Is the European Union falling apart? M

EU in turmoil as Ireland votes No to Lisbon Treaty - Times Online

EU in turmoil as Ireland votes No to Lisbon Treaty

The future of the European Union was tonight clouded in uncertainty after Ireland voted No to the Lisbon Treaty.

Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission President, and a raft of foreign ministers expressed dismay that Ireland - the only member state to hold a referendum on the matter - chose to reject it decisively by 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent.

Amid wild cheers from No campaigners, the results were revealed at 5pm as being 862,415 against and 752,451 in favour, meaning a majority of 109,964 for those rejecting the treaty.

Despite the result, EU leaders were tonight vowing to press ahead with ratifying the treaty across all members' parliaments.

"The ratification process is made up of 27 national processes. Eighteen member states have already approved the treaty and the European Commission believes that the remaining ratifications should continue to take their course."

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National Debt =

Let's hope the EU gets its act together, even though it won't. It could be a wonderful thing but instead it represents pointless beurocracy more than anything.

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Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

It wont fall apart. That wont be allowed to happen on the back of around 1 million people in Ireland voting against an ammending treaty. Worst case scenario (if you are pro EU) is that things go on as they are. Best scenario, they do what they did with the Nice treaty and get Ireland to keep holding referendums until they get the result they want.

The only other possible scenario, however unlikely, is they go ahead with the treaty but basically kick Ireland out. The powers that be really aren't going to be dictated to by 54% of the 40% who bothered to vote in Ireland.

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

History suggests there has often been this uneasy relationship between the North Sea/North Atlantic island nations and the European mainland. Maybe it's time for the UK and Ireland to formally detach themselves from Europe entirely.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

The future of the EU is in anything but jeapordy. What happened with is likely to happen again. What the article fails to mention is that the Yes failed miserably to educate the populace upon exactly what they were voting upon. The No side on the otherhand ran a very good campaign though the majority of it was scaremongering.

Yes the EU could be marvelous, however the beacracy needs to be sorted. Workers rights need to be set in stone as do the discrimantion and power centres of Europe.


Also look at the voting patterns, the middle and upper classes were looking for the YES vote whilsth the working class went for the NO
They wont kick us out, though the Nice scenario is quite possible. I kind of regret voting No now, but the treaty for the most part was quite a good thing, I had many concerns though in that it undermined workers rights, it lowered our voting bloc incredibly, the idea of an armed EU force interfering with our neutrality and the idea that Europe could control our taxation and tax expenditure. Im not opposed to a United European state, BUT not under that treaty that treaty needs to be amended before I can accept it.

Also the voting turnout was 53% not 40%
Ive an idea. You stop living in the "past". Europe has been incredible for this country and we owe it alot. The Irish people are actually very very pro-EU put they were opposed to some of the articles in this treaty.

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"We will disobey your laws as long as they are unjust and they make a world shaped only for your profit"-G8 protestor Genoa 2001





NO PASERÁN!!

"We learned a long time ago that we should never subject ourselves to the schedules of the powerful. We had to follow our own calendar and impose it on those above.” - Subcommandante Marcos

Yeah i think the chances are like 0.001%, i was just trying to give all the possible scenarios. And it is still a more likely a scenario than the collapse of the EU, the political classes just wont let that happen.
While i have not read the treaty i did study the old constitution and that stated that things like military ventures could only be made when it was agreed upon by all member states. The same could be said in the deployment of the foreign sewcretary. Did this change in the treaty ?

I'm personally not too keen on the further integration of europe as things stand. I am all for integration but not the expansion of capitalist neo liberal economics and values.

The good ol' BBC strikes again, they estimated turnout at around 40% very early in the day.

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

Yes, once passed the treaty became self-ammendable. That means it put the power for reform directly into the hands of the European parliament where 3 countries France, Britain and Germany would hold by far the greatest clout.
So once passed the European parliament could press the issues such as common taxation and military force.


My sentiments exactly.

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"We will disobey your laws as long as they are unjust and they make a world shaped only for your profit"-G8 protestor Genoa 2001





NO PASERÁN!!

"We learned a long time ago that we should never subject ourselves to the schedules of the powerful. We had to follow our own calendar and impose it on those above.” - Subcommandante Marcos

Cheers. I really tend to switch off when europe comes on the agenda - studying the constitution at college bored me to the point where i just can't listen to them go on about it anymore.

And to be honest nobody seems to know what any of it is about. I saw a good few people who voted no on the news, when i asked why, they just said because they didn't know what they were voting for. In there lies the problem with the EU.

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

Fvck the EU. It will never be glorious all you have to do is look at the US and see your future.

Libertas and Declan Ganley had it right. And is the voice of Ireland on this matter.

Europe’s Constitutional Treaty: A Threat to Democracy and How to Avoid It

By Declan J. Ganley

Volume 4, Number 5
December 2003

Declan J. Ganley is an Irish entrepreneur and founder of wireless broadband and cable TV businesses in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe. In the early 1990s he built what became the largest private forestry company in the former Soviet Union. He serves on the Futures Group of the Irish Government’s Information Society Commission.

Many observers view former president of France Valery Giscard d’Estaing as having labored tirelessly in the interests of his nation and Europe over the course of his life of public service. But Giscard d’Estaing now presides over the Brussels convention charged with producing a draft constitution for the future of Europe, the very concept of which is an attack on democracy in Europe and a subversion of Europe’s citizenry.

“Democracy” derives from the ancient Greek word for “the rule of the people.” Invented in Europe, its ideals have spread to the far corners of the globe. It has become our way of life in Europe and something we take for granted. It cannot be taken from us or relegated to the role of symbolic chattel while Giscard d’Estaing and his convention transfer its key functions to Brussels. Throughout Europe’s history, those who attempt to take from the people that which is theirs ultimately fail; one can only hope that the convention’s usurpation of the European agenda seems similarly destined to fail.

Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” European citizens must pay attention to and act on the draft constitution for the future of Europe that the convention’s logrolling has produced. Unless they do, a serious assault will have been carried out by the European elite represented by the convention, which will further encroach on Europe’s libertarian democratic society and its ability to hold those who govern accountable for their actions. If the convention succeeds, Europe’s future may be headed down a very dangerous path.

The draft constitution represents the political bureaucracy’s attempt to consolidate its hold over the decision-making process in the EU, which affects Europeans’ daily lives in fundamental ways. Should it come to pass, the constitution would call for a presidential head of Europe, in the role of the president of the European Council, who will have global recognition as president of the Union, in whose election the people will have no say. Their vote and opinion are neither required nor desired.

A foreign affairs minister would oversee the tract in the draft, that “member states shall actively and unreservedly support the Union’s common foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity. They shall refrain from action contrary to the Union’s interests or likely to undermine its effectiveness.” Of course, the (non-popularly elected) president and his or her foreign minister would be unlikely to display what Chirac earlier this year identified as the “bad behavior” and signs of being “badly brought up” of the annoying, democratically elected leaders of Central and Eastern European states.

The president and minister will be hand-picked by the Brussels bureaucracy. The European minister for foreign affairs, who will represent European interests to the world, will not have been appointed by a president elected by Europeans. It is already the case that Europeans did not elect those responsible for the policy that underpins the Euro. The governor of the European Central Bank is neither directly nor indirectly accountable to the citizenry. This means that Western Europeans live in a far less accountable society than they did only a decade or so ago. Sweden’s rejection of the Euro in its recent referendum is a sign that Europeans recognise this fact and require accountability from those setting monetary and other policy. The many areas over which they have ceded or will be ceding power to Brussels include employment regulation, industry, transport, communications, justice, health, agriculture, fisheries, and important aspects of defence. The national veto is to be abolished in no fewer than 50 new areas, including immigration and asylum. The draft constitution also ratifies that EU law will have primacy over member states.
Bureaucracy vs. Democracy

Notice a trend here? Our democratic rights and liberty, values that so many Europeans and others have fought and died for, are at risk. Ideals born of revolutionary France are betrayed. Our liberty and democracy are interwoven: subverting them could undo the success of liberal democracy in Europe to date. Superannuated or failed politicians with sinecures atop a multiplying bureaucracy in Brussels have prospered for too long off the backs of hard-working Europeans. This latest effort is a bridge too far.

At least one aspect of the bureaucracy’s effort has merit, which is the laudable goal of achieving the ever-closer union of Europe aspired to in the 1957 Treaty of Rome. This is a wise and desirable objective and should be achievable. The EU has served the people of Europe well. It is abundantly apparent that it is capable of much more, which is why we must jealously guard it from those that would try to snatch its levers from us. A United Europe could provide for European peace, prosperity, strength, quality of life, and the ability to build not just a better Europe but a better and safer world. A United States of Europe, structured properly, could benefit Europeans and the world.

The convention that Giscard d’Estaing has presided over these past two years has somehow managed to tarnish the prospect for a United Europe. It has created a perception in the minds of millions of Europeans that European federalism stands for centralism, inefficiency, lack of accountability, and overreaching control--classic big government encroaching on the rights and sovereignty of the individual and the last redoubt of old-style socialism writ large. A federal Europe is a pretty good idea, if it possessed an accountable administration with a clear European identity and position on the world stage; had vested in it only those key disciplines that are best and most efficiently managed on a European level; embraced Europe’s diversity; and devolved as many matters as possible to Europe’s regions. But the Constitution for the Future of Europe does not provide for such a Europe.

Most important, the president of the European Council must not be elected by the collected Prime Ministers of Europe, who will no doubt choose from among themselves, electing one of their retired/retiring own for the job, where s/he will win a triple-crown retirement plan: the parliamentary pension, the ministerial pension, and then the EU pension. Yet another American founding father, James Madison said that “the censorial power is in the people over the government and not the government over the people.” His words ring true for Europeans today. Europeans do not require middlemen to interpret what is best for them. The president of Europe must be accountable to Europeans at the ballot box.
The European Flaw and How to Fix It

All of these goings-on in Europe point to a current flaw in the European system of democracy, whose structures are failing through a combination of self-interests and inability to adapt. These failing structures are the embodiment of “old Europe.” Like the creaking analog telephone systems of earlier decades, Europe’s system of nationally structured political parties has become a legacy system. You can tweak and push the system harder, you can add new parts, but what lies underneath can no longer deliver the performance required of it. The old “analog system” must be discarded: European politics needs to go digital.

It is time for the creation of new, truly pan-European political organizations. Looking at the United States, the historian Clinton Rossiter said “No America without democracy, no democracy without politics, no politics without parties.” Similarly, in the absence of mainstream, truly European political parties, the European political scene has become the plaything of special interest groups with no broader European vision. New parties and organizations could address Europe’s needs at the levels where most of the decisions affecting us are, or should be, made: the macro level in Europe, our broader community, and at the most local level within the regions of Europe’s states. Europeans hold in generally low regard most of the current political leaders in Europe, who stumble from opinion poll to opinion poll with little other motive than to stay in power.

In addition to protecting our future from power grabs, pan- European parties could start to address issues such as free trade, security, education, quality of life, health care, the family, an independent judiciary, competitiveness, technology, entrepreneurship and job creation, the developing world, and human rights. Vaclav Havel put it succinctly when he said of the current structure of the European Union, “Europe speaks to my head but it says nothing to my heart.” For the European ideal to prosper, Europe must become something much broader than a physical place: it must become a living idea that others might embrace and eventually join.

Unfortunately, the draft constitution does not follow the true path of constitutional liberalism that has served the Western world so well in recent history. The foundations of libertarianism in the Roman Republic were slowly undone by the undermining of Rome’s own elite. As political analyst and Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria states in his The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (2003), “The lesson of Rome’s fall is that for the rule of law and liberty to endure, you need more than the good intentions of the rulers, for they may change (both the intentions and the rulers).”

The draft constitution may prove to be a significant ingredient in what could develop into a medium-term disaster for Europe. Continuing down this path could lead to the rejection of the constitution in its present form via referenda in a small number of European states. This may well lead to a two-tier Europe: the “fast-track” inner core and the others. If Germany and France stay on this course and at the same time fail to reform their welfare burdens, they will have no choice but to seek shelter for their economies through trade protectionism in order to stanch the resultant loss of jobs and investment. Within a decade the EU could be disintegrating into something unpleasant and have grown farther apart from its old ally, the United States.

Brussels has already begun its efforts to force the constitution upon the people of Europe. A spokesman for the European Commission president Romano Prodi stated in September that “if it (the constitution) is not ratified, Europe faces the messy choice of grinding to a halt or having to expel one of its members.” This from a man with no mandate from the people. Europeans have by and large become tired of our political leadership, who are for the most part devoid of any great vision for Europe’s future. Many of Europe’s leaders have taken on a distinctively grey hue. This disillusionment in the leadership has resulted in most people’s not noticing what has been going on in the convention. Through the familiar, steady drone of weekly political coverage, a coup of sorts has been perpetrated to snatch away Europeans’ rights.
Preventing Disaster

The forces at work within the Europolitical elites make a momentous force behind this power grab. Each state’s senior socialist and centrist political figures will call for adoption of the draft constitution as a “reasonable compromise” and a “historic achievement”—of which Europe has had too many with sad consequences already. The extreme right and fringe parties will argue against them, which will only make the proponents look more correct.

The convention can only be countered with a true and fair vision for a United Europe. Europeans who until now have kept their views to themselves should mobilize to stop this tide. They must overcome groupings and parties based on legacy national organizations to form a new organization and articulate a clear and achievable vision for Europe’s future. Rather than try to define itself in contradistinction to the United States, this new Europe must be an equal partner and influence for the worldwide extension of justice and liberty. Such a political party— I will for the sake of discussion call it “Libertas”—will need to challenge the engrained composition of the convention in local and regional elections, as well as running candidates at member-state and EU levels. The old structures need shaking up.

The Intergovernmental Conference expects to conclude its work by December, towards having a treaty ready for signature in May 2004. Fortunately this outcome can be avoided. The constitution can be rejected by referenda voters in Ireland, Denmark, and France. Something better needs to be proposed. It is time to map out a new and better United Europe. When given the opportunity, Europeans must bury the constitution of the Brussels elite in the spot they’ll mark with an X on the ballot paper.

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Pioneers are walking all around singing songs about Lenin and they should be shot for it.

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"If you are looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror"- V

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. Mencken

come on you know you wanna play football..

Beagán agus a rá go maith.

Economic Left/Right: 3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.87

Sinn Fein had it right and will always be the voice of Ireland and its interests

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?