The Lisbon Treaty

At some point this year we're going to be voting on it here - AGAIN. For those that don't know we rejected it last June in a referendum. Ireland is the only country that is holding a referendum on this treaty, so I was kinda wondering what view people in other European countries have on it, if any.

There's a good spread of linked articles at the bottom of this Wikipedia page: [en.wikipedia.org]

How many sodding times will it take before they accept no as an answer?
France rejected it, Holland rejected it, Ireland has rejected it. Jeez take the @#$%& hint, power obsessed bureaucrats









Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2009 02:15AM by salvasirignano.

I thought we politely said "f**k off" to this last year.

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It's only delay, I voted yes in Holland, it has many advantages, but indeed, also many disadvantages, but it's just a matter of time imo until this treaty (in some form) will be signed. With or without Ireland and Holland (France is of a bigger importance though).

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Felipe Massa, World Champion 15:34:11pm- 15:34:21pm.

tbh i wonder why some countries are holding referendum on that. the majority of the people has no idea of the content of that treaty and the implications of their decision and yet they cast a vote based on what "extremists" from both sides told them.

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

We had to have a referendum because it's in our constitution that any major changes to EU's constitution require a referendum. Which is a good thing for two reasons:

1. All the major political parties in Ireland are majorly pro-EU. Only fringe groups like the Socialists and Sinn Féin are anti it, and tbh, nobody votes for them.

2. If the Irish politicians are left to their own devices, they will sign us up to everything, and Irish people will, by their nature, complain for a few days and then accept it. A simple example: Five years after metrication was completed in this country, something that very few here wanted, Irish people are still dividing by 8 and multiplying by 5 on roads to figure out how far they really are from their destination and newbie shoppies are still wandering to the butter isle to figure out how to cut a pound of ham at the deli counter.

And that's a major reason why I voted no. Not because the EU is that bad, on the contrary it's done a lot for us, but because I don't trust our own parties to be left to their own devices in Brussels. I'm still making my mind up how to vote next time, and it's very interesting to hear others against it, because it has been painted here as us holding the rest of Europe up. The Treaty itself is pretty hard to get through; a famous comment by one of our MEPs was that you'd "be mad to read it.", so a lot of people really don't know what they're voting on; I only partly understood bits of it, but I think one of my objections at the time was the amazing vagueness of sections of it.

at least you thought actively what you are doing and why you do it. i have no problem with voters who inform theirselves, no matter what they choose in the end. but i doubt that the same goes for most of the other people going to vote. that's for sure not only a problem in this case but a general problem of a referendum.

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

In this case it certainly was a huge problem. A lot of people voted no simply because they didn't understand it, or voted yes because their party told them to. (Here around 97% of elected representatives are in pro-EU parties), which completely missed the point of having a referendum in the first place.

Ni ceart go cur le cheile. An Eoraip go bragh.

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Looks like a New World Order plot. Moving to one world government.

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After quickly skimming through the points of that treaty, it doesn't seem all that bad. It looks like it's getting more democratic there.

The thing is its image. The European constitution was brought as if it would replace the constitution of all countries (which it wouldn't IIRC). That's the reason why it's been rejected. And now the Lisbon treaty is brought as if it's about the same as the European constitution. And that's the reason why that will be rejected as well.

I don't like it based solely on the issue of centralized power

imo a decentralized system causes as many problems as a centralized one

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

n00binio schreef:
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> tbh i wonder why some countries are holding
> referendum on that. the majority of the people
> has no idea of the content of that treaty and the
> implications of their decision and yet they cast a
> vote based on what "extremists" from both sides
> told them.

Think that's the whole problem indeed.

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And some say... he's so offensive he could get you into trouble...
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Felipe Massa, World Champion 15:34:11pm- 15:34:21pm.

Vader Wrote:
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> Ni ceart go cur le cheile. An Eoraip go bragh.


Sinn féin.

I did my degree in European Politics, and am very pro-EU, so I'm interested to see what people think.

For those who think it makes us more of an EU Superstate, the treaty removes the previous commitment to "ever greater union", and enhances the concept of subsidiarity (i.e. sorting things as locally as possible)



RedSam
Winner: Not the Nickv Comment of the Year 2009
Due to the voting system in Germany, Governments are always made up of coalitions of different parties. At the last election, an almost unprecidented result saw the CDU/CSU (rough equivilant of the Conservatives) go into Government with the SPD (rough equivilant of Labour)

Was hoping to see you post in here Sam! A lot of what's held within the treaty is pretty good, as it allows national parliaments to veto major changes; a big problem for many here occurs when you don't really trust your national parliament to make the right decisions in the EU, ie politicians trust the EU more than we do! A complaint often made here is that people don't really understand the how the EU defence force and neutrality will work, but to be honest that wouldn't be a big issue for me.

One interesting one is this 1 million signatured petition having to be considered to some extent. It's one of the few points where we can see the EU trying to interact with its people rather than its parliaments.

The treaty is genuinely an attempt to update the governance of the EU. The rules they work to now were designed for six members, now we are at 27 members, and the rules don't work.

The media in the UK (and some of the politicians) are very different to Ireland - anything coming from Europe has to be an attempt to subvert our independence. Unfortunately it means that real debate on how the EU works (and it doesn't work properly) gets lost in a blaze of newspaper headlines about how we beat Hitler, but now the Germans are trying to rule us through the back door...



RedSam
Winner: Not the Nickv Comment of the Year 2009
Due to the voting system in Germany, Governments are always made up of coalitions of different parties. At the last election, an almost unprecidented result saw the CDU/CSU (rough equivilant of the Conservatives) go into Government with the SPD (rough equivilant of Labour)

I'm naturally a euro-sceptic, but the Treaty does need putting in place for exactly the reason Red Sam said - the current rules were designed for before the Eastern expansion, and now it needs changing. Unfortunately, that gets lost on most of the population, and for that reason I'm happy there's been no vote on it here.

Another problem we have in England is that a lot of people are (unjustifiably) anti the human rights regime. Unfortunately, because it's called the European Convention on Human Rights, most people think that it comes from the EU, when of course, it is a totally seperate thing. So people are anti-europe for that reason, and it confuses the issue.

Go Alesi schrieb:
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> Another problem we have in England is that a lot
> of people are (unjustifiably) anti the human
> rights regime.

that is something that really shocked me when i heard it some time ago on tv

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used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld