Lisbon Treaty

[BohsPartisan]

Quite clearly you are.

Point to something I said that isn't fact. I backed my argument up with quotes form people who admit the treaty to be what it is.

[Student Mullet]

Point to something I said that isn't fact. I backed my argument up with quotes form people who admit the treaty to be what it is.

.....

In essence it achieves everything Hitler, Napoleon and Caesar dreamed of only through deception and slight of hand instead of brute force.

[BohsPartisan]

.....

"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly".

"The aim of this treaty is to be unreadable...It is a success."

If thats not "deception and slight of hand" what is?

[Student Mullet]

If thats not "deception and slight of hand" what is?

That doesn't quite justify the "achieves everything Hitler dreamed of" part of your argument.

[BohsPartisan]

That doesn't quite justify the "achieves everything Hitler dreamed of" part of your argument.

Which I explained in the long post I made on the last page.

[micls]

You may not have brought it up in your arguments, but others who support a 'no' not have brought it up.

On the previous page you disagreed with micls that there had been scare-mongering from both sides, saying that

The 'no' side is everybody who wants a 'no' vote, not just people who agree with your reasons.

Either this treaty is about abortion and euthanasia (which you just don't care about), or it isn't. If it's the latter, then to suggest that it is about euthanasia and abortion would be scare-mongering, would it not?

Thanks for that Osarusan. Wasnt online to respond.

Mypost you cant pick and choose who you want to be part of the 'No campaign'. All of the above is being claimed by parts of the No campaign and is quite clearly scare-mongering.

[BohsPartisan]

Mypost you cant pick and choose who you want to be part of the 'No campaign'. All of the above is being claimed by parts of the No campaign and is quite clearly scare-mongering.

There is more than one campaign. You can choose which campaign you want to associate with. I'm sure Mypost has no connection with COIR. Neither do I. Throwing their slack jawed arguments at us as a defense for the Yes side is like me saying you support Fianna Fail because you are on the yes side.

For the record there is some audio visual material online at the Socialist Party website. http://www.socialistparty.net

[micls]

There is more than one campaign. You can choose which campaign you want to associate with. I'm sure Mypost has no connection with COIR. Neither do I. Throwing their slack jawed arguments at us as a defense for the Yes side is like me saying you support Fianna Fail because you are on the yes side.

Where did I throw the arguments as defense for the yes side. Please read my posts if you're going to argue about them.

If you read the conversation you'll see mypost claiming that ONLY the yes side were scare-mongering. This is quite simply a lie.

I never claimed mypost had a connection to Coir or agreed with them, but they are part of the No side and they,and others, are scaremongering.

[BohsPartisan]

Fair enough but you can't blame me or him for what Coir/Youth defense are doing.

[micls]

Fair enough but you can't blame me or him for what Coir/Youth defense are doing.

Eh...I never did

Again mypost was the one questioning people who were voting Yes(superfrank I think) on the basis that the yes camp were scaremongering

[dahamsta]

It has to be said, there's a strong tendency of people on both sides in this thread to use the argument that if such-and-such a group is supporting/opposing this, then that proves they're right. It's a very, very weak debating tactic.

adam

[micls]

It has to be said, there's a strong tendency of people on both sides in this thread to use the argument that if such-and-such a group is supporting/opposing this, then that proves they're right. It's a very, very weak debating tactic.

adam

It may be a weak debating tactic, but it is something that is happening on the streets.

E.g people saying 'Sinn féin(or that crazy group Cóir) are voting against so Im voting for or the opposite( I dont trust Fianna Fáil so Im voting against) wihtout having made any effort to try to read or understand what the treaty involves.

It scares me how many people Ive met(on both sides) who will vote on this basis

[dahamsta]

I'm not talking about it on the streets, I'm talking about it here. In this thread. Like I said.

[micls]

I'm not talking about it on the streets, I'm talking about it here. In this thread. Like I said.

I saw what you wrote, I was using it to make a point about in other situations that the same is happening and perhaps move the discussion on to that given that your comment about on here had already been discussed.

[BohsPartisan]

but it is something that is happening on the streets.

Probably because of the incomprehensibility of the treaty itself. Peple find themselves trying to figure out what way to vote so fall back on their own prejudices. Mind you you can't blame anyone for not trusting Fianna Fáil. They have a track record of lying.

[micls]

Probably because of the incomprehensibility of the treaty itself. Peple find themselves trying to figure out what way to vote so fall back on their own prejudices. Mind you you can't blame anyone for not trusting Fianna Fáil. They have a track record of lying.

Can't blame anyone for not trusting Libertas, Coir, the Youth defense, Sinn Féin or the Catholic Church either. Still not a good enough reason alone to vote yes.

If you can't understand it, or the informaton from the Commission etc, then either don't vote or spoil you're vote. How can you decide Yes or No on something you don't understand?

[BohsPartisan]

Can't blame anyone for not trusting Libertas, Coir, the Youth defense, Sinn Féin or the Catholic Church either. Still not a good enough reason alone to vote yes.

If you can't understand it, or the informaton from the Commission etc, then either don't vote or spoil you're vote. How can you decide Yes or No on something you don't understand?

Well if you look at the quotes I posted above, its clear that it is deliberately hard to understand in order to deceive people. In that case voting no because you don't understand it is perfectly acceptable.

[SMorgan]

Can't blame anyone for not trusting Libertas, Coir, the Youth defense, Sinn Féin or the Catholic Church either. Still not a good enough reason alone to vote yes.

If you can't understand it, or the informaton from the Commission etc, then either don't vote or spoil you're vote. How can you decide Yes or No on something you don't understand?

Totally disagree.

If you don't understand the Treaty then vote No. A No Vote has to be the default position because you know exactly what you'll get with a No vote and that is that the situation will remain exactly as it is at the minute. Vote Yes and God only knows what you're letting yourself in for.

Here's some good reading,

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/st...513-qqqx=1.asp

[Poor Student]

A commissioner isn't going to overlook something that's completely alien to his own state. If he knows that it will receive a negative reaction in his homeland, he will have it voted down. He's his own nationality first, then European, and he's not going to risk losing his seat at the next European elections, by allowing it to pass unopposed.

Some major policy or policies will come up during Ireland's absence of a commissioner that will affect this country. Having no commissioner and .8% of voting weights puts us in a very vulnerable position.

Yet again, the commissioner is independent of any state and is to act in the interests of the Union, something they swear in an oath:

"Having been appointed as a member of the Commission of the European Communities by the Council of the European Union, after the vote of approval by the European Parliament, I do solemnly undertake: to be completely independent in the performance of my duties, in the general interest of the Communities; in the performance of these duties, neither to seek nor to take instructions from any government or from any other body; to refrain from any action incompatible with my duties.
I formally note the undertaking of each Member State to respect this principle and not to seek to influence members of the Commission in the performance of their tasks.

I further undertake to respect, both during and after my term of office, the obligations arising therefrom and in particular, the duty to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance after I have ceased to hold office of certain appointments or benefits."

That counts as surrender of sovereignty in my book, and we've spent 800 years of our history fighting foreign powers. We're not willing to give it up again.

Please don't distort this debate with primordial nationalistic notions.

As an EU member, we are entitled to a commissioner on point of principle, I am not willing to see it surrendered, for any period of office.

No, we're not. The Nice Treaty says that the commission will be reduced once the EU reaches 27 states.

That makes a mockery of QMV. Either there is QMV, or there isn't.

If it makes a mockery of it then what are you worried about?

This treaty was drawn up by D'Estaing (French), pushed by Chirac (French), Sarkosy (French), advocated by Prodi (Italian), and demanded by Merkel (German). They are the longest serving members of the Union with the biggest populations, who hold the biggest sway, and are the global face of the EU. Poland has been a member for 4 years, and counts as a "small" country. Bigger than others, but still small in the eyes of Europe.

France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom make up 18.5% of the number of member states. Before the population criteria even comes into it they're miles off making 55%. If that criteria isn't met then population will have nothing to do with it. If it is then it's unlikely population will be a deciding factor. These countries have no way of forcing stuff through by their singular will and let's not pretend they work in unison anyway.

But you haven't explained why we need it.

We need the Council President because there are too many countries to have a single 6 month rotating presidency and also the holding of the presidency by a single smaller nation puts pressure on it.

Obviously by QMV, with the most voting weights, the election for President will be a carve up for them. There's no equality in this instance.

You don't seem to understand QMV, it has two voting tiers, number of member states being one of them. With 27 states each state represents roughly 3.5% of the vote.

How many people elected the current Dail on European issues, over domestic matters, e.g. economic, health, transport, crime, children's issues among others?? The European elections are next year, not last year.

I cast my Dail vote weighing up factors of approach to domestic, European and foreign affairs. Our elected TDs elect the Ministers who will sit on the Council of the European Union. The European elections are just for the MEPs, your elected government has the biggest impact on European affairs, if your choose to ignore that then that's your problem, don't tar all others with the same brush. This point holds no weight.

[Poor Student]

Ha.
Some arguments from the yes campaign. Not from people on here, but prominent national politicians -

"A no vote will result in chaos"
"We must not allow the holocaust to happen again"
"Investors will pull out of Ireland if we vote no"
"We will be a pariah state across Europe"
"Europe is at peace now, don't let that change"

Who is involved in histrionics and scaremongering?

The difference is, you personally are engaging in the scare mongering with intellectually dishonest comparisions to Hitler.

The aim of uniting Europe under one ideology was held by the three mentioned dictators of whom I have differing opinions. The Lisbon treaty achieves that goal.

I'm not sure what ideology Caesar was supposed to be uniting Europe under, not that he even had half of the territory in the EU under his rule. Really stretching your point in desperation. Anyway, all three were single rulers whereas the EU is the aggregate rule of the whole Union. Utterly ridiculous comparison.

We will effectively have Europe wide government with all but the unimportant local decisions being made in one place. We will havea common foreign policy and a common economic policy.

So? Establish why that's a bad thing. As GavinZac has pointed out, we're living in an era of shifting global power towards the East to India and China. The non-oil producing nations are shifting billions if not trillions in wealth towards the oil producing world. We require a strong united Europe capable of actually making decisions to represent its constituent parts.

If you think the people of Europe will have much input into that then you are terribly naive. Let me quote former French president Giscard d'Estaing - one of the main architects of the original version of the EU constitution on the lisbon treaty

"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly".

Does no one else think this is more than a bit sinister?

How about the words of Karel de Gucht, Belgian Foreign minister?

"The aim of this treaty is to be unreadable...It is a success."

I've seen this quotes bandied about but I couldn't possibly comment on them. I have no idea of the context or even what language they originally come from and how they may have translated.

As for my previous claims which were poo-poo'd about the neo-liberal economic implications of the treaty, lets hear from that renowned loony left wing organisation, the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC)

"The Lisbon Reform Treaty creates the legal basis for the liberalisation of services of general economic interest. A yes vote for the Lisbon Treaty crates the potential for increased opportunities for Irish business particularly in areas subject to increasing liberalisation such as Health, Education, Transport, Energy and the Environment"

Again, you must establish why this is a problem in itself. At this point we're offering inadequate public service as it is and it will be hard to even maintain that with ever shrinking public coffers. Introducing private competition in certain areas is something we're already doing in some areas and considering in others.

As a general point on all this whining about Merkel and Sarkozy. Arguments seem to be working a priori that these are evil people and Brussels is automatically malevolent. Germany and France are two of the largest democratic republics in the world. Also, in this treaty their combined state vote equal about 7% for the 55% criteria. Even their populations only register so much of an impact. I can't see how this treaty establishes our loss of independence under a Franco-German axis. Someone explain to me how they alone can wield this ultimate power with reference to voting structures.