WHAT THE EU TREATY OF LISBON DOES(legally accurate).

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OSCE requested to carry out Election Assessment Mission of Lisbon Treaty referendum
http://www.people.ie/english1.html
29 May 2008

No Campaigners on the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign are calling for the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) to be brought in to observe and carry out an assessment of the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign in Ireland.

Former Green Party MEP,Patricia McKenna,announced the call for OSCE involvement at a press conference in Dublin today,Thursday 29th May.Ms McKenna,who in 1995 won a Supreme Court challenge against government interference in the referendum process,said that her organization,the People’s Movement, together with PANA,had written to the Minister for Foreign Affairs asking that the OSCE be invited to observer the current campaign.

She said “There is growing disquiet among all groups on the No side about the fact that this campaign is neither fair nor balanced. I believe that in the interests of democracy and transparency it is necessary to for the Minister for Foreign Affairs to issue an invitation to the OSCE without further delay.”

McKenna pointed out that this would not be the first time an Irish government had issued such an invitation. In 2007 the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs invited the OSCE first to conduct a Needs Assessment Mission (NAM) in Ireland in March 2007, and subsequently invited the OSCE to carry out an Election Assessment Mission for the elections that were held on 24 May 2007. The OSCE also carried out a similar Election Assessment Mission for the General Elections held in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on 5 May 2005.

“Since the government considered it important to invite the OSCE to observe the 2007 general elections it is obvious that this referendum campaign, in comparison to that election,is an even more important candidate for observation. This campaign involves much more deep-rooted distrust on both sides and the views of an outside neutral body would be invaluable. The one-sided nature of the campaign, media bias, imbalance in funding and the outside involvement of politically powerful vested interests are all valid reasons to justify the need for outside monitoring.”

Ms McKenna said “already preliminary studies carried out by some groups on the No side show a massive imbalance in media reporting and that style and treatment of reporting,particularly in some sections of the print media, was clearly designed to undermine the No
arguments. Furthermore the funding available to both sides is heavily stacked in favour of the Yes side by a margin of at least two to one.”

“The Peoples Movement and PANA believe that the OSCE should observe the forthcoming referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty. The retrograde steps taken by the government to thwart a fair referendum ever since the McKenna judgement in 1995 has led to ever moreimbalanced referendum debates here, putting our democracy and constitution at risk. As the Irish Supreme Court has recognised, referendums are critical opportunities for the citizens to legislate without parliamentary or government interference. Looking at the current campaign where the odds are stacked heavily against one side it cannot be said that Irish citizens are being enabled or allowed to legislate in a fair and transparent manner.”

Retired Commandant Edward Horgan of PANA, who has observed elections in other countries, said “The current debate is characterised by a gross lack of balanced information,due to a diminution in the role of the Referendum Commission after the No vote on the Nice
Treaty. It is also worsened by a heavily imbalanced media. It further suffers from continuous interference by outside interests, most especially those who stand to gain power through the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty.”

Mr. Horgan went on to say “The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights has observed many elections. It has also observed a number of referendums, most notably the 2004 referendum in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the 2006 referendum in Montenegro on independence from Serbia.”

“The OSCE observed the most recent Irish elections in May 2007. The current referendum is in some ways more important, more controversial and indeed, is unique in the EU as regards the Lisbon Treaty, placing the process here under huge external and internal pressure.”

“Ireland as member of the OSCE has signed up to certain democratic standards. We fear that these standards are not being upheld in the current referendum process. We have therefore requested that the minister for Foreign Affairs issue an invitation for an OSCE Election Mission. If this request is not met the only message we can take from that is that our government have something to hide and that they fear a fair and balanced campaign.”

Focusing on the Lisbon Treaty itself, Councillor Declan Bree, a patron of the People’s Movement, and member of Sligo Borough Council and Sligo County Council, said that despite the lack of resources the Peoples’ Movement was involved in a vigorous campaign
throughout out the country with leaflets and posters. Mr Bree said “The Treaty of Lisbon if ratified would create a new federal European Union which would be politically and constitutionally profoundly different from the EU which we are members of today.”

“While the same name, ‘the European Union’, would be used before and after the referendum the fact is that if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified, the new European Union would be a fundamentally different constitutional/political entity from the European Union that we are
currently members of.”

“The European Union we are members of today is generally a descriptive term for the various areas of co-operation between its 27 member states. If the Lisbon Treaty is ratified it would give the new Union which it would establish the constitutional form of a supranational European federation. That federation would have all the powers of a fully developed state apart from the power to force its member states to go to war against their will. If the Treaty is ratified it would make us citizens of this new European Union for the first time, as against our being notional or honorary EU ‘citizens’ at present.”

“The constitutional amendment to ratify the Lisbon Treaty would then make the laws, acts and decisions of the new European Union superior to the constitution and laws of Ireland and would effectively turn Ireland into a province of this new EU federation, which would be run on the most undemocratic lines. Ireland would become a province, not a nation, once again,in the precise and literal meaning of the word ‘province’” concluded Councillor Bree.

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Velleity threatens Irish referendum, despite urgent global concerns
http://euobserver.com/9/26244/?rk=1
30.05.2008

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - Phoenix, the American space probe, has just landed after its 680 million kilometre hop to Mars. Already it has returned beautiful and crystal clear pictures to Earth of a red landscape, flat and arid. Did this once support life is the question the mission is contriving to answer.

Some will no doubt say that this is what Earth will look like in a few centuries unless global warming can be arrested. Whether the warming might not actually be arrestable is a thought perhaps too horrible to contemplate. We must be positive and hope both that it can be and that it will be. Otherwise we shall have space probes arriving here at some point in the future having been sent by distant scientists eager to know whether life once existed on Earth.

If we are to combat global warming by changing those actions that are believed to be causing it, we shall, all of us, need to act collectively for the common good, eschewing short-term advantage for long-term gain. This is not normally the way mankind works.

We like to think that life did once exist on Mars - and a superior species of life at that. The man or woman from Mars is supposed to possess an especial sense of rationality with which to pronounce on earthly conundrums: why we are so given to destroying the resources of our fabulous planet, for instance; or, more topically, why there should be any doubt about the outcome of Ireland's referendum on the Lisbon Treaty on 12 June.

Given the imperative for the countries of Europe to lead the way on climate change; to convince a still sceptical US government of the need for emission reduction targets; to bring developing countries within a grand alliance; to pioneer clean energy technologies, our man from Mars might think that the threat of climate change alone would be sufficient to secure an overwhelming Irish vote for the treaty, which would give us a better chance of delivering these things.

The man from Mars might find it absurd that important revisions to European government, supported, so far as one can tell, by the broad mass of the European electorate should be in danger of falling as a result of a referendum in a country whose population amounts to one per cent of the whole.

I have no wish, as it were to frighten the horses, so let me say at this point, still some two weeks away from the poll itself, that I believe that Ireland will, in fact, vote "yes" to the Lisbon Treaty. But that belief is not nearly as hard or as certain as I would like it to be and considering what potentially is at stake, the referendum is, for Europe as a whole, far too much like a game of Russian roulette.

For it is not the case, as those who are urging a "no" vote are wont to claim, that by voting "no" you are voting for the status quo. That the next decade will simply be a repeat of the last decade and the one after that likewise. The union has enlarged; the world, and Europe's place within it, has moved on. The climate is warmer. The status quo ante, the status quo of the 1990's, no longer exists. The present "deal" has expired.

The Lisbon Treaty is designed to address this and in that sense it is Lisbon that presents the best way of preserving the mutual benefits of the European construction, while of course providing a stronger platform from which to put Europe's economic might to work towards creating a more sustainable, more equal world.

From perusing the polling figures it is clear that a substantial majority of Irish voters are sympathetic to this analysis and to the pro-Lisbon case put forward by Brian Cowen's government. But it seems there are also plenty who incline to the belief that Lisbon presents something new and possibly dangerous, which will diminish Ireland's influence and benefits.

Both camps have been recruiting supporters from the ranks of the "don't knows," whose numbers now appear to represent about a quarter of the electorate.

We talk of "yes" and "no" camps, but the reality is that there is also a large constituency of abstainers. These embrace those who will find better things to do on polling day than vote as well as those who genuinely "don't know." Among these are those who lean one way but not sufficiently to be certain of voting.

Interestingly, there is a word that describes this state of affairs exactly. It is velleity. It is not a common word; you will only find it in the deeper recesses of the larger dictionaries. It describes a mild desire, a wish or urge, too slight to lead to action. It is the state that many voters have found themselves in come polling day.

Thanks to such velleity, during the first referendum on the Nice Treaty the level of abstentions reached 65.2 percent. Two years later, velleity overcome, a fifth of those who had abstained then voted for the treaty. If velleity strikes again, if those who would support the treaty do not turn thought into action, then the referendum could be lost.

Many of the arguments advanced for voting against the Nice treaty, then, were similar to those made against Lisbon today, which is ironic since a vote against the Lisbon Treaty would entail the perpetuation of the Treaty of Nice.

Or would it? For the truth is that no one has much idea of what would happen should the Irish referendum be lost; if, from Europe's point of view, the single bullet in the chamber comes to rest under the firing pin. The union would be in disarray from which it is hard to see how Ireland would do other than stand to lose a great deal.

Almost certainly any future European reforms would not then take place on the basis of a single union in which all states, if not their populations, count equally. Countries will move at different speeds and along different paths. It will be a bleak outlook.

Meanwhile the long term threats to our present lifestyle, whether from global warming, the price of oil, the global credit crunch or our unsustainable use of resources, grow ever more potent.

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Jim Corr Speaking About The Lisbon Treaty And The New World Order
http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=336
30 May 2008


Jim Corr on Irish radio show The Last Word with Matt Cooper, on Today FM,(MSM radio) talking about The Lisbon Treaty & The New World Order. The Documentary Jim mentions at the end is 911 Mysteries.

Jim Corr Speaking About The Lisbon Treaty And The New World Order

[SuzakaDusk]

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Will this treaty be signed by the UK aswell? ( I know it is a daft question but..)

Thanks

Suz

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Will this treaty be signed by the UK aswell? ( I know it is a daft question but..)

Thanks

Suz

Yes Gordon pulled a fast one and signed it behind closed doors,Dec.13th 2007,not having the guts to do it in public.

If this treaty was such a good thing,why did Mr.Brown not have the guts to sign it in public,why other EU countries wont allow their people to vote on it

[SuzakaDusk]

Yes Gordon pulled a fast one and signed it behind closed doors,Dec.13th 2007,not having the guts to do it in public.

If this treaty was such a good thing,why did Mr.Brown not have the guts to sign it in public,why other EU countries wont allow their people to vote on it

Ah the traitorous bastard.Well the EU is a dictatorship pure and simple. I think it is an act of treason to every one within the EU not allowing them to have a vote...And why do people sit and take it I wonder... This makes me so mad...

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Stand Firm In The Face Of Establishment Threat
http://www.caeuc.org/index.php?q=node/273`
29/05/08

Those on the ‘Yes’ side in the Lisbon Treaty campaign have spent the last two weeks telling voters that the treaty is merely a tidying up exercise, an attempt to make the European Union ‘fit for purpose’.

They have resorted to cheap name-calling, dismissing the ‘NO’ campaign as ‘liars’, ‘nutters’, ‘loo-las’ and ‘ultra nationalists’. However the feedback from the campaign suggests that the ‘Yes’ camp is clearly losing the argument. Voters have taken the time to listen to the arguments and are clearly concerned that the provisions within the Treaty will further undermine workers rights, diminish the last vestiges of the State’s neutrality, enhance the democratic deficit at the heart of European decision making and leave public services open to the market.

The ‘Yes’ side is clearly worried and has resorted to in-fighting and threats to the electorate about the alleged consequences of voting No. Over the last number of days and clearly in response to the feedback they have been receiving, Fianna Fáil leader, Brian Cowen and Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny have been squabbling as to which party is most committed to the ‘Yes’ campaign. When not fighting amongst each other they have resorted to issuing threats to the voters.

The latest contributor to enter the fray is the Green Party Minister for Energy, Communication and Natural Resources Éamonn Ryan, who has warned of ‘EU chaos’ if the Treaty is lost. Furthermore he has suggested that it “would be very damaging to the interests of this country if we don’t ratify the Treaty.”

éirígí spokesperson Daithí Mac An Mháistír this morning slammed the Ministers comments.

“It is clear that some in the Green Party are learning fast from their masters in Fianna Fáil however, I along with many others find Mr. Ryan’s comments difficult to take seriously given his party’s record of opposing European treaties in the past.

“What is worrying in the Minister’s comments is the distinct lack of respect being shown for democracy. The fact of the matter is that the people of the Netherlands and France have already rejected the EU Constitution. As punishment for daring to defy the European political establishment they have been denied a vote this time. The people of the 26 counties are being asked to decide the future on behalf of 400million people across Europe.

“We are being presented with a re-hash of the earlier Constitution and it is clear from the feedback we are getting on the ground that people, once armed with the facts, are ready to reject this treaty too. I challenge Mr. Ryan and his party to publicly declare they will stand by the decision of the people in this referendum.

The threats of the ‘Yes’ side will be seen for what they are; a flailing, desperate attempt to bully people into delivering the establishments view of the ‘right’ vote.”

Notwithstanding claims by the ‘Yes’ side that there is little interest amongst the public in the issues contained within the Treaty, it is clear from canvassing carried out by éirígí and others that voters are willing to engage in the debate.

People on the doorsteps are justifiably angry about the rising food and energy costs, which are hitting the lowest paid hardest, the continued emasculation of the Health Service and the failure of the government to provide public housing to those most in need.

They are also deeply concerned about the future direction of Europe. It is becoming increasingly clear as the campaign progresses that people do not want a federal, militarised Europe that puts the interests of big business before the half a billion human beings living throughout the continent.

Mac an Mhaistír urged voters not be bullied and to make every effort to get to polling stations and vote NO, “I call on people to stand firm in the face of threats from the ‘Yes’ side. It is important that we deliver a message to those in power that the people will not be bullied. It is simply against the interests of the people of Europe to support this Treaty. The Irish people have the opportunity to send a powerful message to the European establishment that democracy, neutrality, and workers’ rights are not for sale. I urge them to use it on June 12th.”

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Europe is preparing a “Plan B” including concessions to Ireland if we vote NO
http://www.lisbonvote.com/
30/5/2008

Kathy Sinnott has verified proof that Europeans are already actively considering a Plan B in the event of an Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty on the 12th of June. The latest indication came from the French National Assembly Delegation President Mr. Pierre Lequiller. Mr Lequiller was hosting the German Bundestag European Affairs Committee visit to Paris on 15th May. In his welcoming remarks he stated that the Irish referendum remained an alarming question because of the uncertainty of its outcome. Speaking of the probability of a negative outcome of the referendum he went on to say "In this case, it would undoubtedly be necessary to ask for a new vote after the adoption of a certain number of amendments, as was done for the treaty of Nice." This despite Brian Cowen's assertion that there is no Plan B.

Kathy Sinnott says, "After discovering this document it became clear that we are being told there is no Plan B to pressure us into voting yes. This pressure is not just from our own political leaders, but also from the European leaders they bring over here to help them. This may feel like blackmail to some, but actually it feels more like the tactics of a used car salesman: if you don't buy this nicely polished one right now, it will be gone in the morning and you will be out of luck. What this revelation about Europe’s Plan B tells us is that a NO vote will be better for Ireland. They are already planning the concessions they will offer us, all we need do is vote NO to get them. I call on Brian Cowen to be honest with the voters and admit that the current treaty is not “the best deal” available to us."

Mr. Lequiller also let it slip that for the moment they would have to yield to Irish opposition to fiscal harmonisation and continue to hide their plans for European defence.

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Siptu fails to back Lisbon without union legislation
http://www.caeuc.org/index.php?q=node/274
By Martin Wall

The country’s largest trade union Siptu has said it will not support the Lisbon Treaty unless the Government gives a commitment to introduce legislation to allow collective bargaining for workers.

Siptu said that collective bargaining was enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights to which the treaty would give affect, however, the union said that at present the Government has not provided in domestic law for such collective bargaining rights.

Siptu president Jack O’Connor said that the union would not support “a watered down version” of the treaty that exposed workers to its free market aspects while denying them the benefit of balancing measures which were integral to it.

Earlier this week The Irish Times revealed that the Government had opposed the introduction of legislation on mandatory trade union recognition in a confidential paper submitted to the national pay talks.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is understood to favour amending existing legislation to take account of trade union and employer concerns.

It believes mandatory union recognition would be completely unacceptable to employers and that an agreed rather than an imposed outcome is preferable

Mr O’Connor said the union’s position was informed by the fall-out from the Nice Treaty, which it said undermined workers rights.

"We supported the Nice Treaty for the best of reasons and actively campaigned for it,” Mr O'Connor said.

“Shortly after ratification the Government opened the borders to workers from the new accession states in the interests of business, without enhancing our employment protection legislation by one syllable.

“This facilitated a 'Race to the Bottom', the large scale casualisation of jobs and an explosion of employment agencies. None of these regressive events can be attributed to the EU. The authorities here were to blame for all of them,” he said.

The Siptu president accused the Government of playing a key role in maintaining a blocking minority to prevent the EU adopting a directive to provide minimal protection vulnerable workers.

"While many critics of the Treaty are understandably concerned at the potential threat some of its provisions could pose to our health and other 'common good' services, the reality is that the greatest threats to these services are home grown and reflect the policies of the Government and champions of the neo-liberal agenda. 

In contrast, the tradition of the EU has been consensual, balancing the demands of the market place and competition with the needs of ordinary working people," he insisted.

The Treaty, Mr O'Connor said, offers the opportunity to continue this balancing process through the Charter of Fundamental Rights and other measures.

"The reality is that the right to organise in the workplace and campaign on vital issues affecting their living and working conditions is one of the few ways in which ordinary people can create a countervailing force to the awesome power of global capitalism.

It provides a basis for articulation of their interests in political lobbying and the social partnership process, affording them some influence in the course of events. It strengthens democracy in society. It is also the best means of ensuring the continuation of the European Social Model that has delivered prosperity, stability and peace for a Continent previously wracked by conflict," he added.

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What kind of Europe do you want?
http://www.caeuc.org/index.php?q=node/275
Irish Times op-ed by Roger Cole

After the French voted no, I wrote this letter to the Irish Times:

“The EU Constitution is dead. It will not make any difference if it is dragged around the states of the EU like some 21st century Dracula. A stake has been driven through its heart by the French people, and the Dutch will do the same”.

I was right about the Dutch and wrong about the EU Constitution, it has returned like a bad movie sequel. On average 75% of the people in the EU want the right to vote on it, but only we are allowed. Showing solidarity with the people of France, Holland and those denied a vote, provides enough justification on its own, to vote no.

You’d get a great welcome if you went on holiday to France or Holland after voting no. The same applies for England.   New Labour broke their word and refused their people the right to vote and had their worst result in 40 years.

If you want to venture further, try Saxony. The European Court of Justice (the EU Supreme Court) decided that a Lower Saxony law obliging public building contractors to respect local collective agreements was incompatible with EU law when a Polish company paid workers the Polish minimum wage, only 46.5%  that of Lower Saxony. The case was similar to that of the Laval and the Viking Judgement, so add Finland and Sweden to your holiday destination list.

The ECJ decisions are sustained attacks on the wages and working conditions of workers throughout the EU. Social Europe is dead and gone; it’s with the well heeled right wing Irish social democrats in the grave. A trade unionist voting yes would be like a turkey voting for Christmas.

If the major corporations plan to increase their profits by ensuring workers incomes are drastically reduced, then what better way of getting away with it than by engendering fear of “terrorism” and enriching the arms industry corporations? For PANA, the militarisation of the EU is one of the cornerstones of the treaty and a continuation of the “war on terrorism”.

Irish neutrality is already destroyed. The main parties advocating a yes vote have already supported the invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq by the US because it wanted to consolidate US/Israeli military domination of the Middle East. Over a million US troops have used Shannon Airport on their way to the war. Ireland is a US aircraft carrier in total contravention of the 1907 Hague Convention. The militarisation of the EU can only be understood in the context of the Iraq war and of the integration of Ireland into the US/EU/NATO military structures to ensure Ireland’s full and active participation in the resource wars of the 21st century, wars in which the defeat of the US/EU/NATO axis is the only inevitable outcome. These wars have already cost the US and its vassal states, well over $3 trillion and have caused a massive global economic crisis, the responsibility for which is shared by the yes campaigners. Not content with supporting President Bush, they now want to drag us even deeper into the “war on terrorism” via this treaty.

Ireland has already signed up to the EU’s Security Strategy in 2003 with it’s codification of preventive war in tandem with Bush’s policy. The EU Parliament voted 414 to 117 in November 2006 to approve a report highlighting the links with NATO stating that the, “EU is on the way to developing into a Security and Defence Union.” It also voted not to respect the decision of the Irish people. The EU Council in 2004 agreed to; “enhance the operational capability of the EU and provide the framework for the strategic partnership between the EU and NATO”.

The Lisbon treaty continues and legalises the process of the militarisation of the EU and strengthening EU/NATO links. Ireland “shall undertake to improve their military capabilities”. The European Defence Agency the function of which is to expand and improve EU military expenditure is part of the treaty. In December 07 the EU Commission made it clear that the emerging EDA will mean even more arms exports and a boost to the global arms trade. If you want to support the arms trade make sure you vote yes.

Up to now the concept of the EU as a Partnership of Independent States was expressed by the fact that the position of EU President was rotated between all the states. That now ends with the appointment of an EU President and Minister for Foreign Affairs with an EU Diplomatic Service, for a de facto 5 year period.

We would have to,” support the Union’s external and security policy actively and unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity”. When President Barosso said the EU had the, “dimensions of Empire”, he was not joking.

The mutual defence and solidarity clauses, the military Structured Cooperation clauses that allow a group of states within the EU to create their own armed force to take part in more “demanding” military expeditions and the EU Battlegroups leave no room for doubt about the militarisation of the EU. The French have already called for the six largest EU states to establish a 60,000 strong expeditionary army. No wonder the leaked memo said the referendum should not be held later this year because, “the risk of unhelpful developments during the French Presidency- particularly relating to EU defence- were just too great”.

When people vote the key question is: what kind of Europe do they want? If the want a centralised, militarised, neo-liberal superstate allied to the US engaged in wars all over the world, then they should vote yes. If they want a Partnership Europe, a partnership of Independent, Democratic States, legal equals, without a military dimension, then they should vote no. The referendum is not just an Irish battle, it is a European battle fought on Irish soil, and is one PANA needs to win.

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"A No vote to Lisbon is No to military spending,bureaucracy,and nuclear power",says Catherine Connolly
http://www.galwayadvertiser.ie/content/index.php?aid=12127
29/05/2008

A vote against the Lisbon Treaty is not a vote against Europe, but a vote against a Treaty that will not deliver EU reform, but will force Ireland to increase military spending, create more layers of bureaucracy in the EU, and tie Ireland into being forced to accept nuclear power.

This is the view of Independent Cllr Catherine Connolly who this week has come out against the treaty and is calling on Galwegians to vote No on June 12.

Cllr Connolly is “passionately pro-peace and pro-European” and says that as a feminist and practising barrister, she is “acutely aware of how important and positive” European legislation has been for Irish women. However she feels that Lisbon will do nothing to reform the EU or advance the rights of EU citizens.

The Lisbon Treaty arose from discussions following the French and Dutch rejection of the proposed European Constitution in 2004. It is being put forward as a reforming treaty which will allow for the smoother and more manageable running of the now 27-member EU.

However Cllr Connolly said that there is no real or substantial difference between Lisbon and the rejected constitution and so represents “anything but reform”. She pointed out that European leaders are on the record about this.

“The former President of France, Valéry Giscard D’Estaing, said, ‘The difference between the original Constitution and the present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach rather than content’ ,” Cllr Connolly said. “Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister said, ‘The good thing is that all the symbolic elements are gone and that which really matters - the core - is left!’”.

She also cited as worrying a quote from Monsieur D’Estaing - who was Chairman of the Convention which drew up the EU constitution - regarding the Lisbon Treaty in which he said: “Public opinion will be led to adopt without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly...all the earlier proposals will be in the new text but will be hidden and disguised in some way”.

A Yes vote to Lisbon means that Ireland will lose a commissioner. However Yes campaigners say that from 2014 each member state will have representation on the EU Commission for 10 out of every 15 years and this applies equally to all states, including big states like France, Britain, and Germany.

Cllr Connolly, however, said “no evidence whatsoever” has been forthcoming to justify the reduction in number of commissioners other than anecdotal evidence that it may become difficult to manage so many commissioners from the large number of states now in the EU.

She said this attitude is in stark contrast to the fact that “new levels of unaccountable bureaucracy” will be set up by the Lisbon Treaty, through the establishment of the unelected post of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Whoever occupies this post will represent the EU in all common foreign and security matters and a new back up diplomatic corps will come into being.

At each EU treaty referendum, fears are expressed that Ireland’s neutrality will be seriously compromised and that we are slowly but surely being sucked into an EU army and a more militarised Europe.

Yes campaigners say Lisbon will do no such thing but Cllr Connolly is unconvinced, pointing out that voting Yes to Lisbon would result in Ireland increasing its military spending under Article 42(3) of the Treaty.

“To vote Yes for Lisbon would be to vote to increase our military spending at a time when health cut backs have threatened to close the University Hospital Galway for the month of August,” she said, “when there are unbelievable waiting lists for all specialities and 80-year-olds are waiting up to five years for a public bed in St Francis Nursing Home in Galway.”

Cllr Connolly said “the real agenda” of Lisbon is not reform but rather “a further step in a common foreign and security policy and a common defence policy”.

Irish neutrality is protected by the protocol in the Nice Treaty which requires the agreement of the Irish Government, the Dáil, and the UN before Irish troops can serve abroad.

However, as she points out, there is no such protection in relation to Ireland’s “obligation to increase our military capabilities”, to contributing to a start up fund for military activities, to show solidarity with another member state if it is the subject of a terrorist attack, or in relation to any Irish obligation to “remain silent” if other countries decide on a common military policy.

Cllr Connolly said Lisbon’s emphasis on military and defence matters is in stark contrast to the “much heralded climate protection section”.

“There are more than 11 pages with 19 articles in one section alone, not to mention other sections, devoted to Common Foreign and Security Policy,” she said, “compared with very vague commitments contained in less than half a page in relation to combating climate change.”

Cllr Connolly is also concerned by the implications of Protocol 12 of the Lisbon Treaty dealing with the European Atomic Energy Commission.

“The implications for Ireland of this protocol are far from clear and certainly need further elucidation and clarification, given that one of the primary goals of this Treaty - known as the Euratom Treaty - is the promotion of nuclear energy which the Irish people have clearly rejected in the past.”

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What "planet" is Gormley living on?
http://www.libertas.org/content/view/289/1/
30 May 2008

Environment Minister John Gormley has become a late, but very strong entry into the competition for "the most outrageous claim made by a supporter of the Treaty" with his comments today that a "no" vote would be a "crushing blow" to efforts to "save the planet, Libertas Executive Director Naoise Nunn said this afternoon.

Mr. Nunn said that the Minister should withdraw his comments.

"It appears that John Gormley hasn't just drunk the kool-aid, he's taken a bath in it. To use his own words, he is now a full-time inhabitant of "planet Bertie".

This is the man who opposed 96% of this document when it was the EU constitution;

The man who, unlike Libertas, has opposed every EU referendum since 1973;

The man who said in the Sunday Business Post (click here) while opposing Nice:

"The minister's (Brian Cowen) neutrality horse has been flogged to death at this stage. How can we be members of the European Rapid Reaction Force and still claim to be neutral? His case for neutrality now seems to rest exclusively on non-membership of Nato."

But now believes our neutrality is guaranteed.

He is basing his support for Lisbon on 6 words on Climate change that confer absolutely no extra powers on the Union, and as such would not impact the Union if they were not to come into effect.

The only "planet" that will be destroyed by a rejection of Lisbon is "Planet Gormley", and given how badly that planet has been polluted by ambition, it might be no bad thing."


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Libertas responds to Dick Roche
http://www.libertas.org/content/view/290/1/
30 May 2008

"Minister Roche is flat out ignoring the facts. As we stated yesterday,the official explanations of the Charter of fundamental rights very clearly make provision for the death penalty, and the detention of children for educational purposes.

For that matter, they also make provision for the detention of adults who carry a contagious disease, and for Government abrogation of the right to private property in the national economic interest.

The explanation of the charter makes clear what each right actually means. We would strongly suggest that people read it."

[Femacamper]

The EU should be declared a terrorist organization. Pretty soon, the union would just dissolve.

[Sub-X]

The Militarisation of Ireland’s Foreign and Defence Policy:A Decade of Betrayal, and the Challenge of Renewal
http://www.pana.ie/idn/060508.html
Written and researched by Mark Doris
May 2008

The Militarisation of Ireland’s Foreign and Defence Policy

This paper shows that Ireland's commitment to international peace, justice and disarmament has been progressively rolled back over the past decade. The record of recent governments and, to a lesser extent, of opposition parties and independents, in the area of Ireland‘s foreign and defence policy is set out in three parts.

The first part focuses on the controversial use of Shannon airport, in particular its use as a staging post or refuelling stop for troops and/or munitions en route to a war in Afghanistan of dubious legality and an illegal war in Iraq, and its use by agents of the United States as a stopover point in secret abduction and torture operations.

The second part outlines the extent to which Ireland has become involved in various military structures outside the remit of traditional United Nations peacekeeping missions. These include NATO and the newly-formed EU Battlegroups. The third part summarises the Government‘s response to Ireland‘s participation in the international arms trade. Afri intends this paper to be a resource that will assist ongoing monitoring and debate in this important area of Irish policy.

We also wish to suggest what the current government – elected by the 30th Dáil – must do to reverse the process of militarisation we have witnessed over the last decade, and how Ireland's foreign and defence policy might be demilitarised and renewed in the future.

[Sub-X]

Gerry Adams MP address to NFOE
http://www.pana.ie/idn/020508.html
May 2008

I would like to thank the Forum on Europe for the invitation to speak here today. On June 12 th the people of this state will take a decision of immense importance. Whatever side of the debate you are presently on, and particularly for those who have yet to make up their minds, it is important that the debate on the Lisbon Treaty is open, honest and frank. Sinn Féin is committed to such a debate and we welcome the opportunity to discuss these important issues today and in the coming weeks.

It is disappointing that we will not have a referendum in the North. Despite the fact that the Lisbon Treaty will affect all of us on this island, those of us who live in the North are being denied the right to a referendum.

I am particularly pleased to be addressing the Forum on May 1 st , international labour day. Workers rights have been a central focus of Sinn Féin's political efforts. At a time of increasing economic uncertainty, rising prices, rising unemployment and recession, the issue of workers rights is more important than ever. The issue of workers rights is also central to our party's analysis of the Lisbon Treaty, I will return to this later.

Republicanism and Europe

At the core of my approach to politics is a deep belief in the republican ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity. These ideas emerged from one of the foundational moments of modern Europe, the French Revolution. Every generation of Irish republican political thinkers has sought inspiration from the progressive currents of European political thought. Republicanism, from its origin to the present day is a European political movement, committed to creating a society based on popular sovereignty, personal liberty and social, economic and cultural equality

These values form the benchmark against which Sinn Féin assesses the Lisbon Treaty not only in establishing the impact of the treaty on Ireland, but also on the European Union and the wider world.

Ireland's place is in Europe

Sinn Féin's believes that Irelands place is within the EU. Irish membership has brought social and economic benefits to Ireland, north and south. We are also aware that not everything has been good news, and often proposals that emerge from within the EU institutions have negative effects on Ireland. So we believe that the best approach to the EU is to critically assess each proposal on its merits. When something is in Irelands interests, or indeed the interests of the European Union as a whole, we support it. However when something is clearly not in our interests or that of the wider EU, we oppose it and campaign to change it. Our MEPs have demonstrated the value of this approach by supporting progressive proposals on the floor of the European Parliament aimed at combating poverty, inequality and social exclusion, promoting human rights and tackling climate change, while opposing attempts to undermine public services, workers rights and environmental sustainability.

Today in Ireland and within the European Union institutions Sinn Féin is playing an active role in the ongoing movement to build a European Union, which deepens meaningful democracy and meets the highest standards of accountability and;

-Protects and promotes civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights

-Assists member states in building prosperity and equality
 
-C ombats poverty, inequality, discrimination and social injustice

-Pursues environmentally responsible and sustainable development policies

-Promotes conflict resolution, peace building and global stability internationally

-Protects neutrality, opposes militarisation and the arms trade

And which assists the developing world overcome global poverty, inequality and disease.

These are the positive policies that we stand for and which any proposal must contain if it is to secure our support.

Lisbon Treaty
 
It is in this context that we come to the Lisbon Treaty. Does it advance the interests of the Irish people, the European Union and the wider world? Does it promote equality and sustainable economic development? Does it promote greater democracy and transparency within the EU institutions? Does it seek to play a constructive role in ending conflict and building a more peaceful world?

We also look to how if affects this states position within the EU. Does it strengthen or weaken our influence in the EU?

After serious analysis and internal debate, Sinn Féin has taken the view that the Lisbon Treaty represents a bad deal for Ireland, for the EU and for the developing world.

Democracy

There is little doubt that the European Union is currently suffering from a crisis of confidence across the member states. Turnouts for European Parliamentary elections are at an all time low. In the 2004 the average turnout across the EU was 45%. In the Netherlands it was 39%. In Britain it was 38%. Similar figures were recorded in Portugal, Spain, France, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Finland. A significant number of newer member states recorded turnouts less than 28%. While this states turnout is marginally better at 55%, it is still significantly lower than turnouts for Leinster House.

By comparison, when the peoples of France and the Netherlands rejected the EU Constitution in 2005, turnouts were significantly higher. In France 70% of voters went to the polls rejecting the Constitution by 55%. In the Netherlands turnout was 62% of which 61% said no.

Across the EU voters no longer understand or have confidence in what the EU stands for, where it is going, and how it takes its most important decisions.

The Lisbon Treaty was an opportunity to rectify this situation. Unfortunately it does the very opposite. It further centralises decision making in the EU institutions and gives the EU more than 100 new powers across a wide range of policy areas. This figure includes more than 30 new legal competencies, the loss of more than 60 vetoes for individual member states, a range of new roles and offices and self-amending articles including Article 48. This is a significant increase in the powers of the EU and to date no argument has been made to explain or justify such changes.

The Treaty also significantly undermines the role of small states within the EU's decision-making process. In addition to losing the right to an Irish Commissioner for 5 out of every 15 years the Treaty also proposes to reduce this states voting strength on the Council of ministers by 50%. While the loss of a Commission affects all states, larger states like Britain, France and Germany increase their voting strength at Council by 50%. Indeed the Irish delegation to the Convention on the Future of Europe resisted the loss of a Commissioner, only to cave in at the end. And while privately they are admitting that the loss is a real negative in public they are suggesting that it is a good deal. Combined, these changes mean that Ireland will have less influence in the design of future proposals, less weight in key decisions, and a reduced capacity to block decisions that are not in Irelands interests.

The self-amending clauses are important to mention here. These articles allow the Council, acting by unanimity, to transfer decisions to Qualified Majority Voting and, under article 48 to amend existing treaties. While any application of Article 48 would be subject to ratification by member state parliaments, there is no guarantee of a referendum. Indeed anyone reading UCD law lecturer Rossa Fanning's article in the Irish Times on April 22 would conclude that Article 48 could be applied to a large range of policy areas without any recourse to a referendum.

Supporters of the Treaty tell us that it will make the EU more democratic by giving more powers to the European parliament, member state parliaments and citizens. However when you look at the detail of these new powers they are found to be wanting. And the government's suggestion that the Lisbon treaty involves the greatest transfer of power to the member states is complete and utter nonsense.

While the increase in co-decision within the European Parliament is significant, it continues to play a secondary role to the European Commission. The Treaty also does nothing to address the gap between the work of the Parliament and citizens in member states.

With regard to member state parliaments, the proposed measures are minimalist. Member states will be given an extra two weeks to scrutinise proposals coming from the Commission and if a third of member states believe the proposal breaches the principle of subsidiarity they can object. Of course the Commission is not obliged to do anything other than "consider" the objection.

The orange card, which has a somewhat different connotation in Ireland, is an even less effective tool, as its application requires the support of half the member state parliaments and either the European Parliament or Council. Eight weeks is too short a period for effective scrutinising of detailed EU proposals, as anyone involved in the Oireachtas European Affairs Committee or European Parliament will admit. The limitation of these measures to the issue of subsidarity is extremely restrictive. And the requirements to secure support of other member state parliaments or the European Parliament or Council constitute extremely high barriers to their application.

I wonder if either of these tools would ever be successfully applied if this Treaty is ratified.

The citizens initiative is similarly weak. While as a lobbying tool it has merit, and is already being used, once again there would be no obligation on the Commission to do anything other than "consider" any proposal. It also sets a dangerous precedent, whereby the minimum number of signatures required to have a proposal even considered by the commission would have to be 1 million.

On balance, when one weighs up the increased centralisation of powers, the self amending articles, the loss of influence of smaller member states and the weak measures offered to member state parliaments and citizens, there is no doubt that the Lisbon Treaty is a bad deal both for Irish and EU democracy, and if ratified will deepen the existing democratic deficit.

Neutrality and Militarisation

Sinn Féin has long advocated a policy of active neutrality, rejecting participation in any military alliance and supporting an enhanced role for the United Nations in resolving conflicts around the world. We have also been for a greater focus on solving the causes of conflict, such as political and economic inequality and instability and the absence of democracy. Our own experience of conflict and conflict resolution has taught us that the path to peace is not to be found in increasing military capabilities but in dialogue, inclusivity and equality.

After Nice 1, the Irish government assured the people that there would be no erosion of neutrality or participation in a common defence without a referendum. However actions by this Irish governments and the impact of the Nice Treaty continue to undermine neutrality. The use of Shannon airport by US troops on route to Iraq; financial contributions to the European Defence Agency; membership of Partnership for Peace and the new EU Battle groups are all in breach of clear international definitions of neutrality.

At the same time there is a growing desire among many of the more powerful Governments at the heart of the EU project, to see the Union develop its own military capability, independent of the United Nations and in concert with NATO.

This state is playing an increasingly significant role in both NATO and the evolving EU military structures. Irish troops serve at NATO HQ in Brussels under the NATO-led 'Partnership for Peace' initiative. Irish troops have served in NATO-led missions, including Afghanistan. There is a full-time EU Military Staff headquartered in Brussels which is responsible for '‘command and control' of EU military capabilities – this reports to an EU Military Committee, which in turn reports to the EU Political and Security Committee and from thence upwards to the EU Council of Ministers. Irish army officers serve with the EU Military Staff, and this state is represented at all other levels of this network. In terms of actual military operations, the EU can call upon a number of Battlegroups – groups of 1,500-2,500 soldiers capable of being deployed within 15 days of agreement by the EU Council of Ministers. The first EU Battlegroup deployment – to Chad– is under the command of an Irish Lieutenant General.

The Lisbon Treaty undermines neutrality further. Its makes clear that the EU will have common foreign and common defence policies and that such a policy must be compatible with NATO. While the exact detail of such policies is left to a future date, and the Irish government retains its veto, there is no doubt that the end goal is clearly defined. Do we want a common foreign or defence policy with countries such as France, Britain or Germany. Are the strategic and international interests of this state best served within such a context? In my view they are not.

Article 28 of the Lisbon Treaty contains three separate clauses that will result in increased member state spending on domestic and EU military capabilities. The article states clearly that member states must progressively improve their military capabilities, as directed by the European Defence Agency. The same article also establishes a start up fund for foreign or defence interventions as yet undefined and a mechanism for rapid access to appropriations again for interventions as yet unspecificied.

While this state will retain the right to opt out of any future military interventions, a new procedure contained in Lisbon, called “structured cooperation” would allow a smaller number of member states to agree a foreign policy or military intervention to be carried out with the imprimatur, finance and logistical resources provided through the EU.

More troubling is the expansion of the list of approved military actions, known as the Petersberg Tasks. To date these tasks have been primarily focused on peace building and humanitarian intervention. However under Lisbon this list is expanded to include disarmament missions and provision of military assistance.

As a consequence of the Lisbon Treaty, this state will be drawn even further into the emerging EU military capacity.

The Economy

The Irish economy is changing. Recession, unemployment, loss of tax revenues have all hit the headlines in recent months. There is a consensus that the boom is over and a new approach to the future of the Irish economy is urgently required. The challenge is to tackle the existing levels of Celtic Tiger inequality while delivering the next generation of jobs in the Irish economy. This means supporting indigenous business and the farming community and ensuring that we remain an attractive location for investment. This means investing in infrastructure, education, public services and workers rights. The Lisbon Treaty hinders efforts to ensure that Ireland is economically successful.

The Lisbon Treaty hands powers to the European Commission to complete the internal market in services as envisaged under the widely opposed Services Directive, accelerating the race to the bottom in terms of pay and conditions.

Public services, defined as Services of General Economic Interests, will be subject under article 16 to new ”economic and financial conditions”, meaning that services like health care and education, would be subject to the rules of competition.

Indeed in their recent written submission to the National Forum on Europe IBEC argued that the Lisbon Treaty " ...creates the legal basis for the liberalisation of services of general economic interest...[including]...Health, Education, Transport, Energy and the Environment."

This will inevitably result in further privatisation and in turn greater levels of inequality.

The Treaty Protocol on the Internal Market and Competition provides the EU with a mandate to remove "distortions" to service provision - which are likely to include important protective workers' rights regulations

Contrary to claims made by the Labour Party The Charter of Fundamental Rights does not guarantee workers rights.

The negative implications of the Lisbon Treaty for workers is part of a continuing trend. David Begg, General Secretary of ICTU summed up this trend saying, "While business rights are being codified and strengthened, workers can only expect loose frameworks and vague approaches to enforcement."

There has been dismay at the recent European Court of Justice judgement in the Laval case which upheld the right of a Latvian company operating in Sweden to import Latvian workers to do the job at Latvian rates rather than compelling them to pay Swedish rates. The recent Rueffert ruling bans public authorities from putting conditions respecting collective agreements on the award of public contracts.

These ECJ judgements followed on from other negative developments such as the Services Directive and the Green Paper on "flexicurity". They indicate the direction of current EU policy and how the new provisions in the Lisbon Treaty will be employed.

Workers and trade unionists should note the governments failure to protect pay and conditions and enforce labour law when our labour market was opened to workers from the accession states.

In the past much progressive social legislation has had its origins in the EU and on this basis it has been supported by trade unionist and others. Unfortunately in the last decade these gains have been undermined by developments that have sought to sacrifice a progressive social agenda in favour of a narrowly defined focus on competitiveness.

In recent weeks we have seen a significant level of concern from within our farming community about the current round of World Trade Organisation trade talks. Irish farmers and development NGOs are rightly concerned at the agenda being pursued by European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, an agenda that is bad for Irish farmers and the developing world. The approach of the current Trade Commissioner is part of a pattern that emerged under his predecessors Pascal Lammy and Leon Brittan and will continue after he is gone. It is an agenda that aggressively promotes free trade irrespective of the costs to European family farms and rural communities, or the world poorest communities and countries.

The Lisbon Treaty contains new provisions that will considerably strengthen the Commission in its pursuit of free trade over fair trade.

Article 2 (b) gives the EU exclusive competence over commercial policy, including the negotiating of international trade agreements. Article 188 gives the Commission power to initiate and conclude negotiations including international trade agreements at the same time as transferring the final decisions on such agreements from unanimity to Qualified Majority Voting at the Council, thus ending this states veto. Article 10(a) mandates the "progressive abolition of restrictions on international trade" to be one of the EUs guiding principles in its interaction with non-EU member states. Restrictions would include agricultural subsidies, preferential treatment for developing world companies in government procurement contracts or environmental and workers protections.

Last week Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, addressing this very Forum urged the Irish government to use its veto at the Council if the outcome of the WTO trade talks is bad for Irish farming. We agree with Fine Gael on that. The Irish government should use its veto but the question is why does Fine Gael – why does the government, want to give up this veto.

If the Lisbon Treaty is passed, that veto will be gone. What will we do then in future rounds of WTO talks? This treaty, like the Mandelson proposals are clearly not in the interest of Irish farmers. They are going to do with the farming industry exactly what they have done with the fishing industry if we let them.

The situation for the Irish business community is just as serious. Moves towards tax harmonization rightly worry most Irish people. If we take a step back and take a cold look at the political realities we see that the European Commission is committed to bringing forward a proposal to bring in a common corporate tax base this year. We know that a majority of Member States including France, one of the biggest, and the next holders of the Presidency are in favour. Fine Gael and Labour MEPs have also voted in support of measures on EU Tax harmonisation. The Irish people should consider very carefully the implications of accepting Lisbon when to do so will empower these forces to create a common corporate tax base with or without Ireland.

Article 48's new procedure for amending aspects of the Treaty (the self-amending article) maps out another new way around the Irish veto. At present the Government can't drop the veto without a referendum. If Lisbon Treaty goes through a referendum is not required. A citizen's right to a vote on this matter will be removed. Why should any state ask its citizen's to give up the right to vote? Why on earth would any Government or political party campaign to remove this right?

All Irish political parties say they are committed to maintaining tax sovereignty. The Treaty makes it easier to bring in tax harmonisation. Anybody who is serious about defending our ability to define our own tax policy must say NO to Lisbon.

I would now like to take a few minutes to respond to some of the arguments raised by supporters of the Treaty over the last few months at the Forum.

Charter of Fundamental Rights
 
Sinn Féin strongly supports any measures that enhance the protection and promotion of human rights and equality at home, in the EU and in the wider world. We support the Charter of Fundamental Rights. We have called for its incorporation into EU law, and for its inclusion in a non-Constitutional Treaty.

However, the claim that the EU Charter is somehow a major step forward in human rights is an illusion. Even its advocates acknowledge that it is little more than a restatement of existing human rights law. Indeed, in its analysis of the Charter the Institute for European Affairs argues that it 'does not create any new rights' and moreover that the social and economic rights in the Charter ‘do not give rise to direct claims for positive action'

Social Clause

Much has been made in some quarters of the Social Clause contained in Article 9 of the Treaty. It is agued that this paragraph constitutes a significant advance in the struggle for a more equitable EU. I wish this was the case. Unfortunately the Clause will go the same way as the commitments to social cohesion and environmental sustainability in the Lisbon Strategy and the Social Chapter before it. As former European Roundtable of Industrialists General Secretary Keith Richardson said of the Social Chapter, it is, "a large waste of time...If politicians feel it is important to get a chapter referring to the desirability of full employment, and if they think it will help with public opinion we don't really object...provided of course that it remains in general terms, related to aspiration." And so it will be with the Social Clause, a worthy aspirational statement, used to secure support for the Treaty and quickly forgotten by the Commission and Council once it has served its purpose.

Contrary to claims by some supporters of Lisbon that it is the most social Treaty to date, it signals the final death of Social Europe with little thought for social or environmental consequences.

Vote no for a Better deal for Europe
 
Supporters of Lisbon say that to challenge or to reject this Treaty is an anti-European act. They have argued that rejection of Lisbon will bring economic devastation, political isolation and international ridicule.

All of these claims are false. They are the stuff of scaremongering and blackmail.

The threat to our economy is not in a rejection of Lisbon. It is in the ongoing privatisation policies of the government and the failure to properly invest in education, health, childcare, research and development, and broadband. Rectifying these failure will be all the more difficult if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified.

Like the vast majority of people on this island I believe that Ireland's place is in Europe. Benefits have come as a result of our membership of the EU and continued co-operation with our European partners is essential if we are to meet the challenges facing us in the time ahead.  And one thing is certain. Regardless of the outcome of the referendum Ireland's place in the EU will be secure. The question now facing the Irish people is - is the Lisbon Treaty a good deal for Ireland, is it a good deal for the rest of Europe.  The answer, I believe is a resounding no.

However rejecting the Lisbon Treaty is not enough. We need to argue for a better deal for Ireland and a better future for Europe. If Sinn Féin were involved in such a negotiation our objectives would be to secure:

-A permanent EU Commissioner and reform of the Commission itself

-A greater equality in voting procedure at the Council

-A meaningful mechanism for member state involvement in the legislative process

-The abolition of all self amending articles
 
-A specific article recognising and protecting neutrality

-Opt outs ending financial support for nuclear power, the European Defence Agency, the start up fund and all other areas of military expenditure
 
-Protocols reserving this state's right to continue making its own decisions on taxation
 
-Specific measures promoting and protecting public services such as health and education

-A greater emphasis on promoting fair trade over free trade and a significant increase in the importance of the development and aid agendas

-Concrete protections for workers rights

160 years ago, revolution swept across the continent of Europe as ordinary people demanded their right to political liberty, social and economic equality and national solidarity. 1848 was known for decades as the Spring of Nations, and brought the ideas of the French Revolution into also every country on the continent. Ten years later James Stevenson founded the Fenians, and mobilised the marginalised and dispossessed of this country to the cause of Irish independence and social and economic equality. Today 150 years on Irish republicans continue to be part of that European wide movement for a more democratic and more equal world.

In the spirit of the French Revolution and the Spring of Nations, Sinn Féin is calling on the citizens of this state to reject the Lisbon Treaty, to reclaim the future of Europe and in doing so secure a better deal for Ireland and our European neighbours.

[sweet*sugar]

European Bloc at Standstill Pending a Vote in Ireland


BRUSSELS — Never famous for speedy decision making, the European Union is working more slowly than ever — and it is all the fault of the Irish.

Ireland, with a population of 4.2 million, votes June 12 in a referendum that will decide whether the European Union finally gets a full-time president and a single, more powerful, foreign policy chief.

The Irish will vote on what is known as the Lisbon Treaty, painfully renegotiated after the French and Dutch in 2005 rejected a more complicated version, which had the trappings of a constitution.

Referendums are always dangerous, and almost all countries decided not to have one on the Lisbon Treaty, which requires the approval of all 27 member nations of the European Union to come into force. But the Irish did not shy away, and the prospect of how they might vote has caused jitters across many capitals.

In 2001, the Irish voted “no” to the European Union’s Nice Treaty, which was an attempt to streamline structures to prepare for the expansion of the bloc.

And with opinion polls showing much of the Irish electorate undecided, the possibility that the Lisbon Treaty may be rejected has sent unfamiliar tremors of fear through the ranks of Europe’s top bureaucrats, who rarely have to trouble with voters.

This has brought a kind of unacknowledged but collective halt on anything controversial, particularly if it might upset Irish sensibilities.

“Every time there is a referendum this happens,” said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a research institute in London. “This is one of the reasons why there will not be another treaty change for 10 years, in my view. With 27 member states, ratification is so difficult. Someone is going to have a referendum and then you have to put policy making in a freeze.”

Evidence that European Union activity has been slow is all around. In March, its 27 heads of government held one of their least eventful meetings in recent memory. By contrast, their June summit — which starts on the 19th, after the Irish vote — has a crowded agenda, including climate change, biofuels, rising food prices, planned laws on carbon dioxide emissions from cars and the role of the new European president.

Initiatives likely to worry or annoy Irish voters are being played down or delayed.

For months, little has been heard about plans to increase European defense cooperation or about a fundamental review of how the bloc spends its budget, expected to reach 134 billion euros, about $211 billion, in 2009.

Ireland is defiantly neutral, and defense proved to be a vital and controversial issue in the 2001 referendum. And Ireland remains, at least at heart, agricultural, so farming subsidies are popular. So almost no work has been done on a fundamental review of the European Union budget, about 43 percent of which — despite complaints from countries like Britain — still goes to agriculture.

Another initiative liable to worry Irish voters is the European Union’s longstanding ambition to harmonize the way in which corporate tax is levied. Ireland’s economic boom was helped by some of the lowest taxes on corporations in the union.

Officials are also reluctant to discuss looming decisions about what the new treaty will mean in practice, including the powers of a proposed full-time European president, its planned foreign policy chief and its embryonic diplomatic service.

The European Union’s executive has offices around the globe that deal with issues like aid and trade. The idea is to give them a bigger role in supporting the more powerful foreign policy chief. But critics worry that the union will assume some of the current responsibilities of national governments.

Similarly, a decision has to be made on whether the European president will have the role of an influential figure on the global stage or more of a technocrat who brokers internal negotiations among the member states.

Not every difficult issue can be avoided, of course. But those that emerge tend to get an Ireland-friendly spin. When the European Commission, the union’s executive arm, recently outlined small-scale changes to the European Union’s generous farm support program, the commission made it clear that the system itself was not under threat. The European agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, chided Britain’s finance minister, Alistair Darling, for daring to suggest greater changes.

Still, delay until the middle of next month is the preferred option. Cutting farm subsidies is also a central element of an elusive global trade deal. Ministers from around the globe may be called to Geneva next month — and European Union officials are lobbying for any meeting to take place after June 12.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/world/europe/01irish.html?ref=europe

[Sub-X]

EU accused of 'step back' in transparency
http://www.erc2.org/6.0.html
2 June 2008

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The EU's transparency watchdog will today strongly criticise the European Commission's commitment to openness, saying its recent proposals on document access represent a "step backwards."

At a hearing in parliament on Monday afternoon (2 June) to discuss the proposed overhaul of public access to document rules, EU ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros will say: "The commission's proposals would mean access to fewer, not more, documents" and that the new code "ignores the lessons of the past."

The ombudsman, who oversees EU citizens' relations with the European institutions, has not been able to "identify any of the commission's proposals that would result in more documents being accessible than at present."

The criticism comes a month after the commission unveiled proposals to update a 2001 law on document transparency that has been subject to strong criticism by MEPs and NGOs for being too restrictive.

But according to the ombudsman, while some proposals would make "fewer documents accessible," others are based on "contestable understandings of [EU] case law" and some entirely new proposals "are difficult to reconcile with a genuine commitment to ensuring the widest possible access to documents."

The proposal to change the definition of a document - so that only papers that have been formally sent to people or otherwise registered could be said to be a "document" - means that the commission will effectively decide what documents are covered by the new law.

In addition, the commission has proposed that documents containing information about "natural or legal persons" that are part of an investigation should never be available to the public - a move that goes beyond the current situation.

Betrayal of promises to citizens

The third main proposal in the commission's transparency regulation is also condemned by Mr Diamandouros. The commission is proposing that all documents - currently it is only internal documents - involved in the period before a formal commission decision is made be exempted from public scrutiny.

The effect of this would be to "give the commission discretion to share documents informally with a limited number of favoured external recipients of its choice" without risk that these documents will later be legally available to the public.

The ombudsman's has some praise for the fact that the commission's proposal will cover citizens everywhere and no longer just in the EU and that Brussels is calling for clearer procedural rules in all institutions on making documents available.

But overall, he says they betray "promises to citizens, civil society and representative associations made in the Treaty of Lisbon."

Mounting up

This is not the only criticism the new proposals have received. UK civil liberties organisation Statewatch last month called aspects of the reforms "highly retrogressive."

The ombudsman is calling on MEPs to play "an active role" in shaping the new legislation.

However, the European Parliament's own standing on transparency took a blow earlier this year when MEPs voted down a proposal to make auditors' reports public as a matter of principle.

A recent auditor's report, unavailable to the public, revealed cases of MEPs abusing their monthly staff allowances.

[Sub-X]

IBEC, Fine Gael & Labour cannot be trusted on taxation
http://www.libertas.org/content/view/291/1/
02 June 2008

Libertas welcomes strong support for "No" from leading economists
 
Libertas Chairman Declan Ganley launched his strongest attack on the "Yes" campaign to date this morning, when he said that Fine Gael, Labour, and IBEC "simply could not be trusted" on the issue of taxation.

Mr. Ganley quoted IBEC's statements in 2006 and 2007 which mirror almost exactly what Libertas has been saying on enhanced co-operation, and also cited the voting record of Fine Gael and Labour MEPs in the EU Parliament on measures relating to the introduction of a common consolidated corporate tax base.

IBEC said in 2006 that it feared that enhanced co-operation could see the introduction of the CCCTB across Europe, and said that business needed to stop this happening.

Fine Gael and Labour MEP's voted in the EU Parliament in favour of the Bersani Report, which called for the introduction of CCCTB, and criticised countries like Ireland that stand in its way.

The text of the motion read as follows (extract):

6.Regrets that some Member States still reject the need for greater cooperation on tax matters, in particular with regard to the tax bases applicable to companies, bearing in mind the fact that coordination between the Member States with regard to company taxation is one of the instruments laid down in the 'integrated guidelines';

A common consolidated corporate tax base at European level

7.Stresses the importance of adopting a common consolidated tax base which will fulfil the requirement of greater integration in the internal market; supports the Commission proposal and is convinced that the introduction of a common consolidated tax base for companies established in at least two Member States - a base which will make it possible to determine the taxable revenue according to a set of common rules defined at European level and applicable to an individual group of companies - is the best way of tackling effectively the tax obstacles hampering companies' cross-border activities;

Mr. Ganley said that the voting record of Irish MEPs on the CCCTB completely belied any credibility they had on the issue of taxation.

"Throughout this campaign, I have said nothing while people in Fine Gael and Labour launched personal and vicious attacks on me because I dared to raise the issue of CCCTB. Day after day, Fine Gael and Labour roll out spokespeople to say that Ireland's tax veto is sacrosanct, and that our tax competitiveness is protected.

The same people who preach to the Irish people about the importance of a "yes" to Lisbon have gone over to Brussels and betrayed their constituents in the most shameful manner.

There is no reason to believe anything that Fine Gael or Labour say on matters of taxation, given that they have voted to criticise Ireland in the EU parliament for wanting to retain our tax independence.

In particular, Proinsias De Rossa's vote on taxation should be read alongside his vote in the Parliament not to respect the outcome of Ireland's referendum.

These people were elected to serve Ireland. In reality, they are serving the agenda of their masters in Brussels.

IBEC has taken its absolute subservience to Government to a new level in this campaign. In 2006,it expressed its concerns about CCCTB, in particular with regard to enhanced co-operation in precisely the terms currently used by Libertas.

For example, in a communication to its members on November 1st, 2006, IBEC said:

"The idea of enhanced cooperation among a restricted set of member states changes the political calculus of the CCCTB issue. The passing of EU-wide legislation on fiscal issues requires unanimity among the member states in Council. However, under the decision-making provisions for enhanced cooperation, the CCCTB project could be introduced merely with the support of a qualified majority of member states in Council. It is therefore much more likely that a CCCTB could be instituted at the European level under enhanced cooperation."

Those who say Lisbon is good for Business have a duty to explain why, and as of yet they have failed to do so. It is clear that IBEC, in particular, view the importance of Lisbon through the prism of the next round of national pay talks.

Their position today is in contrast to their position on May 15th 2007, when Turlough O'Sullivan said of the CCCTB that

"Business should put a stop to this now and urge the Commission to devote its resources to the more fruitful elimination of identified tax obstacles to the internal market."

The fact is that business can, and should, put a stop to CCCTB with a "No" vote.

Ireland's EU Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, has said that the CCCTB is "an underhand tactic to destroy tax competition in Europe".

Meanwhile, leading economists and business figures have said that they will be voting "No". Over the weekend we saw Senator Shane Ross, Jim Power, and Colm Rapple join people like Ulick McEvaddy, Ray Kinsella, and Dr. Chris Coughlan in stating that they will be voting "No".

There are very many more in business who will be quietly saying "No" on June 12th.

The Government cannot continue to maintain that those with Ireland's economic interest at heart are unified behind the Lisbon Treaty. In fact we see a pattern whereby those organisations that are financially dependent on Government say yes, and those voices that are independent are beginning to say "No".

People are looking at the Libertas position on taxation, and moving towards us.

The issue of taxation is front and centre of the debate and it will remain so until polling day".

[Sub-X]

Fine Gael's e-voting comes unstuck
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87764

No voters ahead 2-1

As part of its hard-sell on the Lisbon Treaty, Fine Gael put its own electronic voting machine into the ILAC centre in the centre of Dublin recently giving people the chance to participate in a mock electronic ballot on the referendum.

The result (photo taken yesterday, 29th May 2008) was as follows-

Yes: 3,643 (34.2%)

No: 7,002 (65.8%)

A bit of an own goal?


 

[oshea.declan]

10 THE PHOENIX MAY 30, 2008

Affairs of the Nation






CLANDESTINE EU BUSINESS  LOBBY


HAPPILY, the responsible Irish media has
not seen fit to publish the latest example of
sleaze in the European Parliament - it might
influence the already confused and susceptible
Irish voters in the Lisbon referendum. Thus, it
falls to Goldhawk to break the news of a
multinational business lobby's acquisition of
offices and other facilities that have been
covertly granted to it by a small committee of
the European Parliament.
The European Business and Parliament Scheme
(EBPS), composed of 28 leading multinationals,
including Ericsson, Microsoft, British-American
Tobacco and others, has just been discovered to
have wangled an office and facilities, complete
with parliament telephone numbers and addresses,
inside the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Green Party EU Parliament group leader Monika
Frassoni established that the EBPS had persuaded
the college of
"quaestors" (a handful of MEPs elected to organise
parliament's financial, security and other
organisational matters) to grant it office space and
facilities last September.
The EBPS is part of the wider International
Association of Business and Parliament (IABP) and
it offers placements in its member companies to
parliamentary members and staff in the EU
Parliament and other parliaments in Europe and
around the world. This, the lobby group states, is
designed to "improve mutual understanding
between the political and business worlds". Oh, and
there are strict rules to prevent any kind of
lobbying, so there is not really any benefit at all, at
all, to the multinationals involved in this support for
parliamentary democracy and big business.
However, some of the more bolshie MEPs are
demanding to know what the EBPS gets up to
exactly and Frassoni has asked for clarification
about its activities and status. In particular, Frassoni
has demanded to know if the group is really a
lobbying group that has now gained access to the
parliament building itself.
Some of the recriminatory literature now
floating around the cyber space of Euroland has
pointed out that successive EU presidents, Ireland's
Pat Cox and Joseph Borell and Hans-Gert Pottering
have all served as ex-officio patrons of the EBPS
and IABP. One such circular erroneously stated that
Cox was a founder member, which as Cox pointed
out to Goldhawk, is untrue. Since leaving the
European Parliament, Cox has become a business
consultant and he is currently president of the
International European Movement.

[Sub-X]

Joe Higgins speech to Forum on Europe
http://www.caeuc.org/index.php?q=node/277

Given at the Ninety-Seventh Plenary Session of the National Forum On Europe, St Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle, 15th May 2008


Go raibh maith agat, a chathaoirleach agus a cháirde agus táim an‑bhuíoch don seans labhairt ar an ábhar tábhachtach seo, mar gheall ar Eoraip sóisialta agus maidir leis an Cairt um Cearta Bunúsacha.

So thank you for the invitation.  I don't have a script.  That is not a mark of disrespect to the gathering, it is just I usually speak from notes.  I also do intend to address some of my remarks in Irish later on and again, for ease of reference, the channel for people who are not bilingual is number 1.

Now, Chairman, I welcome the fact that finally we can get down to a debate on very specific issues arising out of the Lisbon Treaty.  And I do hope that by the end of today's debate that we can have clarity on a number of the crucial issues that arise with regard to social Europe, particularly the future of our public services and, indeed, the implications of Lisbon for the rights of working people in Ireland and throughout Europe.

Obviously good quality public services available to everybody would be fundamental to any concept of a Europe that was run in the interests of its people of the big majority which is what I understand by a social Europe.  So the question is:  Does the Lisbon Treaty have implications for the organisation of public services in this State and in the European Union generally?  And if so, what are those implications?

Now I say that the provision in the Lisbon Treaty contained in the Articles under the heading the Common Commercial Policy have very far‑reaching implications and the most important changes are contained ‑‑ and I am going to be very specific in my references and I invite those who respond to be specific also ‑‑ in Article 188.C of the Lisbon Treaty.  188.C replaces Article 133 in the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union.  And Article 188 outlines the rules which govern a market being created in a trade in public services.

Now most people here will know the procedure which is contained in Paragraph 3 that the European Union Commission is mandated to conduct negotiations with international bodies such as the World Trade Organisation, and to propose agreements on foot of those negotiations which will then, following a vote, be binding on Member States.  These proposed agreements can include provisions concerning trade in health services, in education and in social services.  And paragraph 4 stipulates that for the negotiation and the conclusion and, therefore, the implementation of agreements referred to in Paragraph 3, the Council shall act by a qualified majority.  That is a major change.  It removes the protection afforded in Article 133 of the second Treaty where it is very clear that the consent of each Member State is required to open up a trade in cultural and audio visual services, in education, social and human health services.

Now, it is true that the qualified majority vote requirement is raised to unanimity and, therefore, a veto in a number of specific instances.  In the field of trade in cultural and audio visual services where these agreements risk prejudicing the Union's cultural and linguistic diversity and in the field of trade in social education and health services where these agreements risk seriously disturbing the national organisation of services and prejudicing the responsibility of Member States to deliver them.

On those cases I say those are very high thresholds, number 1.  And I say, number 2, that in disputes the European Union Commission and the European Court of Justice cannot be relied upon by working people throughout Europe to protect their interests in these services.  Those bodies are strongly biased towards neo liberal economic policies and outlook.  They do believe in the privatisation of public services and they do not believe that the privatisation of public services in any way interferes with those services.

Now, let's cite for one minute, Cathaoirleach, where the categorisation of our public services as commodities to be traded in the capitalist market place is good or bad.  Leave aside whether it is good or bad that transnational corporations, American and European based, should have an entitlement as a right to be able to muscle in to our public services like health, social and education.  Can it at least be acknowledged that the effect of Article 188 does allow a qualified majority vote to impose an opening up of these services to encroachment from these private entities?

Now if Article 188 does not mean that, then what does it mean?  And don't make an assertion about that, give me chapter and verse.
I know there is one organisation at least that agrees very strongly with me on this, no less than the employers and business organisation IBEC where they said in a submission to this Forum On Europe in April:

"A yes vote for the Lisbon Treaty creates the potential for increased opportunities for Irish business particularly in areas subject to increasing liberalistation, such as health, education, transport, energy and the environment."

Now if somebody believes that it is fine that our people's health should be a commodity to be traded on the stock exchanges then they won't be too worried about these particular changes.  I do believe that it would be a disastrous direction, however, that the provision of our public services should be traded like sacks of spuds or bags of coffee on the international markets.

Now it is true that we do have a government, Fianna Fail, the PDs and the Green Party that is pro privatisation, that has already handed over crucial public enterprises to be sweated on the world's stock exchanges with detrimental results for citizens, for services and for the workers in those enterprises.  We have a government that is currently tearing the heart out of community hospitals, proposing the closure of acute wards and removing emergency services under the guise of having better services in larger regional centres, which, of course, is a deception, because while arguing this line and downsizing community public hospitals the former Taoiseach and the current Minister for Health and other ministers have been busily turning the sods and opening small private hospitals in the very locations where the public hospitals are being wound down.

So the agenda here is quite clearly centralisation as a cover for privatisation.  But the fact that the present government is trenchantly pushing a privatisation agenda does not mean that we should say well it does not matter what the Lisbon Treaty says or does, it is happening anyway.  Because the Irish people can kick this government out, hopefully we might get an opportunity before four years certainly, and they have that opportunity.

But whichever government, as long as we have a veto, the people in encountering a particularly obnoxious proposal coming from the trade agreement could at least mobilise massive support in such a government to invoke the veto and to protect a particular public service; similar in a way to the 1990s when a mass mobilisation of ordinary people, the tax payers, forced the government to abandon the domestic water tax, which the outgoing Minister for Education Hannifan said would be seven or eight hundred Euro per household had it been invoked.  Quite a burden on working people.  And undoubtedly where increased pressures for privatisation of our water supply would also have followed that.  We prevented that.

Now a social Europe suggests a Europe that is run in the interests of the big majority of ordinary working people and communities; a society where human solidarity and community solidarity takes precedence over the profit of private corporations.  The reality of the actual European Union that we have is that it is an economic unit that is dominated by powerful multinational corporations, those organised, for example, in the European Round Table of Industrialists bringing together 40 of the biggest multinational corporations within the European Union; powerful organisations like Siemens, Nestle and Heineken, household names all of which wield massive clout with regard to the economic policy, and virtually have written the economic policy over the past period of years.  And that is a reality that the advocates of Lisbon do not like to bring out in public ‑ who really is calling the shots.

And we also have this idea that the European Union in its economic policy outside its own borders, particularly with poor countries, is a very benign organisation.  Well I invite you to look at what has happened in many African countries in the last six months, from Senegal to Mali to Burkino Faso where people in their tens of thousands have been out protesting trying to stop the imposition of horrific trade agreements being imposed by the European Union, the effect of which in one country would be to make Nestles powder milk cheaper than the local milk produced by the small producers locally.

Now, a cháirde agus a chathaoirleach, ba chóir go mbeadh cearta lucht oibre bunúsach in aon caint faoi Eoraip Sóisialta. Le fiche bliain anuas anois, tá an próiséis domhanda, ar a ghlaoigheann muid “globalisation” air, caipitliceach. Ag ionsaí an bun‑prionsipeal, ba cheart go mbeadh pá agus túrastal cóir agus cearta ag lucht oibre, socraithe de réir dlí nó de réir socrú idir ceardchumainn agus fostóirí, ag ionsaí coinníollacha, cearta oibre agus ag ionsaí an nós gur ceart go mbeadh pinsin ceart ag gach oibritheoir chomh maith. Ar dtús, thosnaigh sé seo, leis na comhluchtaí áirithe ag tabhairt isteach oibrithe nua, ar coinníollacha agus ar phá níos lú, ná na daoine a bhí ann cheana féin, ar próiséis ar a ghlaoigheann muid “Yellow Pack” orthu. Agus anois, tá sé sin leagaithe amach mar ionsaí fiachmhairthe mór‑thimpeall na hEorpa, ar cearta pinsin, go mór‑mhór i lucht oibre agus ní tionscail briste bochta atá á dhéanamh seo, ach tionscail agus comhluchtaí ollmhóra, cosúil leis na bainc agus na comhluchtaí móra airgeadais.

We had, as well, speculators, major developments profiteering on the backs of young working people needing homes at the same time as crass exploitation of migrant workers in particular was going on in the very sites where those profits were being made.  I am not even referring to the horrific industrial type exploitation, industrial scale exploitation of Gama but the exploitation of workers through the accession states in particular.  So how social is a Europe that allows that type of exploitation and what will Lisbon do, if anything, to halt what we call the race to the bottom?

Now I welcome any fundamental right that we can possibly win, but the claims that are being made about the Charter of Fundamental Rights being incorporated into the Lisbon Treaty are not sustainable.  The Charter of Fundamental Rights are not rights that are not so fundamental after all when it comes down to brass tacks.  Many of the rights look good on paper but actually mean little in terms of being legally implementable.  There is the right that we should have quality healthcare, but according to conditions established by national laws and practices.

In Ireland that rights means that you may languish on a trolley for days as an old, infirm and sick person, but if you are rich you can have a quality health service.

And very importantly, people must look at Article 52, the scope of guaranteed rights where it states clearly:

"Rights recognised by this Charter which is based on the community treaties or the Treaty on the European Union shall be exercised under the conditions and within the limits defined by those treaties."

And the explanation that I have not time to read out, but that comes from the European Union itself that should be read in conjunction with the Charter of Fundamental Rights is very clear that restrictions may be imposed on the exercise of those rights, and that is exactly what has done in the court cases.

Now Ruairi [Quinn] rather arrogantly and dismissively referred to the recent court cases like Laval, Viking, et cetera, and was insulting, which I will ignore, towards people who have pointed these out as major problems for working people.  We have had Laval, which I think everybody knows about, where the European Court of Justice did endorse the under payment of migrant workers in Sweden.  More recently we have had case on April 3rd given by the European Court of Justice the Rueffert case in Lower Saxony in Germany where the European Court of Justice clearly backed a Polish subcontractor paying less than half of the going trade union rate in that State and repudiated the attempts by local authorities in that area to prevent the exploitation of migrants workers.

Now a yes advocate stated in a debate that I had that the Laval judgment could not happen if the Lisbon Treaty is passed.  Now this is crucial and we must clarify this today.  And the Chairman of the Referendum Commission Judge Iarfhlaith O'Neill seemed to imply the same when he spoke on RTE Radio on the News at One yesterday when Sean O'Rourke put it to him in relation to the Laval ruling regarding Swedish unions, they were told yes, you have the right to strike but you don't have the right to impede foreign workers to earn money at lower rates than your members are paid.  And Judge O'Neill replied:  But I mean the ‑‑ and then there is an inaudible word ‑‑ of the Laval case is that that was decided on pre Treaty.  Laval does not effect what will happen if the Treaty is passed.  And the learned Judge gives the impression there that the Lisbon Treaty would have or cause a different outcome in the Laval and then in the Rueffert case also.  That is quite wrong.  That is absolutely wrong.  And people should read the Laval judgment for themselves.  Paragraph 91 is very clear and it takes into account and specifically mentions the Charter of Fundamental Rights.  So it is already in their minds actually, although the right to take collective action must therefore be recognised as a fundamental right which forms an integral part of the general principles of community law, the observance of which the court ensured, the exercise of that right may, nonetheless, be subject to certain restrictions and it mentions community laws and national law and practices.

So Judge O'Neill and the Referendum Commission are quite wrong to imply that the passing of Lisbon would fundamentally alter the situation.  I think the Referendum Commission, Cathaoirleach, should be very careful that they do not become involved on one side of the argument on the Lisbon Treaty.  And on this side I am sorry to say that the Judge did stray over the line on this particular occasion, and strayed badly over the line, in my view, and that needs to be clarified and it needs to be corrected.

And less it might arise later, I should state an interest here but it does not determine the criticism I am making of the learned Judge, he did send me to Mountjoy Jail for a month a few years back, but that was purely coincidental.

The fact is that the Charter of Fundamental Rights guarantees in Ireland €8.65 an hour in terms of wages or whatever the registered agreement in the construction industry provide and nothing more.  Now I would like clarity on that and if people challenge that, please show me where I am wrong and where you are right.

Finally, Cathaoirleach, and by the way, and Ruairi, I am sure you have read it or you should have, the European Trade Union Confederation was coruscating in its criticism of these judgments.  I haven't time to read the quotes, I have them here.  But I mean I am sure you wouldn't dismiss that body as, and if I may so, arrogantly as you do maybe the likes of myself with regard to what the implications of those particular judgments are.  It is coruscating in what it says and it says that it compromises the attempt to protect migrants workers.
 
Finally, Cathaoirleach, the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the hands of the European institutions, the Commission of the European Court of Justice puts the interests of business and profit quite clearly before the rights of workers.  And it is manifestly clear from the judgments that have been given.  Working people in Europe cannot rely on those institutions, neither can they rely on the promises now being made about the Charter of Fundamental Rights within the Lisbon Treaty.  They can rely on their own organisation's strength and mobilisation and a no to Lisbon by the Irish people will send a powerful message that our public services are not commodities to be traded, handed over to profit seeking corporations for their profits and their shareholders rather than for the benefit of our people.  And that we want instead a truly democratic, a truly social, which in my view means a socialist society where those services and workers' rights are determined by the wishes of the vast majority of our people who are ordinary working people; not determined by the massive profit driven corporations that dominate so many activities of the European Union at the present time.  Go raibh maith agaibh.
 

SOURCE: http://www.forumoneurope.ie/index.asp?locID=508&docID=1681

[Sub-X]

Irish referendum could scupper EU treaty
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/2055562/Irish-referendum-could-scupper-EU-treaty.html
31/05/2008

In 1973, when Ireland joined what is now the European Union, it was the poorest country on the continent.

Today, thanks in no small part to £32 billion in EU grants, it is the second richest per capita (after Luxembourg).

So the result of a referendum on June 12 on whether to consolidate EU powers by ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon must surely be a foregone conclusion.

Think again.

Despite every major political party backing the Yes campaign, support for a No vote is growing daily.

The most recent poll put the Yes voters at 41 per cent and the No voters at 33 per cent.

That sounds like a healthy lead until you discover the Yes campaign was polling well over 50 per cent on the eve of another Irish EU referendum – on the Nice Treaty in 2001 – before the electorate delivered a resounding No.

In Brussels, European parliamentarians are twitchy about the future of the EU's 495 million citizens resting in the hands of the one million Irish voters expected to turn out on polling day.

Having spent two years rebuilding the Treaty of Lisbon from the scrap parts of the defeated European Constitution, the Eurocrats can only watch as a learner driver takes the wheel of their juggernaut and drives it towards the edge of a cliff.

This scenario has arisen because, while all 26 of the other member states have decided to wave through the treaty via their parliaments (the UK included), Ireland alone has a legal obligation under its constitution to put the matter to a public vote.

Because the treaty must be passed unanimously by all 27 member states, an Irish No vote would kill it.

Earlier this week, the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, suggested a No vote would be catastrophic for the EU.

"We will all pay a price for it, Ireland included," he said, adding that there was "no plan B" if Ireland exercised its veto.

Mr Barroso and his cohorts argue that the treaty represents the next glorious stage in the EU's future, creating a new post of full-time European Council president, streamlining the European Commission and redistributing voting powers.

If you don't find these allegedly crucial changes inspiring, you're not alone.

And therein lies the fundamental problem for Ireland's Yes campaigners. Try as they might, they have been unable to come up with anything approaching a coherent, inspirational argument for a Yes.

Most tellingly of all, the new Irish premier, Brian Cowen, has admitted he hasn't read all of the 287-page treaty, and nor has Ireland's EU Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, who said no sane person could read it from cover to cover.

Asked to sum up why the Irish should support Lisbon, Micheál Martin, director of the referendum campaign for one of the big three parties, Fianna Fáil, said: "First of all, the purpose of the treaty is to ensure that the EU is reformed so that it is more efficient and effective in meeting modern challenges…"

Cue widespread yawns from voters. And the leaders of the other main parties have been equally soporific, leaving an open goal for any No campaigner with the charisma and ability to play on popular fears.

Such a man is Declan Ganley, a multi-millionaire businessman who formed the campaign group Libertas to fight first the European Constitution and now the Lisbon Treaty.

Along with such powerful voices as the Irish Farmers Association and leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, he has given voters a dizzying array of reasons to vote No.

The farmers, who have received two thirds of Ireland's EU subsidies, argue that their handouts will be drastically cut, devastating rural areas.

Pro-life groups say Ireland will be forced to relax its abortion laws, pacifists say Ireland's cherished neutrality will be in danger because of provisions for a European army, and patriots say Ireland will be giving up the independence it fought so hard for less than 100 years ago.

On top of all that, there are fears that a centralised taxation system will mean the end of Ireland's favourable 12.5 per cent corporation tax (compared with the UK's 28 per cent), which has helped attract so many businesses.

John McGuirk, a leading member of Libertas, told me: "We will lose huge influence if Lisbon is ratified and we will get nothing in return.

"It will open the doors for Europe to interfere in our taxation system, and it will place huge restrictions on what rights we have to set our own laws."

While the treaty may yet get a Yes vote – the online bookmaker Paddy Power is offering odds of 1-4 for, 5-2 against – it all depends on whether the voters turn out on the day.

There is a real danger that apathy will prevent pro-Lisbon support being transformed into votes.

Éanna Nolan, a 38-year-old civil engineer, told me: "I am tending towards voting Yes, if only because the Yes campaign has the backing of all the major parties, whereas the No campaigners are people like Sinn Fein and [the singer] Dana."

Miriam Laird, a 28-year-old accountant, said: "I've always been pro-Europe, so I'm in favour of the treaty."

Yet both of these voters were not sure whether they would even bother to turn out on polling day.

In contrast, the No campaign supporters I spoke to were clear about their reasons for turning down the Lisbon Treaty – and about their intention to cast a vote on June 12.

Pádraig De Faoite, 22, a student teacher, said: "We're giving away our democracy and we have no idea what's going on in Brussels. On top of that, migrant workers will be able to come in from all over Europe and undercut Irish workers, so it will cost jobs."

Ide Nic Mhathuna, 24, an office administrator, cited the plight of Ireland's fishing industry, which has all but disappeared under the EU, as one of her reasons for voting No.

"A friend of mine who is a fisherman appeared in court this week for catching too many fish in the Irish Sea," she said.

"He's going to have a criminal record now, and it's crazy."

If Ireland rejects Lisbon on the basis of what might be termed parochial reasons – say, abortion or farming subsidies – and the vote is close, the country could be given opt-outs that would salvage the treaty.

But if it votes No by a substantial margin, and the reasons for doing so are varied, it will be impossible to resuscitate the fatally wounded treaty.

The EU will be faced with the prospect of starting all over again with a new document several years hence, or trying to bring in changes one by one.

Such an outcome would not, arguably, be a disaster (the EU has managed to keep functioning despite the 2005 Constitution being rejected) but it would leave European leaders with serious questions about the union's future.

The fact that France and Holland rejected the European Constitution in 2005 was a clear warning that support for the project among ordinary people may be waning.

This time, only Ireland has dared risk asking what people think. And if a country that has benefited so clearly from EU membership decides to distance itself from Brussels, it would be proof positive of just how far disillusionment with the EU has spread.

[Sub-X]

Leading economist spells out case for a No vote
http://www.lisbonvote.com/
2/6/2008

The Economic Case in favour of a ‘No’ Vote in the Lisbon Treaty

Many individuals, who are well disposed towards the EU and its achievements, will be voting ‘No’ in the impending Referendum. They, and I include myself, will vote ‘No’, not out of any anti-European bias, but on an evidence-based appraisal of the Lisbon Treaty. It is a bad Treaty for Ireland for a number of concrete reasons.

The first has to do with the economy. Ireland has benefited from the EU Internal Market and, also, from the Single Currency. There are, of course, negative factors in this regard.  For example, the absence of fiscal federalism, which would allow economic ‘shocks’ in the regions to be off-set by increased expenditure from the centre is absent. Small, highly-open economies like Ireland are, therefore, extremely vulnerable to a ‘one size fits all’ macro-economic policy which, inevitably, is substantially aligned with economic developments in the larger countries, such as Germany and France. Ireland has very few policy instruments to enable it to adjust to the kind of shocks we are now experiencing in the form of the current international credit crises. The latest treaty (Lisbon) will not aid this situation and is, in fact, likely to make it worse.

It should also be said that Ireland has, itself, contributed very substantially to Europe in terms of ceding our extensive fisheries rights and, importantly, in terms of its output of high quality graduates. While the Irish economy has undoubtedly benefited from both EU transfers and also from a low inflation/low interest rate regime, Ireland has also contributed to the development of the European Union. We have been of benefit to Europe and no-one can say that the benefit has been one-way, as the large political parties are claiming. This is quite simply dishonest.

The benefits of the Internal Market, and of the Single Currency are there. They cannot in any way be jeopardised or eroded in any way by a ‘No’ vote in the Lisbon Treaty. To suggest otherwise is to attempt to bully the Irish people into accepting a treaty that the European leadership does not have the courage to present to their people. This is a serious denial of democracy. Unfortunately, it is a democratic deficit to which we are becoming increasingly used in the E.U. states.

The real issue is whether, or not, the Lisbon Treaty of itself will generate additional economic befits for the Irish economy. There is not a scintilla of robust evidence that this is the case. The Treaty is, essentially a re-sprayed EU Constitution, which was rejected in its original form by a majority of EU citizens. It is not about economics.

There are, however, very clear reasons for believing that a ‘Yes’ vote will have negative effects on the Irish economy, competitiveness, jobs, and living standards. The reasons for this have much, though not everything, to do with Ireland’s Corporate Tax (CT) Rate. It is one of the few policy instruments available to Government to attract, and to anchor, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Ireland.

It is asserted by those who support a ‘Yes’ Vote, that Ireland’s CT Rate will not be impacted. This argument is difficult to sustain. Ireland’s original special 10% CT Rate, endorsed by the EU because of our past developmental status, co-existed with a higher CT Rate for domestic companies. With the termination of the 10% Rate, it was assumed by both the EU and the larger EU Countries less successful at attracting FDI,  that Ireland would simply default back to its higher-level CT Rate. In a rare outbreak of forward thinking, and to the chagrin of the dominant countries, Ireland reduced its overall CT Rate to 12.5%.

This still rankles with the French, whose EU Presidency is imminent, and they have made it quite clear that they intend harmonising tax rates. The energetic rebuttals by Irish politicians provide the clearest guide to the fact that this is a real threat. It would be naive in the extreme to anticipate that the dominant countries, whose high and complex corporate tax rules are resulting in the defection of major multi-national companies (many to Ireland) will not find a way to abolish  Ireland’s Corporate Tax rate, one of our very few policy instruments which make us attractive to foreign inward investment. Quite apart from realpolitik, there is respectable and authoritative academic research which demonstrates that one simply cannot take seriously the protestations of Governments where their own self-interests are at stake. The larger countries with a vested interest in eliminating Ireland’s favourable CT rate are staying very quiet on this issue, at least until the Referendum is over. We know from leaked memos that this silence is orchestrated.

Ireland’s CT rate as a core element in our competitiveness is particularly relevant given current and prospective international economic developments, including recession in the US, which is our most important source of inward investment and the UK, which is rapidly heading into stagnant inflation, and is our most important trading partner.

 The International Monetary Fund has recently stated unequivocally that the financial risks to the global economy, on which Ireland’s living standards are so dependent, have substantially increased since last autumn.

In addition, as the full effects of the international and domestic credit crises begin to make themselves felt, both directly and through second and third order effects, the medium-term outlook for the Irish economy is substantially less robust than at any time in the last 15 years, the era of the so-called “Celtic Tiger”

It is not alone the internationally- traded sector, as well as domestic companies, who will suffer. Government Exchequer receipts are running well below levels of recent years. The impact on the public sector is already beginning to be felt, both in terms of prospective job cuts and also in major cuts in vital services such as healthcare. When these vital services are cut, this is usually particularly ominous!

 In these circumstances, the fact that our economic performance may have exceeded that of our EU neighbours will be of little comfort to individuals, families and companies impacted by uncertainty, lower global demand, and a slow-down in the core housing and construction sector. In this regard, while construction will still continue to be important, the IMF have made the point that Irish property is 3 times more over-valued in relation to economic fundamentals than is the case in the United States, where the “sub-prime” mortgage lending crises developed.

It is also important to remember that Ireland’s success in attracting foreign direct investment, in which its corporate tax rate is a factor, is not simply a gain to the Irish economy. There are substantial grounds for arguing that our success benefits the EU as a whole. No doubt, some of the larger countries may feel annoyed, but there is no certainty that were such FDI not attracted to Ireland, that it would automatically divert to other EU regions, the presumption of many European governments. All of the infrastructure-building of the last 15 years, together with our CT Rate, is, ‘trade-creating’, both for Ireland, and for the EU as a whole.

In these circumstances, a failure to vote ‘No’ would almost certainly see Ireland’s present CT Rate harmonised out of existence, with all that this implies for the many thousands of jobs which are already vulnerable because of international uncertainty. We will lose! Many multi-national companies would have less reason to remain in Ireland, if we were to vote ‘Yes’, and thereby copper- fasten for such companies a key element in their overall competitiveness. From Ireland’s point of view, a ‘No’ vote is, by any reasonable assessment, essential to preserve our competitiveness and living standards in a most difficult economic environment. But no political party is saying this.

The Lisbon Treaty is an opaque mess. It is a re-heated Constitution for Europe, already rejected by European citizens and now served-up as a Treaty with a new name and a pretence that it is essential to improve efficiency. While there is no doubt that the efficiency increase is needed, it is difficult to see how this Treaty will provide such.

This means that European citizens will not have the opportunity to vote on what is essentially the same set of institutional proposals. It is not a forward looking Treaty. It also turns its back on Europe’s cultural and spiritual history. There has been no demand for the Treaty by the people of Europe, rather, it was an initiative primarily driven by the German Presidency and of course the unseen and unelected Commission..

A ‘No’ vote would, embarrass the main Irish political parties vis-à-vis other European heads of Government. But it is these same Governments who have denied their own citizens the right to vote on a Treaty that is a mirror image of a Constitution which they have already rejected. Such embarrassment is a small price to pay for simultaneously securing Ireland’s own interests and for defending the democratic rights of European citizens to vote on how the EU should develop.

Yours sincerely

Professor Ray Kinsella, Economist,
University College Dublin.

[Sub-X]

SIPTU Should Shift from Maybe To NO
http://www.voteno.ie/html/SIPTU-Maybe-to-NO.htm
03.06.2008

Eamon Gilmore"s attack on SIPTU for raising "sectional" concerns on the Lisbon Treaty reflects a growing frustration in the Yes camp. Gilmore was furious at SIPTU"s failure to support the treaty but his attack reveal more about where he intends to take Labour.

He clearly believes that Labour has more in common with the Fine Gael and Fianna Fail than with a union which is affiliated to his own party. The enthusiasm with which Labour has aligned itself with the political right on Lisbon is in marked contrast to their lack of energy in supporting workers struggle.

Nor can SIPTU"s concerns be dismissed as " sectional". The union represents nearly a quarter of a million members and is one of the largest organisations in Irish society. It had focussed attention on a key issue what protection does the Lisbon Treaty offer to workers across the continent?

The debate on the Lisbon Treaty was confined to the National Executive of SIPTU, where one third of that body voted for outright opposition rather than the weaker position which eventually won out.

This was in marked contrast to the disgraceful manoeuvres that occurred in the ICTU. Here a number of union leaders voted for a Yes position without even consulting their own executives.

The national executives of the Irish Nurses Organisation and the Irish National Teachers Organisation did not mandate their ICTU representative to vote Yes they were not even allowed to discuss it.

The INTO even banned an article that was critical of Lisbon from their union magazine because it was too political and then voted Yes at the ICTU meeting!

The behaviour of a bureaucratic cabal in the ICTU raises serious questions about union democracy which will re-surface long after Lisbon.

The only logical position for SIPTU now is to call for a NO vote. They asked the government for assurances about collective bargaining so that references to this right in the Charter of Fundamental Rights would mean something. Cowen"s immediate response, however, was that the government would not even give a vague commitment to bring in legislation after the referendum.

When the actual text of the Charter is examined, one discovers that the Lisbon Treaty never gave an absolute right to collective bargaining. Instead it was entirely conditional on existing procedures in national law.

The relevant article 28 states

"Workers and employers, or their respective organisations, have in accordance with Union law and national law and practices, the right to negotiate and conclude collective agreements".

Unlike Britain, there is no mandatory requirement for Irish employers to recognise unions. Instead Irish law is now set by the Supreme Court judgement in Ryan air case. This judgement accepted that where a non-union company sets up internal procedures for dispute resolution, workers must not only use these procedures but must also reveal their union membership to their employer should they wish unions to process a limited number of grievances to the Labour Court afterwards.

As it now stands therefore, Article 28 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights can only be interpreted in the light of the Supreme Court judgement.

Logically, SIPTU should therefore now shift from a "Maybe" to a "No"

[Emerald]

I recently changed section in my department and this morning i stopped to chat to one of my previous bosses who also had some input in the drafting of the Treaty, and in particular the Charter of Fundamental Rights. I actually had no idea that she had been involved at this level until I mentioned I had been out over the weekend distributing leaflets for the NO side and she began questioning why I wanted a no vote, I began rattling off a few of the main points which I find particularly disturbing and she proceeded to explain everything away. Anything I said which she couldn't possibly refute as my interpretation was, apparently, nitpicking. I really tried to make her understand that due to the ambiguity of the Treaty it is open to abuse. She is an honest woman, extremely intelligent but the extent of her cognitive dissonance shocked and saddened me.

On a lighter note, during the leaflet distribution we encountered only one potential voter who claimed to be a Yes man. Even had a couple of members of our leading political party stop to apologise for not taking a leaflet - for obvious reasons - but claimed to be voting no! Will be heading out again this weekend, this time with excerpts from the Charter in tow.

I'm beginning to feel slightly more optimistic about the whole situation, the sense of impending doom I've had following me around for the last several months has been reduced to a comfortable level. Saying that if it does get through now I will most likely burst into tears...

What do you reckon the outcome will be Sub-x?

[Sub-X]

Irish Constitution Vs EU Lisbon Treaty / Constitution
http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=339
By Benjamin Smith-Kavanagh and Greg O’Brien
03.06.2008

With the majority of politicians advocating a yes vote on the Treaty of Lisbon, claiming it is nothing more then a tidying-up treaty designed to make the EU run more efficiently. They have purposely failed to discuss any of the facts contained in the Treaty, especially in regard to areas where the EU will gain power over Irish law if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified in all member States. In these new areas EU law will prevail over Irish law in any matter of conflict (declaration 17 of the Treaty ). This could include areas where the EU has exclusive power, joint power and the power to co-ordinate the Member States in the areas where they will still retain power to make their own laws.

In all these areas Article 52 in the European Charter of Fundamental rights will become legally binding on all Irish and EU citizens. This will allow the EU to do any thing it wants to in these areas. For it can limit and take away our rights any time it pleases.

Article 52 Scope of guaranteed rights:

1. “Any limitation on the exercise of the rights and freedoms recognised by this Charter must be provided for by law and respect the essence of those rights and freedoms. Subject to the principle of proportionality, limitations may be made only if they are necessary and genuinely meet objectives of general interest recognised by the Union or the need to protect the rights and freedoms of others“.


Legal explanations

The purpose of Article 52 is to set the scope of the rights and principles of the Charter, and to lay down rules for their interpretation. Paragraph 1 deals with the arrangements for the limitation of rights. The wording is based on the case law of the Court of Justice: “…it is well established in the case law of the Court that restrictions may be imposed on the exercise of fundamental rights, in particular in the context of a common organisation of the market.

Literally our rights will be granted and can be taken away by foreign Judges in the European Court of Justice and all they will have to do to justify any action against a person or organisation is claim it is for the interest and objectives of the Union. This is in direct contrast of our Irish Constitution.

Article 40.3.1 states. ( A Study Of The Irish Text By Micheal O Cearuil )

“The State guarantees not to interfere by its laws with the personal rights of any citizen, and further guarantees to defend and assert those rights with its laws in so far as it is possible“.

This article makes it as clear as can be that at no time can the Irish State make laws or take any action that goes against our natural born inalienable rights, this includes areas such as right to freedom of expression, right to privacy of the family, right to choose health, right to own and keep property, right to self-determination etc.

Who in their right mind would want to vote yes to something that would overrule our Constitution, that enshrines and fully respects our natural born inalienable human rights. However, unfortunately we live in a world where our public servants don’t serve us but their higher powers in Europe. Whether it is Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour or any organization calling for a yes vote, they have purposely tried to mislead the public they are supposed to serve into thinking the European Charter of Fundamental Rights is better than our Constitutional rights.  They are working not in the interest of Irish and EU citizens, but in the interests of big Government and business. They see no benefit in citizens having rights the State cannot take away unless we vote to allow them to do so.

However if you are not aware of what is actually contained in the Treaty text and vote yes, based on what those on the yes side say about it, you could soon be in for a rude awakening if it is within the jurisdiction of EU law.

The Irish Constitution will become invalid if the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified, despite those on the yes side claiming it won’t, for it is these people who will have most to gain with the destruction of it who are advocating this. In areas such as personal rights, family, health, property, social, we will be at the mercy of Judges who could be in the pocket of the Union and big business. If a developer wants your land to develop a project, you could be forced to sell it for a pittance, or the Union could seize it for nothing, if they feel it is in the interest of the Union to allow a development where your land is.

In the area of health you and your family could be forced to take poisonous vaccinations or face imprisonment if the Union makes them mandatory. Britain has already proposed this, even though a Federal Court in America recently ruled that a girl with Autism was caused by vaccination shots. In Ireland these are voluntary but if you consent to taking them the makers are not liable if any harm is caused to you or your family.

Under our Constitution we our fully protected by these kind of actions, so the State cannot force itself on anyone or make anything mandatory if it goes against

Article 40.3.2 ( A Study Of The Irish Text By Micheal O Cearuil )

“The State will, in particular, by its laws, protect the life and person and good reputation and property rights of every citizen“.

The real question we need to ask is why has the general public been kept in the dark about what is actually in the Treaty and what the Treaty will do in terms of our rights.

Having fundamental inalienable human rights is the cornerstone of any great society, but if the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified, we will not have any enshrined rights, but the rights that EU grants us. This is a sign of how the EU views the citizens of it’s Member States, they feel we have no rights especially if it goes against their interests. What if you speak out about EU corruption, will you be arrested for going against the Unions interests. Article 52  of the ECOFR would allow the Union to legally and lawfully do so.

The EU is beginning to act like a dictatorship, they are nice when you go along with them, but when you disagree or have concerns of how the EU is trying to turn itself in to a Super-state or Empire as EU President Barrosso proclaimed back in 2007, you see their true colours, like back in 2001 when we voted against Nice. Their response was we’ll vote again until we vote the way they want us to. The same can be said of this Lisbon Treaty for it is over 90 % the same as the rejected EU Constitution, which the French and Dutch people wisely rejected back in 2005 when the EU showed them their true colours. The EU response to this was we will not let them have a vote this time.

But with the ECOFR becoming legally binding if we do not vote no to the Treaty of Lisbon, it is of the utmost importance that we all see it for what it really is, that being the ultimate attempt at taking away our fundamental inalienable human rights which our Constitution already guarantees us. If the Treaty is not defeated you and your family could soon find out the consequences of voting away our Constitution.

Area’s Of EU Power

When reading or trying to understand the Treaty text you might ask yourself the question ? what does Competence mean.

This is how the Independent Referendum Commission Handbook explains it on page 9.

What is Competence?

“Competence is the term used in the Treaty of Lisbon to describe the power the EU has to draw up policies and laws. The EU may introduce policies and laws only in relation to those areas that are set out in the treaties”.

Lets look into the Area’s where the EU will have power in and ask ourselves, is this just a tidying-up Treaty or is it a serious attempt at taking power away from the people and National Parliaments. For the benefit of the largely un-elected and unaccountable EU Government.

Referendum Commission Proposed EU Area’s Of Power 

EU exclusive power

Customs Union;

Establishment of competition rules necessary for the functioning of the internal market;

Monetary policy for member states which use the euro;

Conservation of the biological resources of the sea as part of the common fisheries policy;

Common trading policy;

The conclusion of an international agreement when this is within the framework of EU legislation or when it is necessary to help the EU exercise an internal competence or if there is a possibility of the common rules being affected or of their range being changed.

Joint power of EU and member states

Internal market;

Social policy with regard to specific aspects defined in the treaty;

Economic, social and territorial cohesion;

Agriculture and fisheries except for the conservation of the biological resources of the sea;

Environment (the Treaty includes specific reference to climate change*);

Consumer Protection;

Transport;

Transeuropean Networks;

Energy*;

Area of freedom, security and justice;

Joint security issues with regard to aspects of public health

Research, technological development

Space*;

Development cooperation and humanitarian aid.

Member states exclusive power (the EU can co-ordinate )


Protection and improvement of human healthcare;

Industry;

Culture;

Tourism*;

Education, professional training, youth

Sport*;

Civil protection*;

Administrative co-operation*

Even in area’s where the EU does not have exclusive power, article 3b,3. Makes it clear that the EU can take over member States at a central, regional and local level. If they feel they can do the job better then the National Government.

Article 3b,3.

“Under the principle of subsidiarity, in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level”.

Is this the part of the Treaty that those on the yes side failed to read, as Charlie McCreevey himself recently stated he has not read the full Treaty and went on to add.

“I would predict that there won’t be 250 people in the whole of the 4.2 million population of Ireland that have read the treaties cover-to-cover. I further predict that there is not 10 percent of that 250 that will understand every section and subsection”.

The golden rule of making your decision when voting on this Referendum should be “ if you don’t know, vote no”. for if you don’t know what the consequences will be, why play a game of roulette. When our Constitution gives us the power to say no to the Government, if they have failed to explain to us what we are voting on. Unlike the people in the other member States of the EU, we have the power to say no, do not be afraid to use it.

[Sub-X]

I recently changed section in my department and this morning i stopped to chat to one of my previous bosses who also had some input in the drafting of the Treaty, and in particular the Charter of Fundamental Rights. I actually had no idea that she had been involved at this level until I mentioned I had been out over the weekend distributing leaflets for the NO side and she began questioning why I wanted a no vote, I began rattling off a few of the main points which I find particularly disturbing and she proceeded to explain everything away. Anything I said which she couldn't possibly refute as my interpretation was, apparently, nitpicking. I really tried to make her understand that due to the ambiguity of the Treaty it is open to abuse. She is an honest woman, extremely intelligent but the extent of her cognitive dissonance shocked and saddened me.

On a lighter note, during the leaflet distribution we encountered only one potential voter who claimed to be a Yes man. Even had a couple of members of our leading political party stop to apologise for not taking a leaflet - for obvious reasons - but claimed to be voting no! Will be heading out again this weekend, this time with excerpts from the Charter in tow.

I'm beginning to feel slightly more optimistic about the whole situation, the sense of impending doom I've had following me around for the last several months has been reduced to a comfortable level. Saying that if it does get through now I will most likely burst into tears...

What do you reckon the outcome will be Sub-x?

I hate to try and predict anything but I too feel optimistic,and when you see things like the Fine Gael mock e-voting fiasco(above)you can't help but smile 

I know how frustrating it can get when trying to talk to people who have been brainwashed by RTE pro-treaty national broadcaster,as well as the MSM rags.I have stopped trying to even argue the points of the treaty and simply ask people,"if the treaty is such a good thing for Europe,how come we are the only country voting on it"

This country is run be a complete shower of arses,they can't even get the simplest things right(like firing Mary Harney out of a widened cannon into the Atlantic,we can dream  ),so why in gods name would we want more government

Good things are happening around the time of the vote with the march to Washington and people from the North and London protesting George Bush's visit,so lets hope it will be a hattrick of success that week 

[Sub-X]

What kind of Europe do you want?
http://www.pana.ie/idn/030608.html
by Roger Cole - Chair Peace & Neutrality Alliance.

After the French voted no, I wrote this letter to the Irish Times..

"The EU Constitution is dead. It will not make any difference if it is dragged around the states of the EU like some 21 st century Dracula. A stake has been driven through its heart by the French people, and the Dutch will do the same".

I was right about the Dutch and wrong about the EU Constitution, it has returned like a bad movie sequel. On average 75% of the people in the EU want the right to vote on it, but only we are allowed. Showing solidarity with the people of France, Holland and those denied a vote, provides enough justification on its own, to vote no.

You'd get a great welcome if you went on holiday to France or Holland after voting no. The same applies for England. New Labour broke their word and refused their people the right to vote and had their worst result in 40 years.

If you want to venture further, try Saxony. The European Court of Justice ( the EU Supreme Court) decided that a Lower Saxony law obliging public building contractors to respect local collective agreements was incompatible with EU law when a Polish company paid workers the Polish minimum wage, only 46.5% that of Lower Saxony. The case was similar to that of the Laval and the Viking Judgement, so add Finland and Sweden to your holiday destination list.

The ECJ decisions are sustained attacks on the wages and working conditions of workers throughout the EU. Social Europe is dead and gone; it's with the well heeled right wing Irish social democrats in the grave. A trade unionist voting yes would be like a turkey voting for Christmas.

If the major corporations plan to increase their profits by ensuring workers incomes are drastically reduced, then what better way of getting away with it than by engendering fear of "terrorism" and enriching the arms industry corporations? For PANA, the militarisation of the EU is one of the cornerstones of the treaty and a continuation of the "war on terrorism".

Irish neutrality is already destroyed. The main parties advocating a yes vote have already supported the invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq by the US because it wanted to consolidate US/Israeli military domination of the Middle East. Over a million US troops have used Shannon Airport on their way to the war. Ireland is a US aircraft carrier in total contravention of the 1907 Hague Convention. The militarisation of the EU can only be understood in the context of the Iraq war and of the integration of Ireland into the US/EU/NATO military structures to ensure Ireland's full and active participation in the resource wars of the 21 st century, wars in which the defeat of the US/EU/NATO axis is the only inevitable outcome. These wars have already cost the US and its vassal states, well over $3 trillion and have caused a massive global economic crisis, the responsibility for which is shared by the yes campaigners. Not content with supporting President Bush, they now want to drag us even deeper into the "war on terrorism" via this treaty.

Ireland has already signed up to the EU's Security Strategy in 2003 with it's codification of preventive war in tandem with Bush's policy. The EU Parliament voted 414 to 117 in November 2006 to approve a report highlighting the links with NATO stating that the, "EU is on the way to developing into a Security and Defence Union." It also voted not to respect the decision of the Irish people. The EU Council in 2004 agreed to; "enhance the operational capability of the EU and provide the framework for the strategic partnership between the EU and NATO".

The Lisbon treaty continues and legalises the process of the militarisation of the EU and strengthening EU/NATO links.

Ireland "shall undertake to improve their military capabilities". The European Defence Agency the function of which is to expand and improve EU military expenditure is part of the treaty. In December 07 the EU Commission made it clear that the emerging EDA will mean even more arms exports and a boost to the global arms trade. If you want to support the arms trade make sure you vote yes.

Up to now the concept of the EU as a Partnership of Independent States was expressed by the fact that the position of EU President was rotated between all the states. That now ends with the appointment of an EU President and Minister for Foreign Affairs with an EU Diplomatic Service, for a de facto 5 year period.

We would have to, "support the Union's external and security policy actively and unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity". When President Barosso said the EU had the, "dimensions of Empire", he was not joking.

The mutual defence and solidarity clauses, the military Structured Cooperation clauses that allow a group of states within the EU to create their own armed force to take part in more "demanding" military expeditions and the EU Battlegroups leave no room for doubt about the militarisation of the EU. The French have already called for the six largest EU states to establish a 60,000 strong expeditionary army. No wonder the leaked memo said the referendum should not be held later this year because, "the risk of unhelpful developments during the French Presidency- particularly relating to EU defence- were just too great".

When people vote the key question is: what kind of Europe do they want? If the want a centralised, militarised, neo-liberal superstate allied to the US engaged in wars all over the world, then they should vote yes. If they want a Partnership Europe, a partnership of Independent, Democratic States, legal equals, without a military dimension, then they should vote no. The referendum is not just an Irish battle, it is a European battle fought on Irish soil, and is one PANA needs to win.

[Sub-X]

Lisbon Treaty: Where is this all going?
http://www.nationalplatform.org/wordpress/
June 3rd, 2008

1. Harmonisation of Corporate Tax;

2. Losing permanent Commissioner, Halving voting strength;

3. The “Blank Cheque” Self-Amending power;

4. Superiority of all EU law over Irish Constitution;

5. Lisbon origin in rejected EU Constitution.

* Where is this all going? Harmonisation of Corporate tax:

Article 2.79 of the Lisbon Treaty would insert a six-word amendment -”and to avoid distorton of competition” - into the Article of the existing European Treaties dealing with harmonising indirect taxes - Article 113.

This would enable the European Court of Justice, which adjudicates on competition matters, to decide that Ireland’s 12.5% rate of company tax, as against Germany’s 30%, is a distortion of competition which breaches the Treaty Articles dealing with the internal market (Art. 26 and Arts.101-9 TFEU) in relation to which qualified majority voting on the Council of Ministers applies.

The Irish Government’s veto under Article 113 would thus be irrelevant.

* Where is this all going? Loss of permanent Commissioner and reduction in voting strength:

- Lisbon removes any Irish voice from the EU Commission, the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws, for five years out of every 15 (Art.17.5 TEU).

- Lisbon abolishes our right to decide who the Irish Commissioner is when it comes to our turn to be on the Commission, replacing it by a right to make “suggestions” only for the Commission President to decide (Art.17.7 TEU).

- Lisbon Treaty would double Germany’s say on the EU Council of Ministers; Ireland’s voting weight would be more than halved to 1% (Art.16 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The self-amending Treaty:

- This could be Ireland’s last referendum on Europe - the EU can acquire new competences without another treaty, like signing a blank cheque.

- Lisbon would permit the EU Prime Ministers to shift most of the remaining EU policy areas where unanimity still exists, to majority voting, without need for new EU Treaties or referendums (Art.48 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The dilution of Bunreacht na hEireann and the superiority of EU law:

EU law is already superior to Irish law. Lisbon would further weaken Irish control by adding more competences and powers to the EU.

- It hands over to the EU the power to make laws binding on us in 32 new policy areas, such as crime, justice and policing, public services, immigration, energy, transport, tourism, sport, culture, public health, the EU budget etc.

- It removes a national veto in 68 areas

- Lisbon will give the EU Court of Justice the power to decide our rights as EU citizens - Ireland’s Supreme Court would no longer have the final say (Art.6 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The Treaty’s origin in the EU Constitution:

- The Lisbon treaty is a repackaged version of the EU Constitution (96% the same). France and the Netherlands both rejected it, people across Europe have felt increasing unease about the EU project.

[Sub-X]

Lisbon will put the European arms industries centre stage
http://www.people.ie/press/080602.pdf
Press Statement
2 June 2008

The chairperson of the People's Movement, Patrica McKenna, has pointed out that the Lisbon Treaty will put the arms industry centre stage in the EU by giving legal status to the European Defence Agency.

Speaking today Patricia McKenna former green party MEP and chairperson of the People’s Movement said:

“The Alliance for Europe is wrong; The Lisbon treaty copper-fastens the development of a EU sanctioned arms industry because the treaty will give the EDA (European Defence Agency) originally named the European Agency for Armaments legal status in the EU.”

“How did the European project turn from a project to promote peace through economic trade into having weapons manufacture as a central plank? – the answer is simple – lobbyists from the arms industries made it happen.”

“In the same way lobbyists for other industries have make their mark on the treaty by putting big business first with people and public services last. The Lisbon treaty is not a treaty of the people it is a blank cheque for militarisation and privatisation.”

“In the future, those Member States participating in the ‘permanent structured cooperation’ (a new concept introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon), will be the military hard core of the union.

The Treaty of Lisbon give the participants of this hard core the possibility to act on their own in the name of the whole of the EU and operate the resources and troops organised by them.

The first EU battle troops are an embryonic forms of this cooperation.” “Say YES to peace, Say Yes to a European project that belongs to the people by saying NO to Lisbon.”

[Sub-X]

A CALL TO VOTE NO AGAINST THE MILITARISTIC TREATY OF LISBON
http://tobiaspflueger.twoday.net/stories/4966329/
Kommentar in: EU-Watch 11/2008
EU-Watch11-2008

The Treaty of Lisbon (also known as the Reform Treaty) was signed on December 13, 2007. When ratified, this treaty will fundamentally alter the way the European Union works, especially in the area of the so called Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) which will then become even more aggressive and militaristic. The document, which has been hammered out in an extremely undemocratic way, is scheduled to be ratified in all Member States by the end of 2008. Therefore, as this article lays out, all progressive forces interested in a democratic and peaceful European Union are looking forward to the referendum in Ireland on the 12th of June, hoping that the population will forcefully reject this militaristic treaty.

UNDEMOCRATIC: CHANGING THE EUROPEAN UNION BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

The forerunner of the Treaty of Lisbon was the European Constitution which had been rejected by the populations of France and the Netherlands in 2005. After much disorientation on how to proceed, the German EU Council Presidency took the initiative in the first half of 2007. The final Reform Treaty was concluded behind closed doors in the summer and finally signed in December 2007 while the European public had absolutely no say in this process. But this “new” Treaty of Lisbon is largely congruent with the European Constitution, as for example the former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern made perfectly clear: “I think all the changes that we’ve made are all changes for the worse but thankfully they haven’t changed the substance - 90 per cent of it is still there.”

As the population in France and the Netherlands will not be asked once again, this is a heavily undemocratic way to ignore the referendums in 2005. Until May 8, 2008, thirteen countries had already concluded ratification, most of them without even having a consolidated version of the treaty, assembling the whole text in one document. Such a version – which would have been a prerequisite for anyone except the technocrats in Brussels and the responsible delegates of the national governments to be able to read the document – was not available before April 15, 2008. One can scarcely imagine a more direct way of signalling to the European public that no discussion is desired. So Ireland will be the only country where the population has the option to say No to this undemocratic and militaristic treaty!

MILITARISM VIA TREATY

Over the last several years, the European Union embarked on a process of rapid militarization. The first major step in this context was the decision in 1999 to create a rapid reaction force of up to 60,000 soldiers on the field. This army was declared partially combat-ready in 2003. In addition to those troops, in the same year, the decision was taken to build up so called Battle Groups, highly flexible units consisting of 1500 soldiers each. The first of the 22 planned Battle Groups has been declared operational in 2007. In 2003, the first European missions within the context of the CFSP took place: Concordia in Macedonia and Artemis in Congo and in December
2004 the mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Althea) has been taken over from NATO.

Since then the European Union sends its troops ever more frequently into missions around the world: Up to now, more than 20 such missions have taken place, most recently in Chad, Guinea-Bissau and in Kosovo. So, the militarization of the European Union is already proceeding with “lightning speed” (Javier Solana). But this process will gain another great boost with the Treaty of Lisbon because all the military aspects already previously criticised in the European Constitution have also been transferred into the Lisbon Treaty. The central points of the criticism were and still are:

a) World-wide EU combat missions with an almost unlimited range of tasks Article 43 (1) names among others “joint disarmament operations”, “tasks of combat forces in crisis management” and “post-conflict stabilisation” as well as “supporting third countries in combating terrorism in their countries” as potential tasks for future wars of the European Union, thereby substantially enlarging the range of possible military missions.In order to conduct these wars, the Reform Treaty details the tasks of the Battle Groups in Protocol 10 (1b)where they are defined as units “either at national level or as a component of multinational force groups, targeted combat units for the missions planned, structured at a tactical level as a battle group, with support elements including transport and logistics, capable of carrying out the tasks referred to in Article 43 of the Treaty on European Union, within a period of five to 30 days, in particular in response to requests from the United Nations Organisation, and which can be sustained for an initial period of 30 days and be extended up to at least 120 days.”

b) Solidarity Clause: Europe as a military alliance acting within its territory With article 222 (1), the Treaty introduces a so called Solidarity Clause obliging all member states to come to the assistance of any member state subject to a terrorist threat or attack by all means necessary, including military ones. Thereby, the European Union is turning into a military alliance. Furthermore, the solidarity clause for the first time opens the door for using the military within the territory of the European Union.

c) Collaborating with NATO: de-neutralizing the neutrals The preamble to Protocol 10 calls for a more assertive role of the European Union in security and defence matters in order to “contribute to the vitality of a renewed Atlantic Alliance.” Furthermore, Protocol 11 underscores that “the policy of the Union […] shall respect the obligations of certain Member States, which see their common defence realised in NATO, under the North Atlantic Treaty and be compatible with the common security and defence policy established within that framework.” As Susan George pointed out, this will have serious implications for the neutral states such as Ireland: “There is a special Protocol which makes clear that the European Union will never have a security policy that is different from NATO. That to me is very worrying; signing on to the policies of NATO which we don’t know will be in the future.”ii So the fact is that the militarization of the European Union goes on with this treaty and the treaty brings the EU closer to NATO.

d) Armament obligation by Treaty Article 42 (3) contains the – up to now inconceivable – obligation to invest more money in the armament sector: “Member states shall undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities.” The European Defence Agency, which was established in 2004, is tasked by the Treaty of Lisbon to supervise the observance for this instruction. Moreover, according to the treaty (Article 45), the European Defence Agency is tasked to “support defence technology research” as well as to “contribute to identifying and, if necessary, implementing any useful measure for strengthening the industrial and technological base of the defence sector.”

e) Final institution of an own EU military budget
The currently valid Nice Treaty prohibits the institution of an EU military budget. This has up to now proved to be a considerable impediment for Europe’s militarists. Therefore, the Lisbon Treaty (Article 41) for the first time opens the door to establishing a defence budget, called “start-up fund”. The European Parliament will have no control over this budget. To make it clear: Should the treaty be ratified, then this will be the first time that the EU budget can be used for military purposes.

f) No parliamentary or juridical control option of EU interventions
Only the heads of state and government can decide to undertake EU combat missions. The European Parliament in the Lisbon Treaty has only the right to be “heard” and “briefed” (Article 36), it may not participate in the decision. Since the European Court of Justice (Article 275) also has no influence in this area, the separation of powers in this decisive question of war and peace is de facto eliminated.

POWER SHIFT FROM THE SMALLER TO THE STRONGER STATES

The Treaty of Lisbon will dramatically change the distribution of power within the European Union in favour of the big countries. For this purpose, two aspects of the treaty are of utmost importance. First, member states who are willing and militarily capable to build an avant-garde group within the realm of the CFSP, are enabled by the Lisbon Treaty to establish a so called “permanent structured cooperation” leaving all others behind closed doors. Thereby, the consensus principle currently holding for this area can be leveraged out: “Unanimity shall be constituted by the votes of the representatives of the participating Member States only” (Article 46). As
Protocol 10 clarifies that only those Member States which are participating in the main European equipment programmes and contributing Battle Groups to combat missions are allowed to enter this exclusive club, countries unwilling to pursue these policies could end up being completely sidelined in most parts of the European security policy.

The second major “innovation” in this context is the introduction of double majority voting in the most important EU body, the Council of the Heads of State and Government. Thereby, Germany will nearly double its share of vote in the Council from 8.4% to 16.73% (the other winners are France, Great Britain and Italy) while all other states will significantly lose influence. The Lisbon Treaty (Article 9C) is aimed to introduce this dramatic power shift as normal practice starting in 2014.

CONCLUSION

It is in light of the dramatic effects that the Treaty of Lisbon would have on the further militarization of the European Union, that the progressive forces all over the continent are hoping that the Irish population will reject this treaty.

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Progressive French organisations support Irish No Campaign
http://www.caeuc.org/index.php?q=node/285
MAY 29 2005 -  MAY 29 2008

A FRENCH DELEGATION IN THE IRISH EMBASSY IN PARIS

See photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27315400@N07/

On June 12th Irish citizens in the Republic will go the polls and will decide whether to ratify or not the Lisbon Treaty. It is noteworthy that Irish citizens will be the only ones among citizens of the 27 EU member States who will have this right. A right, incidentally, denied to the French people by a decision of the French President who decided to restrict the ratification process to Parliamentarians, despite the fact that the text of the Lisbon Treaty is practically identical to the text of the European Constitution that was wholesale rejected by the electorate on May 29th 2005.

A number of French organisations, mentioned below, who are in solidarity with a progressive NO to Lisbon Campaign in Ireland, have signed this declaration, today on May 29th, indicating their support to the Irish people. They brought their message to the Irish Embassy in Paris stating clearly their wish and request that the final decision by the Irish people be respected by the other member states as well as the EU institutions.

The delegation was received in the Irish Embassy and was able to convey this message to the Ambassador so that it would be transmitted to the Irish Government.

Signatory organisations:

AlterEkolo, Attac France, Coordination des Collectifs Unitaires, Euromarches, Fondation Copernic, LCR, Les Alternatifs, MARS-Gauche Républicaine, Mémoire des luttes, PCF, PCOF, Pour la République Sociale (PRS), Réseau féministe « Ruptures », Union Syndicale Solidaires.
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Paris, May  29th 2008
to: Anne Anderson
Irish Ambassador
Madame Ambassador,
 
On June 12th, Irish citizens will be called to cast their vote on whether they want to ratify or not the Lisbon Treaty. It is noteworthy that the Irish are the only people who will have the right to express an opinion  - as required by your Constitution.
A number of French organisations, supporting the progressive NO to Lisbon Campaign in Ireland, would like to express their solidarity with the Irish people affirming their belief that the final outcome of the Referendum must be fully respected.

For the signatory organisations:

Francine Bavay, AlterEkolo

Daniel Cirera, PCF

José Cordon,PCF

Marc Delepouve, Attac France

Pierre Khalfa, Union syndicale Solidaires

Jean-Paul Lecoq, député de Seine-Maritime, membre de la commission des affaires étrangères de l'Assemblée nationale

Michel Rousseau, Euromarches

Christophe Ventura, Mémoire des luttes

Nicolas Voisin, Pour la République Sociale

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Irish farmers back 'yes' to EU treaty
http://euobserver.com/9/26267/?rk=1
4 June 2008

Ireland's biggest farmers' group on Tuesday (3 June) said it would encourage its members to vote in favour of the EU Lisbon treaty in a referendum on 12 June, with the decision expected to boost the "yes" side's result.

"It is the unanimous agreement of the [Irish Farmers Association executive] council that we are prepared to support a 'yes' vote and we will be writing to all our members to explain the situation to them," IFA president Padraig Walshe was reported as saying by press agencies.
 
"Farmers are traditionally good people to vote and we will be doing all we can to encourage them to come out and we will be devising a strategy to cover the next 10 days," he added, according to the Irish Times.

The IFA decision is seen as crucial, as polls have been indicating a narrow gap between the "yes" and "no" supporters, and the agricultural sector is still an important part of Irish society. The IFA represents 85,000 farming families engaged in agricultural activity.

The farmers' backing came after Irish prime minister Brian Cowen indicated he would veto EU approval of any world trade deal that would go against their interests.

Thousands of farmers protested in April against international trade talks, fearing they would lead to a liberalisation deal that would make imports cheaper and lead to massive jobs losses.

The IFA then threatened to link the issue to the forthcoming referendum, with Mr Walshe saying: "Sell us out and we will have our say on the 12th of June."

Ireland is the only country to hold a referendum on the EU's new treaty set to replace the failed EU constitution, which French and Dutch voters rejected in 2005.

A poll last month showed the gap was narrowing between those who plan to vote in favour of the document – some 41 percent, and those who reject it – 33 percent.

The poll also indicated a significant part of the population remained undecided. Turnout is expected to be crucial in the referendum, with a low voter show set to give the upper hand to the "no" camp.

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Lisbon & the arms industry
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42637

 

IRELAND: Less Bombs Here, More There

DUBLIN, Jun 3 (IPS) - Irish diplomats won plenty of kudos from governments across the world over the past week for brokering a ban on cluster bombs during an international conference in Dublin. It may seem ironic, then, that despite having a decades-old tradition of military neutrality, Ireland has deepened its involvement in the arms trade in recent years.

Two years ago, Michael Ahern, then the country's minister for commerce, claimed that "Ireland does not have an arms trade nor do we wish to promote one." A 2007 report by Amnesty International suggests otherwise. It cited estimates that the value of export licences issued by Ireland for goods with a military application rose from 1.3 billion euros (2 billion dollars) in 2004 to 2.4 billion euros in 2006.

Among the components for military goods manufactured by Data Device Corporation in the southern city of Cork are electronic devices fitted into Apache helicopters. Boeing, the U.S. firm that makes Apaches, has sold the helicopters to Israel, which used them during its 2006 attacks on Lebanon. Apaches are also known to have been used for carrying cluster bombs.

"We are in the arms trade and there's no trade lower than that," said Dennis Halliday, an Irish anti-war campaigner who served as assistant secretary-general of the United Nations in the 1990s.

Because of the requirements of its national constitution, Ireland is alone among the European Union's 27 countries to call a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, which the bloc's presidents and prime ministers signed in the Portuguese capital last year. The Irish poll will take place Jun. 12.

Some campaigners against the treaty are perturbed by how it effectively obliges Ireland to become even more entangled in the defence industry than it now is.

The treaty says that EU governments "shall undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities." And it empowers the Brussels-based European Defence Agency to undertake "any measure" it deems necessary to "strengthen the industrial and technological base" of Europe's arms industry.

Alexander Weiss, the EDA's director, denied last month that his agency is seeking to militarise the European Union. "We do not militarise the European Union, we are just enhancing the military capabilities of EU member states' armed forces," he said.

Opponents of the treaty say, however, that the clauses relating to the EDA are virtually identical to those proposed by arms manufacturers who lobbied the convention chaired by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president. His body drew up a proposed EU constitution, about 90 percent of which is contained in the Lisbon treaty.

Patricia McKenna, chairwoman of the People's Movement against the treaty, said the provisions allow arms companies to determine the EU's policies on defence procurement. "This is like asking the pharmaceutical industry to tell doctors what to write on their prescriptions," added McKenna, a former member of the European Parliament.

Even though Ireland is not a full member of a formal military alliance such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), it has been actively participating in the EDA's activities. Admissions by the Dublin government that representatives of Enterprise Ireland, the state's industrial development body, have taken part in EDA meetings have fuelled suspicion that firms based in Ireland are eager to win lucrative defence contracts.
The EDA has been actively promoting higher defence expenditure in Europe. In a 2006 'vision paper' it argued that EU governments "must take to heart" how the U.S. is outspending them on weapons.

Willie O'Dea, Ireland's defence minister, claimed recently that the proportion of national income spent on the military shrank from 4 percent at the beginning of this century to 1.8 percent today. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that defence expenditure is to rise under a commitment contained in the programme for government agreed last year between the ruling coalition of Fianna Fáil, a centrist party with roots in the country's struggle for independence from Britain, and the smaller Green Party.

Ireland's military spending is more than three times what the country, still known as the Celtic Tiger because of its robust economic growth since the 1990s, allocates in development aid to the world's poor.

Andy Storey, a lecturer in development studies at the University College Dublin and a board member of the international justice campaign group Action from Ireland, said that at the very least the treaty exhorts EU countries to further increase their defence budgets. It is instructive, Storey added, that while Lisbon mandates countries to boost their military capabilities, "the treaty makes no such reference to improving, say, educational or healthcare capabilities."

The provisions on military expenditure, he said, "constitute a further advance towards the militarisation of the EU."

While the government argues that Irish neutrality will be unaffected by the treaty, Storey countered: "The EU is already to some extent militarised. Under this treaty, it is adding new powers and resources to its military wing."

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Don't be bullied - Vote No
http://www.voteno.ie/html/press.htm#BullyTactics
4 June 2008

One of the major arguments on the Yes side is that the Lisbon Treaty is all about making the EU more democratic. Yet the Irish are the only people in Europe who get to vote on the Lisbon Treaty. Opinion polls across all 27 Member States show that between 60 and 70 percent of EU citizens want a Referendum on this Treaty. They are being systematically denied this right for one reason, EU leaders fear people will not vote the way they are told.

Lisbon is essentially a redrafted version of the European Constitution, which was overwhelmingly rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. Their punishment for this No vote was to be denied a vote this time around.

It is worth remembering that the reason Irish people get a vote is not because our government is more democratic but because one Irish citizen, Raymond Crotty, took a case to the Supreme Court demanding Irish people have the right to vote on EU treaties.

However, this whole Referendum campaign has been marked by a sense of sheer distaine for democracy.

Last week, the President of European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso said that a No vote in the Irish referendum on June 12th would be bad for Europe and Ireland, threatening Irish voters by saying, "We will all pay a price for it, Ireland included."

In case these bully-boy tactics didn't work, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was drafted in to support the Treaty: Annan commented "I call on the Irish people to vote Yes for the Lisbon Treaty," he told reporters. "We need a strong Europe.

Then, the Chairperson of the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee, Jo Leinen came out and suggested that Ireland could be asked to leave the EU if it votes against the Lisbon Treaty. This democracy loving MEP then went on to state that it was risky for the government to hold a referendum on the treaty, which all other EU states are ratifying through their parliaments.

Earlier this year voteno.ie were leaked a letter in which Leinman warned that "It would . . . appear highly advisable that any document concerning the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon which addresses politically sensitive matters be examined only when it becomes sufficiently clear that the Treaty will enter into force."

Not only do these statements reveal EU leaders complete contempt for the democratic will of the people, it also shows how worried they are about the Irish vote. They understand what No campaigners have been arguing all along, that once people know the substance of the Treaty they will vote no.

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To veto or not to veto, that is the question
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0529/veto.html
By RTÉ Europe Editor Sean Whelan

Can Ireland veto a trade deal after the Lisbon Treaty is signed?

This issue has become hugely controversial in the campaign - thanks to the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) and Libertas - though both take different views on the existence of a veto.

Libertas says there is no power to veto a trade deal, and demands the Government show where in the Lisbon Treaty such a veto exists. It says even under existing treaties, there is no veto right.

The IFA says there is a veto power and has called on the Government to use it. It cites the French (who have ratified Lisbon) as threatening to use the veto in the current WTO trade talks. If the veto doesn't exist, how can the French be threatening to use it?

The Government insists there is a veto right, but has not pointed out in detail, or in writing, how it works.

Their problem is twofold. Firstly there has been a watering down of veto rights between the Nice Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty. Secondly, because of the structure of the Lisbon Treaty, the veto powers are dispersed over a number of parts of the Treaty, rather than grouped together in article 133 of the current treaties.

The European Commission has set out how a veto in WTO talks works in a detailed note.

In effect, if a trade deal only concerns physical goods, such as beef, then there is no veto right.

However, if it includes transport services, some aspects of Intellectual Property law, such as enforcement of protection measures, audiovisual services or any measure for which unanimity is required in EU decision making (notably tax) - then the whole package becomes a unanimity measure, therefore a veto exists.

The commission call this the 'Pastis Principle', after the French alcoholic drink (a close relative of Pernod) which changes from being clear to cloudy white if a drop of water is added.

So with trade, any deal that includes any element for which unanimity is required turns from QMV into unanimity for the whole package, because WTO deals are assessed as a total package.

Libertas says it has legal advice on the absence of the veto, but has refused to disclose this advice to RTÉ News. It also says a number of MEPs back its view, but will not say who these elected representatives are.

Libertas has published an e-mail it received from the Europe Direct helpline (a commission run info service for the public).  The help line note says no country has a veto on trade deals under article 188.

This is correct but not complete, because of the 'pastis principle'.  Even the Commission's own helpline apparently can't follow this part of the treaty.  (Also the e-mail to Libertas contains a disclaimer at the bottom stating that the contents of the e-mail are not a legally binding opinion).

The Irish government, the French government (apparently), the European commission and the IFA all say there is a veto right.

Danish Euro-sceptic Jens Peter Bonde told me there is a veto right in the way the Commission and Irish government say, but stresses there is no veto right for trade deals involving only trade in goods. This appears to be the case in the current treaties also.

In short, the balance of evidence strongly suggests there is a veto right over WTO-type complex trade deals, as described above - but without expert knowledge of the treaty it is virtually impossible to find in black and white.

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Yeah sure,the veto is in there,you wont be able to find it,but trust us it is in there  Please.

[Sub-X]

CÓR SAYS THAT COMMISSION IGNORES FUTURE EFFECT OF THE LISBON TREATY
http://www.lisbonvote.com/
Press Release, 4/6/2008

Spokeswoman for Cóir, Niamh Uí­ Bhriain, said today that the Referendum Commission should not ignore the possible future effects of the increased powers given to the European Court of Justice under the Lisbon Treaty. Mrs Uí­ Bhriain also said that the Commission was in danger of breaching its mandate by offering opinion on the treaty rather than sticking to the facts. "They are ignoring the amendment to the Referendum Act made in 2001 which spelled the Commission's statutory function in relation to putting the arguments for and against referendum proposals," said Mrs Uí­ Bhriain. "The Commission is now engaged in giving its opinion rather than presenting the facts." She made the comment after the Commission released a statement this morning which they said would clarify certain issues surrounding the Lisbon Treaty.

She continued: "this statement is conveniently timed with just over a week left to go to polling day. By trying to fudge the issue on abortion by saying that the treaty will change our current constitutional position, is not, as Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill claimed today, as a result of listening to recent debates.  If the Judge O'Neill had 'listened closely' as he claims he and the Commission had done, he would have heard Cóir's position on the issue�."

"Cóir would like to make our position absolutely clear: The Lisbon Treaty gives the European Court of Justice the right to make a future ruling on Ireland's abortion laws, and on other areas of importance such as family law and children's rights. In doing so it allows the EU Court to overrule the wishes of the Irish people. This is Cóir's  concern and this is what we have relayed throughout our campaign to the Irish people. The Referendum Commission states that the Lisbon Treaty will not alter Ireland's current position on abortion: Cóir are well aware that is the case - our concern is with the power given to the EU Court to make future decisions," concluded Mrs Uí­ Bhriain.

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Kenny's fear of a No to Lisbon in Limerick
http://www.lisbonvote.com/
Limerick Leader, 4/6/2008

FINE Gael leader Enda Kenny has said he fears a low turnout in Limerick - and a no vote nationwide - for the upcoming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Limerick and the rest of Ireland will go to the polls next week - the only country in Europe to do so - and Deputy Kenny, who was greeted by youngster Vanessa Murray, doing her best impression of political rival Willie O'Dea, was joined in the city by fellow party deputies Kieran O'Donnell and Michael Noonan last Friday to canvass for a yes vote on the treaty.

Limerick's public will descend on primary schools to register their vote in the referendum on Thursday week, but Deputy Kenny admits he fears a low turnout could lead to a no vote on the Lisbon Treaty, which among other things encourages solidarity between nations and gives Dail deputies an eight-week window to scrutinise European laws.

Speaking to the Limerick Chronicle, he said: "It's very difficult to get people excited about something like the Lisbon Treaty, but I think you have to keep explaining right through to the close of polls just how important it is for the country."

And the Fine Gael leader added he felt a low turnout would see the 'hardcore no voters' dominate. "There's always a concern with a low turnout because the higher the turnout, the more reflective the opinion of people you get. If Ireland votes no, Europe continues as it is , and we will find as time goes on, Europe will prove to be more inefficient than it should be. This treaty is all about scaling up to the meet the challenges of the future," he said.

Deputy Kenny said he was "encouraged" by the reaction of Limerick people to the Treaty, and said he feels that, following a statement from the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, that it will not alter the legal position of abortion in Ireland, he claims more people are willing to go out and vote.

Meanwhile, Limerick East Deputy O'Donnell, who walked around the city with Deputy Kenny, said he was not contemplating a no vote.

"Today was very positive. We are going out, and asking for yes vote, and dealing with people's queries. I would hope when the voting takes place, people will vote yes on the treaty, but the key thing is ensuring we explain what Lisbon is about," he explained.

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Longford Town Council pay Cóir €300 in compensation for posters destroyed
http://www.lisbonvote.com/
Cóir,PRESS RELEASE
4/6/2008

Longford Town Council has signed a cheque for €300 in compensation to the No-to-Lisbon campaign, Cóir, whose posters the council removed from poles and destroyed, although they had been legitimately erected after the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty had been called.

The cheque was handed to local Cóir member, Brian O'Connor, who had made the complaint after the council illegally removed Cóir posters in Longford. Mr O'Connor said that when he phoned the council, they were reluctant to talk to him at first, but that after a number of days they finally admitted to taking down up to 25 of Cóir's posters and shredding them. The Cóir activist then asked for compensation for the posters and the Council agreed to pay damages, eventually signing a cheque for €300 to pay for the cost of the posters and additional costs.

The eye-catching posters, which include the three monkey poster, have captured the attention of the public, while the "Yes" campaign have unsuccessfully tried to attack their message. Cóir spokesman, Richard Greene, said that the removal of the posters was "unacceptable and said he hoped the decision to illegally remove Cóir posters was not politically motivated.

"I wouldn't like to think that any county councils are targeting No campaign posters," said Mr Greene. "ll be looking into this in other jurisdictions."

[Sub-X]

There Is NO Irish Veto on Global Agricultural Trade Deals (Barry Finnegan)
http://www.voteno.ie/html/VETO.htm
4 June 2008

During the current Lisbon referendum campaign, numerous politicians, business and think-tank leaders and spokespersons have repeatedly asserted that EU Member States, including Ireland, have a veto on whether or not the EU signs up to a WTO free-trade deal on agricultural goods. Barry Finnegan, from the CAEUC group has shown, definitely, how this is not true.

There is no current provision within EU law for vetoing an international trade agreement with just agricultural goods in it. In addition, Finnegan has shown that the automatic veto on free-trade agreements in essential public services, which Member States currently enjoy, will be lost under the Lisbon Treaty.

An international free-trade agreement that consists exclusively of agricultural and other 'manufactured' goods, such as the current World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal being negotiated, cannot be vetoed. It can only be decided on by a 'qualified majority' vote by the EU Council of Ministers.

There is no current provision for vetoing an international trade agreement with just agricultural goods in it.

The only reason an international trade deal in agricultural goods could be vetoed is if it were part of a package of free-trade measures that involved in five special areas: Educational services, Health services, Social services, and, Cultural and Audiovisual services.

Currently, (pre-Lisbon) EU Member States have an automatic, no-questions asked veto on entering any of these areas into the global free-trade system. In other words, they could reject an entire WTO deal.

Lisbon would remove the automatic veto on international trade agreement in these five special areas and replace it with an undefined and very difficult to imagine set of circumstances, where a Member State could argue that they should be allowed to retain a veto in one or more of these five special service areas.

The Yes side argue that there is a protection clause in Lisbon, Artlcle 188c, 4(b) to protect public services.

Article 188c, 4(b) states that "where these agreements risk seriously disturbing the national organisation of such services and prejudicing the responsibility of Member States to deliver them", the veto remains.

However, it would be difficult to see how much more "seriously disturbing" our national health system could get. And as for "prejudicing the responsibility" of the government to deliver these Educational services,

Private companies are making profits building primary and secondary school extensions, private companies print the children's school books, private companies build 'social housing' (sic), private companies carry out medical operations on public patients through the 'National Treatment Purchase Fund' and private companies provide secondary school services and third level college places and courses.

So in these circumstances, it is difficult to imagine how any WTO free-trade deal would "risk seriously disturbing the national organisation of such services and prejudicing the responsibility of Member States to deliver these services" .

In all of this debate, one simple question remains for the Yes campaigners: If you do not want trade in public services why surrender the veto? The only reason to remove the veto on trade in healthcare or education is to make it easier to push through privatisation.

For a more detailed and comprehensive analysis see Barry Finnegan's (CAEUC) document.

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Rejection of treaty would be greeted with 'great relief' in France
http://www.caeuc.org/index.php?q=node/294
KITTY HOLLAND
Irish Times - June 5th, 2008

ANTI-TREATY MEETING: REJECTION OF the treaty would be greeted with "great relief" in France, a member of the French Socialist Party national executive has said.
Addressing a press conference against the treaty in Dublin yesterday, François Delapierre said the French people had been "robbed of the right to vote" on the treaty.

"It is you, the Irish people, who will be giving all the people of Europe a chance to get a better treaty if the result is No."
The press conference, hosted by the Campaign Against the EU Constitution, also heard from anti-Lisbon Treaty campaigners from Germany and Austria as well as from Ireland.

Carla Kinger, of Attac Germany - a European anti-globalisation organisation - said the people of Europe were hoping the treaty would be rejected by the electorate here. "We wish so much it will be a No vote, though we know we cannot tell the Irish people how to vote."
Siegfried Bernhauser, of Attac Austria, said there had been a number of demonstrations in Vienna by people demanding a national referendum on the treaty. "We were denied that right and only you can give it back to us."

Brendan Ogle, an official with the Unite union, said the treaty represented an "attack on democracy" and should be rejected.
"We are being conned into a federal Europe," he said, adding that the treaty would pave the way for wages across all sectors to fall.
He said employers would be legally entitled to bring workers from lower-paying economies into the State and pay them at rates they received at home.

Eddie Conlon, spokesman for the campaign, said the treaty would reinforce the primacy of the market and the neo-liberal agenda, and that all other concerns, including health and social services, would be subservient to the market.

"The European Court of Human Justice has declared that internal market rules apply to health services. This and other public services should be excluded from market rules.

"Neither Article 16 nor the protocol on public services will protect our services from private contractors and the profit motive."
The Charter of Fundamental Rights would not stand up against the primacy of the market in the treaty. "It is subject to extensive limitations."

He said it had been used "as a reference for fundamental rights" by the European Court of Justice in the Laval case, a fact which underlined how limited was its scope.
In the recent Laval case, the court of justice ruled that a Swedish firm could employ Lithuanian workers and pay them at Lithuanian rates.

Separately yesterday, the Unite union, which has 60,000 members, called on members to reject the treaty. Irish regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said there was an obligation on members to the hundreds of thousands of workers across Europe "to push as hard as we can to defeat the Lisbon Treaty and secure a better deal for working people".

[Sub-X]

Will Lisbon open Public Services, including health, to liberalisation?
http://www.caeuc.org/files/HealthLib.pdf

"…the internal market applies to health services. People can shop around. Opening the market could provide lucrative opportunities for private providers to lure clients"-EU Health Commissioner, Markos Kyprianou,5th September 2006

Executive Summary

In our opinion, the aim of a healthcare system should be care for all, free at the point of use and funded from taxation. Ireland has a public-private system. Underfunding, and the conflict between private interests and public service, are the source of the crisis in the Irish system. The closure of public hospitals is matched by incentives to private-for-profit operators.

Competition in public services – especially health care – means that private operators compete against public providers (to get patients). They cherry-pick the treatments and services from which they can make a profit – the object of the exercise – leaving more difficult cases to the state. Twotier services emerge, as in the Irish system, and the public system suffers from underfunding.
Money that should go into the public service goes into shareholders pockets. We oppose this and support campaigns for a fully funded public health system.

Recent decisions by the European Court of Justice, together with pronouncements by the Commission give rise to serious concern regarding the future of public services – including healthcare – in the EU. The legal and judicial bases have now been laid allowing for many areas of healthcare provision to be subjected to the internal market and competition rules. Lisbon fails to
reverse these neo-liberal developments.

Instead, it reasserts the principles underpinning this groundbreaking ECJ case-law and sets out for the first time the procedure for the enactment of laws based upon these principles. Furthermore,Lisbon effectively removes the ability of individual states to prevent the inclusion of healthcare in the WTO’s controversial GATS trade negotiations. It does this by radically narrowing the grounds on which a member state can veto a GATS-type international trade deal.

Subject to Internal Market rules

The ECJ’s Watts ruling of 2006 established that Art 49 (right to provide services) should apply in the provision of health services. The Commission current policy, based on a number of ECJ rulings,is that Member States are free to define 'the mission' of a public service; and its 'objectives and principles'. But when 'fixing the arrangements for implementation', the Treaty rules (Art 43 and 49)
apply. In other words, the actual provision/delivery of healthcare – as distinct from general policy making - is now subject to internal market rules. Other ECJ case-law establishes that public procurement and competition rules apply to the delivery of public services – including health.

Taking its lead from the ECJ, the Commission view now is that any service for which payment is usually made, is an 'economic activity' within the meaning of Art 43 and 49 TEC. Any operator from within the EU must be allowed bid to provide the service. In its 2006 policy Communication on Social Services of General Interest (social services), the Commission declared:

“With regard to the freedom to provide services and freedom of establishment, the Court has ruled that services provided generally for payment must be considered as economic activities within the meaning of the Treaty. However, the Treaty does not require the service
to be paid for directly by those benefiting from it. It therefore follows that almost all services offered in the social field can be considered “economic activities” within the meaning of Articles 43 and 49 of the EC Treaty. :(Comm SSGI 2006 p7. Emphasis - BY)

This position is re-stated in a White Paper (policy document) from the Commission of Nov 2007. It has built upon the Watts ruling, which said that Art 49 and other market rules apply also to health services. (see Commission reference to Watts below).

So how would Lisbon change this situation? Has it sought to allow for the reversal or challenge to these worrying developments?
Lisbon: more of the same, only worse Art 16 of Lisbon would give the EU power to legislate upon the 'economic and financial conditions'
for the running of public services. It says the EU '...shall establish these principles and set these conditions, without prejudice to the Member States, in compliance with the Treaties, to provide,commission and fund such services.'

This Article does not set aside the existing case-law of the ECJ, whose rulings determine what is in compliance with the treaties. Neither Art 16 nor the related Protocol reverse Watts or similar ECJ rulings by explicitly declaring that market rules should not apply to the delivery of health,education or social services. Nor do they exclude these services from being categorised as 'economic activities' in situations where charges or fees are involved – a category that the Commission says includes 'almost all' or 'the vast majority' of services. Market rules apply to all 'economic activities'.

The principles established in this case-law will remain as the legal framework for any EU legislation arising in a post-Lisbon scenario. According to the Commission and the ECJ, 'compliance with the treaties' means letting private operators compete to deliver services. Legislation flowing from Art 16 would have to accord with ECJ case-law and include the right of private operators to bid for public services, including health care.

In a speech outlining his concerns about the Lisbon Treaty given in the House of Commons on Feb 6th, 2008 former UK Health Secretary Frank Dobson (Labour) highlighted the concern of many ocial democrats at these developments :

“Appearances would suggest that our national health service is and will remain the exclusive responsibility of the UK Government, but it is not and, under the Lisbon treaty, it will not. All the apparent protection for our sovereignty that was provided in the old and
new treaties does not exist. It turns out that some parts of the treaties are more equal than others.

In a recent ECJ decision, now followed up by the European Commission, the neo-liberals who hold powerful positions on the Court and the Commission decided to open everything to do with health care up to internal market forces…I am very dubious about supporting a
treaty that has not done something to set aside the Watts decision. I should warn the House that I think that there are very powerful forces at work behind the proposition, and they are in this country now. Those forces are the US health corporations … [they] are roaming around Europe and Britain looking for markets. They are promoting the concept of competition in health provision…”

Any hopes that the European Parliament might correct the neo-liberal direction of the Commission seem unrealistic. The Parliament has already made clear that it accepts the legal definitions and framework set out by the ECJ and the Commission. In 2006 a resolution from the Parliament declared that it does not matter whether public services are provided by state or private operators; there must simply be 'fair' competition and adequate regulation. (see below)

The trajectory of EU policy is to reinforce liberalisation and cast the state in the role of regulator and provider of funding – as long as the level of funding (public spending) does not threaten 'price stability'. The European Parliament, and the Party of European Socialists (to which the Irish Labour Party is affiliated), accepts this framework. On top of this, Art 115 would give the EU powers to issue guidelines for the economic policy of the member states. These would be seek to keep public spending low, to maintain 'price stability'. Lisbon would provide the means to legislate for this policy framework.

Unrestricted Veto on WTO Services deal removed

Art 188c.4b removes the unrestricted veto on international trade in health, education and social services. Removing this veto is a declaration of intent: EU leaders want to allow non-EU operators into the 'market' for health and education in exchange for getting into their markets. A veto would only be available if a deal ' ...risks seriously disturbing the national organisation of such services or
prejudicing the responsibility of the Member State to deliver them'.

'Seriously disturbing' is not defined in the Treaty. In circumstances where there is a public-private mix, the number of private operators allowed into a system that could be said to be 'seriously disturbing' is a matter of judgment – by the ECJ!

The question of '…responsibility ... to deliver' has already been tested in the ECJ. In the Watts ruling the Court said that the 'responsibilities ... for the organisation and delivery of health and medical care' reserved for the Member States by Art 152 of the TEC did not mean that Art 49 does not apply: i.e.- private operators cannot be excluded.

So if EU-based private operators can provide cross-border health services, on what grounds could a veto be applied to non-EU operators as long as they are regulated? As for regulation – remember Leas Cross? As to regulation of private hospitals in Ireland at present: there isn’t any. HIQA is the new health regulatory watchdog set up by the government a year or so ago. Post Leas Cross, it
includes responsibility for private Nursing Homes as well as public Nursing Homes. It is also responsible for public hospitals. It has NO RESPONSIBILITY for private hospitals.

Watts and other rulings mean that a veto on trade in health, social and education services would be available in only in very exceptional circumstances. The burden of proof would lie with an individual member state to prove that a GATS deal covering healthcare ‘risks seriously disturbing’ the provision on health services on their territory. Who will decide what “seriously disturbing’ is?What are the criteria? Ultimately it will be the ECJ – with its increasingly neo-liberal bent.With the GATS negotiation process happening behind closed doors and away from democraticaccountability this dimunition of veto power is deeply worrying.

The only grounds for a veto on the current WTO negotiations are because vetos still remain for health, education, social service and cultural & audiovisual services; and because some other services require unanimity for changes in the internal rules. Almost all of these, except for taxation and defense, will move from unanimity to QMV under Lisbon. Thus the grounds for a veto will be
all but eliminated.

A veto is the only means by which we – the people – have some say in how these services should work. Removing the veto means that if we elect a government committed to fully funded public health care, they could be outvoted on an EU agreement to liberalise services. Pressure on a government to block a trade deal – like farmers are attempting now – would have little effect because the government would have no direct veto (as is the case with agriculture since 1997).
Democratic control is being eroded by trade agreements at the WTO.

The Irish government is currently letting multinational operators into our health system, albeit with little on no regulation: cancer smear-testing (Quest Diagnostics); dialysis (Fresenius); and the operation of the co-located private hospitals (including by Beacon Health – owned by UPMC). The fraud-mired background of these companies has not deterred the government.GATS agreements to guarantee continuity of these kinds of contracts would be part of EUnegotiated trade deals at the WTO. Lisbon would help lock in the anti-social healthcare policies of the current Irish government.

Who better than IBEC to sum up the privatising impact of Lisbon:

"Through our membership of the EU many markets have been subject to liberalisation and through this process new business opportunities have been created for Irish companies. The Lisbon Reform Treaty creates the legal basis for the liberalisation of services of general economic interest (Art. 106). A yes vote for the Lisbon Treaty creates the potential for increased opportunities for Irish business particularly in areas subject to increasing liberalisation such as Health, Education, Transport, Energy and the Environment."

Full text of IBEC submission http://www.forumoneurope.ie/index.asp?locID=113&docID=1650

In conclusion, Lisbon would lock in a creeping privatisation of health, education and social services because it would secure the rights of EU-based private operators to compete for public service contracts; furthermore, what is available in the EU public service market could progressively be opened to transnational operators through the GATS agreements.

Sources and references.

What is the existing legal / political approach of the Commission regarding SGIs and SGEIs?

Based on rulings by the ECJ, the Commission regards almost all social services as 'economic activities'.

“With regard to the freedom to provide services and freedom of establishment, the Court has ruled that services provided generally for payment must be considered as economic activities within the meaning of the Treaty. However, the Treaty does not require the service to be paid for directly by those benefiting from it. It therefore follows that almost all services offered in the social field can be considered “economic activities” within the meaning of Articles 43 and 49 of the EC Treaty. “ (Comm SSGI 2006 p7. Emphasis - BY)

What does the Commission regard as the role of the Member State in the provision of social services?

In general, the case law of the Court of Justice (“the Court”) indicates that the EC Treaty gives Member States the
freedom to define missions of general interest and to establish the organisational principles of the services intended to
accomplish them:

However, this freedom must be exercised transparently and without misusing the notion of general interest,and the Member States must take account of Community law when fixing the arrangements for implementing the objectives and principles they have laid down. For example, they must respect the principle of nondiscrimination and the Community legislation on public contracts and concessions when organising a public service. (Comm SSGI 2006 p6. Emphasis – BY)

What is the Commission position on health services?

According to Comm 1195/4 on health 2006, two clarifications were provided by the Watts ruling on 16 May 2006:

“First, some Member States with systems based on integrated public funding and provision of health services had argued that the Treaty provisions on the freedom to provide services did not apply to them; the Watts judgment confirmed that they do.

Second, some Member States have argued that the requirement in Article 152, paragraph five of the Treaty to “fully respect the responsibilities of the Member States for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care” prevented binding obligations under Community law regarding health systems. In the judgment, the Court stated that this provision does not exclude the possibility that the Member States may be required under other Treaty provisions, such as Article 49 EC, or Community measures adopted on the basis of other Treaty provisions, such as Article 22 of Regulation (EC) 1408/71, to make adjustments to their national systems of social security.”

1195/4 goes on to discuss four types of cross-border healthcare: cross-border provision of services; use of services abroad - 'patient mobility'; permanent presence of a service provider; temporary presence of persons. These categories echo the categories in the GATS agreements (the four modes of service provision) for allowing transnationals compete to run services.

We cannot discuss these matters further here. For our concerns, the ECJ is ruling that existing treaty provisions,including the right to provide cross-border services (Art 49 TEC), apply to healthcare; that Art 152 (above) does notstop the delivery of health services being regarded as an economic activity to which market rules apply; and that member states may have to change their social security arrangements to provide payment for such services.

Art 152 has been amended by Lisbon to read:
Union action shall fully respect the responsibilities of the Member States for the definition of their health policy and for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care. The responsibilities of the Member States shall include the management of health services and medical care and the allocation of the resources assigned to them.

This amendment (underlined) however, would not affect the impact of ECJ rulings based on Art 49 – freedom to provide services: a public authority can manage the service delivered by private contractors; similarly a public authority (of the member state) would retain the power to decide on the resourcing – but the EU would have power to issue guidelines for the management of the member states economies' under Art 115. Nor would this amendment eliminate the applicability of treaty rules where remuneration is present. And it would not effect the use of PPPs in the provision of healthcare infrastructure. This is especially the case in a country like Ireland where there is a mix of public and private providers: remuneration and competition already exist.

Finally, in its White Paper 2007 the Commission integrates the Protocol on SGEI's into its framework for public services.

It reiterates ECJ rulings that “In practice, ... it follows that the vast majority of services can be considered as "economic activities" within the meaning of EC Treaty rules on the internal market (Articles 43 and 49)” [p.5 White Paper].

It is in this context it says that the Protocol will 'serve as a reference for all levels of governance' (p9).
The view that private provision of social services is a positive form of modernisation – for profit or otherwise – is reflected in a resolution of the European Parliament (2006/2101 INI) on the Commission's 2004 White Paper on services of general interest or SGIs (public services that have a social role). The EP resolution “…recalls it is not important who provides SGIs ... and emphasises that the majority of SGIs can be provided under conditions of fair competition, according to the principle that private and public undertakings must
receive equal treatment.”

So neither the Parliament nor the Party of European Socialists (which supported this resolution) pose opposition in principle to outsourcing and privatisation as long as there is “fair competition”.

Resolution of the European Parliament (2006/2101 INI)
http://www.google.ie/search?q=European+Parliament+(2006%2F2101+INI)&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-
8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

Frank Dobson MP, Speech to House of Commons, February 6th, 2008. Sourced at
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2008-02-06b.1000.2

Markos Kyprianou quoted in Jane Lethbridge. “European healthcare services and multinational companies : Major
trends and eligibility for European Works Councils” - September 2007 - Public Services International Research Unit

This analysis is based upon the Lisbon Treaty;

The European Commission White Paper COM (2007) 725 of Nov. 20, 2007 on Services of General Interest;

The 'Consultation on Community Action on health services' SEC (2006) 1195/4 including the Watts ruling on 16 May
2006;

'Communication COM (2006) 177, Implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: Social services of general interest
(SSGIs) in the European Union';