely a safeguard in favour of the smaller member states is a matter of opinion. I'd just like to point out that we don't exactly have to worry about the Luxembourgers, with their three votes, dominating the EU Commission and pushing through decisions over the objections of other states.

DadaKopf

Its obvious now that the NO voters are anti-european! and not just anti-Nice.

That logic doesn't follow at all. Couldn't it simply be that the 'no' voters disagree with the conditions of the treaty as they currently stand but still remain supportive of the European project as a whole?

A survey conducted after the first referendum found one unchanging variable: the defeat of the referendum was directly correlated to dissatisfaction with the government. This may indicate, unfortunately, that 'no' voters (as opposed to active 'no' campaigners) don't really see the connection between the Nice Treaty and the European project; rather they see it as a battle with the government. The public's attitude towards the EU is pretty much hermetically sealed from this local politics power-play.

As for the campaigners, few, if any, are actively Euro-sceptic. They differ greatly on the development of the EU in its varying facets but findamentally, the campaigners, too, support the basic principle of the EU. You'll therefore find a lot of vitriol over the European Army, voting weights, democratic deficit, a two-speed Europe, the emergence of the EU as more than an economic community, economic impacts and so on, but you'll be hard put to find anyone who is anti-Europe. The last real Euro-sceptic was Crotty, whose challenge to the constitutionality of such treaties got us into this fix in the first place.

Many people opposing the treaty, including myself, intend for it to go back to the drawing board, to be renegotiated and reformulated, so as to bring about a better EU, not to pull us out of it altogether. This, I think, is the most responsible thing voters can do.

Yes, the voting weights are biased in favour of the smaller countries such as Luxembourg and Ireland.

The voting weights may have changed but they cannot improve. An inevitable consequence of enlargement (under present structures or the Treaty of Nice) is that smaller countries are going to lose out. It's a fact of democratic theory that the greater the number of smaller countries, the more difficult it is for them to proportionately build up a critical mass with which to challenge the larger countries. This is just something that's going to happen with enlargement, Nice Treaty or not. So whether Ireland or Luxembourg gets a disproportionate slice of the pie (in our/their favour), it won't actually matter too much as the accession countries are all smaller countries.

This strikes me as regrettable, but inevitable. There's probably no solution except for the EU to undergo a radical overhaul of its institutions to redress the gross power differential. One solution could be to redefine member-states as single actors, each being given equal political power just like individuals in society are considered equal. Decision-making in the EU could then be said to be much fairer for all states. However, when it gets down to real power, the reality kicks in - power is money, population, competitiveness, political capital. So that idea is never going to work.

Originally posted by Typedef
Beg to differ. My last girlfriend French, the one before, Russian the one before that German and yet I'm a No voter.

So since my last three Girlfriends have been Siberian and European that proves I am not an anti-European bigot, and since I'm voting No to the Nice Treaty and the exception invalidates the rule, I think you will find that your coy propaganda is in fact quite insular and utterly spurious.

That answer only applies if the term "anti European" refers to the people of Europe.
I've just seen PaulG's reply stating as much.
I do not agree that Anti Nice treaty posters here are on the whole "anti European" in the sense of Ireland for instance pulling out of the E.U.
Theres been a whole variety of opinions expressed.

To pluck a phrase from the sticky guidelines for posters "...bear in mind that the written word contains less information than the spoken.."
That phrase nails whats happened here.
mm

Paulg

Yes of course I mean, anti-EU.

I made that comment in response to the previosu two comments which expressed that the EU was only set up to give more power to a few large countries.

I started this thread because I wanted to hear the opinions of the NO votes as to what way they wanted to see the EU go. I would be a YES voter, but was willing to listen to what the NO side had to say. The information in the media didn't go into much detail on how this treaty could be better, or improved on so that it would gain the support of all the countries within the EU.

Typedef

I fail to see how criticising the Eurozone interest rate as being set to the benefit of Germany and to the detrament of Ireland makes me Anti-EU.

I happen to disagree with European Federal political integration, because I regard it (not meaning to be too esoteric) as a renewal of the Irish question ie, it is a question of who is best qualified to govern Ireland, the Irish or the Europeans, in which instance, I choose the Irish everytime.

Thus I am against the eventual aim of a European Federal SuperState, and Ireland's participation in such an entity, as I believe such an entity will be detramental to Irish representative democracy, freedom and prosperity as I believe a Federal EU will effectively be a plutocracy, where large and powerful nations dictate policy and in such circumstances Ireland will not have self determinate nor representative mechanism of governance. Instead Ireland will be effectively a colonial state, due to the absolute size disparity of a bloc of four million people in a greater bloc of five hundred million people. In such a bloc Ireland can never have a reasonable nor representative form of governance, and Ireland in such a Federal Union would effectively be ruled by large foreign powers. To my mind the drop in the ocean mentality must be prevailent because I simply don't trust foreigners to adequately govern Ireland in lieu of the Irish. That is why I oppose Federalism in the EU context.

spongebob

I cannot agree with everything Typedef has said in this thread.

I am even less minded to disagree.

M

Originally posted by Typedef
I fail to see how criticising the Eurozone interest rate as being set to the benefit of Germany and to the detrament of Ireland makes me Anti-EU.

Clearly, since we ceded our control over interest rates to the E.C.B, the rate they set was designed to help the E.U' as whole's growth.
Paradoxically,those low interest rates added further fuel to ours.
At the height of the celtic tiger, borrowing from a bank was never as easy or as cheap.

The advent of the Euro is a pretty federalist step already taken.
mm