Lisbon Treaty (1 Viewer)

My point is, that Ireland is the exception as it's the only country that is obliged to have a referendum.

And this is my problem.

Of course other countries have the option to hold referenda if they want to but they are not legally required to.

Again, this is my problem.

That is why I think the whole issue about "Why other countries aren't allowed to vote" is kind of irrelevant.

It has led to a democratic deficit. Why were other countries holding referenda on the EU Constitution but not now?

Again, it has nothing to do with content of the Lisbon Treaty. It is a separate debate which the people in the other EU countries need to have for themselves (& arguably should have had long before now).

I can't agree with this at all. I take this position because I have a fundamental problem with allowing my state to ratify a Treaty that the citizens of no other EU country have not had a direct say on. It is fundamentally connected to the Treaty.

On another separate issue, I think the main reason Referenda usually happen is so governments can avoid making decisions on highly emotive issues like abortion & divorce.

I disagree. Referenda happen because countries are required to have one when altering the basic governing document of their country, because that basic governing document (ie, a Constitution) contains the fundamental elements that comprise their nation. An Irish example would be the Bail Referendum held here in Ireland in the 1990's - we might be having another one next year; the reason we have a referendum on this matter is because it pertains to issues surrounding personal liberty - a fundamental element of the governing of our country.

Joe Higgins is the only politician I've ever met who I can say I respect. And I've met rakes of them, personally, professionally and electorally. His only downside is the language is a bit outdated and tends to alienate him a bit wit the wanky yuppie me-me-me types. That's not to say that the language is wrong. And I suppose it's part of what makes him the man he is.

Nice man; nice politics. Never thought I'd be able to say anything of the sort.

I'm voting no for many reasons. But lately, even though I was already going to vote no, it's been strengthened by the following: the under-handed way they've gone about this treaty; the veiled threats; the misinformation.

socmot said:

I take this position because I have a fundamental problem with allowing my state to ratify a Treaty that the citizens of no other EU country have not had a direct say on.

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But each government has been democratically elected. Does that not give them some right to make the decision on the people's behalf?

I can't vote in this (and have been out of the propaganda loop), but from reading up here (which is neutral?), I think I'd lean towards yes. Most of the changes seem pretty reasonable.

socmot said:

My point is, that Ireland is the exception as it's the only country that is obliged to have a referendum.

And this is my problem.

Of course other countries have the option to hold referenda if they want to but they are not legally required to.

Again, this is my problem.

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You might not like it but thats the law in those countries & it's up to them to change it if they want to.
Not us.

socmot said:

That is why I think the whole issue about "Why other countries aren't allowed to vote" is kind of irrelevant.

It has led to a democratic deficit. Why were other countries holding referenda on the EU Constitution but not now?

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This 'democractic deficit' was there all along & has not been caused by the Treaty or anything in it.
Again, these are their laws. They can change them if they want, as we have.

socmot said:

Again, it has nothing to do with content of the Lisbon Treaty. It is a separate debate which the people in the other EU countries need to have for themselves (& arguably should have had long before now).

I can't agree with this at all. I take this position because I have a fundamental problem with allowing my state to ratify a Treaty that the citizens of no other EU country have not had a direct say on. It is fundamentally connected to the Treaty.

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So, basically, it wouldn't matter what was said in the Treaty.
If other countries didn't get a chance to vote, you would be against it.
That's fine but proves my point that this has nothing to do with the content of the Lisbon Treaty, just the way it's being implemented.

socmot said:

On another separate issue, I think the main reason Referenda usually happen is so governments can avoid making decisions on highly emotive issues like abortion & divorce.

I disagree. Referenda happen because countries are required to have one when altering the basic governing document of their country, because that basic governing document (ie, a Constitution) contains the fundamental elements that comprise their nation. An Irish example would be the Bail Referendum held here in Ireland in the 1990's - we might be having another one next year; the reason we have a referendum on this matter is because it pertains to issues surrounding personal liberty - a fundamental element of the governing of our country.

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Fair point.
That part of my post was an afterthought without much consideration.

My brother had a strange experience last night. There was this drunk girl in his taxi who'd been arguing with her mother and my brother was talking about my ma, who's dead. The girl was asking him stuff about her and among other things he was saying she was very political in her day and would have been unhappy about this Lisbon thing etc etc.

All of a sudden, yer woman asked 'Was your Ma's name M...'? Which it was!! He asked her how she knew and she said it just popped into her head. She'd never had any previous 'psychic' experiences like this before.

Anyway, she had been undecided about Lisbon, but told him that on the spooky basis of knowing my dead mother's name, she would vote no on her behalf.

Which is a good a reason as any.

citizens of ireland, is it a bad sign when the anarchists have the most reasonable and educated view of this treaty?

out of morbid curiosty i've actually read most of the leaflets that have come through my door, and the only one not soaked in hysteria & misinformation was from wsm:
http://www.wsm.ie/voteno

basically they point out that the treaty actually does very little and every reason been given for a yes or no vote, whether good or bad, is already underway to some extent or other.
a yes vote is a tiny step further along the way and a no vote on it's own will [at best] delay it slightly.
their conclusion: vote no anyway because the EU is neo-liberal and fundamnetally againt the anarchist view.
my conclusion: they have too much faith in you stupid citizens.

Umfufu said:

You might not like it but thats the law in those countries & it's up to them to change it if they want to.
Not us.

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I have a problem with it because I don't believe that the people in the other EU states elected their governments with the madate of not consulting them on a fundamental change to the European Union. They elected them to govern and make decisions relating to their own internal state.

Umfufu said:

This 'democractic deficit' was there all along & has not been caused by the Treaty or anything in it.
Again, these are their laws. They can change them if they want, as we have.

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The Treaty was written with the requirement that it be ratified by all member states. It could, in my opinion, have been written that it be ratified by all member states, subject to a referendum in each of those states.

Umfufu said:

So, basically, it wouldn't matter what was said in the Treaty.
If other countries didn't get a chance to vote, you would be against it.
That's fine but proves my point that this has nothing to do with the content of the Lisbon Treaty, just the way it's being implemented.

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I actually do have issues with the Treaty, and would vote no on those grounds; some countries will lose their commissioner for a period of time - talk about a democratic deficit!, Defence issues also pose a difficulty for me, with the creation of the European Defence Agency.

But of these issues, the biggest one I have is the ratification of the Treaty across the European Union being so flawed. Look at it this way - there are 500 million people in the EU. 3 million of them will get to vote directly on it; that 3 million is the Irish people. To put into an Irish perspective, it is roughly similar to the population of Dublin City Council voting directly to elect candidates to Dáil Éireann in a general election, and the elected members of all the other city, town and county councils voting to elect candidates without directly consulting their populations - that would be a flawed process, much like the way the Lisbon Treaty is being ratified.

Umfufu said:

That part of my post was an afterthought without much consideration.

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My final point there illustrated my issue - on issues of fundamental governance, in states across the EU, referenda are held to decide the outcome. This was done in large number of countries for the forerunner of the Lisbon Treaty (the EU Constitution) and it should be no different in the case of the Lisbon Treaty itself.

zebra heart attack said:

But each government has been democratically elected. Does that not give them some right to make the decision on the people's behalf?

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In my view, not in the case of making changes to the fundamentals concerning governance.

socmot said:

I actually do have issues with the Treaty, and would vote no on those grounds; some countries will lose their commissioner for a period of time - talk about a democratic deficit!

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This is another one of the misunderstandings flying about. Commissioners do not represent Ireland. They are simply appointed to take on specific roles e.g. the internal market, defence etc. Losing a commissioner for 5 years does not mean we will lose our voice because commissioners act independently of their country. Isn't it also the case that commissioner roles will rotate equally i.e. Germany, France etc will also lose their commissioner for 5 out of 15 years? Still voting no, cause Joe said so.

maims bond said:

This is another one of the misunderstandings flying about. Commissioners do not represent Ireland. They are simply appointed to take on specific roles e.g. the internal market, defence etc. Losing a commissioner for 5 years does not mean we will lose our voice because commissioners act independently of their country. Isn't it also the case that commissioner roles will rotate equally i.e. Germany, France etc will also lose their commissioner for 5 out of 15 years? Still voting no, cause Joe said so.

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Quite true. MEPs are our national representatives, while commissioners are the senior civil servants whom governments fob off to Brussels to do the EU's evil bidding - e.g. Charlie MacGreevy / Peter Mandelson... Both had been discredited on the national stage but were still due favours from their respective governments, so they were 'retired' to the post of commissioner.

The "losing a commissioner" argument is a red herring, in my view. There are plenty of reasons to vote no, but this is not among them.

Any good online coverage of the day's proceedings? The exit polls should let us know pretty quickly how this is gonna go.

I just saw Ruairi Quinn handing out flyers on Leeson Street bridge. Is that allowed?

saw him too. all on his lonesome.

Froog said:

saw him too. all on his lonesome.

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He looked like an overweight Ming the Merciless.

Lefty Frizzell said:

I just saw Ruairi Quinn handing out flyers on Leeson Street bridge. Is that allowed?

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Yeah. He has to be a certain distance from the Polling Booth, that's all. It's only a 24 hour Media blackout beforehand. Or is it 48? Not sure on that aspect.

He is Ming. Minging anyway.

He was a good minister for finance - McCreevey gets a lot of credit that was rightly due to Quinn.

Check the photo caption:
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/frontpage/2008/0612/1213133186812.html

In case they've fixed it:

I like totally voted

i'm all voted out

I marked the shit out of that bit of paper.