Henry of Crooked Timber, whom I know from way back, is in Ireland and has written up how the country’s referendum on the Lisbon Treaty looks the day before voting. There’s also a more academic version, for those inclined.
I hope that it will be a moot point, but I’m curious about how things would work if this treaty gets shot down. Presumably a couple more years of muddling through and then try again with another version of institutional reform. The house that was built for six is getting rather creaky with 27 and definitely needs renovation on its way to nearly 40.
One of the things that comes out in his post is the Irish flavor of fringe opposition. Whereas in the UK, for example, the fringe sometimes sees the EU as a Papist conspiracy (Treaty of Rome!!!!), in Ireland apparently the “wrap-the-green-flag-round-me nationalists and ultramontanist religious loons [are] convinced that the EU is a plot intended to foist devil worship, abortion and gay divorce on the country.”
please dear irish people, vote yes
with this treaty you will have the right of initiative which have the potential to increase the citizens influence in european decision making.
just visit the website
http://www.we-change-eruope.eu
and you will see how fantatstic this initiative can be.
sorry , the website is :
http://www.we-change-europe.eu
im calling that the no’s will win it by a close margin. turnout will be low as well.
Then the discussion about the final extent and depth of the EU can no longer be postponed.
Or alternatively, the opposition are people who like democracy and think people should have a say in the treaty.
Dear Irish people, vote “no” and defend our freedoms and defend democracy from the bureaucratic state.
Straight Irish men and women. Please do our european continent a favor and vote NO to the lisbon treaty.
I ask your help for us all from germany. Most people in the 27 country’s are NOT AGAINST the european union but AGAINST an EU of the big busineses. Against an antidemocratic not even to say a faschist EU which do not care about their people. Wich do not care about our children and which do not care about peace.
They only care about foreign ressources which they want to “secure” for europe by means of war if neccessary.
They want send our children into death, just to secure their profits.
Again, good people of ireland. Remind your history as a strong and free nation as well as remind your responsibility for other european nations who dont have the opportunity to decide.
God bless you..
Europe needs initiative, i am convinced of the need to involve the citizens in the decision making of the EU.
but, please, Europe doesn’t need national or religious fanatics who will decide nationaly on a topic which concerns all member-states. That’s why a paneuropean-referendum on a paneuropean topic will makes sense.
to make this possible, the Treaty of Lisbonne has to be approved.
All member states were free to have a vote themselves. The decision to avoid this on the second run shows a blatant disregard for the citizens votes, but it has no relevance in Ireland. If anything the Irish should take an opportunity to protest the treatment of citizens in other countries.
Looks like the Noes have it. What next?
I think the EU must make some decisions on what it really wants to be before presenting people with
a “take it or leave it” treaty. Do we really want to be one country, as in the US? Then it is unthinkable for the federal government to side with a third country against a member state. Which has not always been the case in the EU and which is exactly why veto is necessary. If we do not feel as one country, it makes no sense to try to pretend we are one. Branding entire countries “national or religious fanatics”,
usually because you do not understand or do not bother to understand them(most critisism of countries I have heard is not particularly
accurate)
is not terribly intelligent: These fanatics are your countrymen, no?