Before I plunge into more substantial issues – and I promise I will – about the French Presidency of the European Union (the Council I mean, of course), which is a hot topic since Mr. Sarkozy has plenty of ambitions up on the agenda, keep your fingers crossed tomorrow. The Irish will vote, through referendum, on the Lisbon Treaty. They are the only ones who refused to pass the treaty through the parliament, and have pushed for a very risky popular vote instead. The Dutch killed a treaty once through public vote, and the Irish have a history for rejecting EU treaties as well. They are small, insular, conservative and not at all content with the common agricultural policy. Is it going to be a YES or a NO for Europe? Though one…
Read the official story here and the socialist/for one here and the against one here. (Photo: source)
Later edit: Uite aici si un articol in romana, care indica faptul ca votul ar indica spre NU…
Apologies for the quality of the writing in this post. I’m in a hurry but couldn’t leave without reponding.
“They are the only ones who refused to pass the treaty through the parliament, and have pushed for a very risky popular vote instead. The Dutch killed a treaty once through public vote, and the Irish have a history for rejecting EU treaties as well. They are small, insular, conservative and not at all content with the common agricultural policy. Is it going to be a YES or a NO for Europe?”
I work for the PES and I am Irish. I have to take issue with part of your post.
1. We did not ‘refuse’ to pass the treaty through the Dail (our parliament), it wasn’t a choice. Courts have ruled that to not do so would contravene our constitution.
2.’They are small, insular, conservative and not at all content with the common agricultural policy’ HA HA! I don’t where in Ireland you lived or how long you lived there for, but you must have noticed that modern Ireland (post 1997ish) is not the same impoverished, war-torn, theocracy that I grew up in…. and this is coming from a 21 year old!!!!! To say that the entire population of Ireland is insular is quite simply dumb. Small? So what. Would you prefer it if Ireland, Estonia, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia, etc just lie down and agree to whatever France, Germany and Britain say. I don’t remember when which treaty changed the name of the EU to the European Empire, but then again being ‘insular’ I must not have been aware of it. Ooops. Against the CAP? Ireland has benefited more than any other member state from the CAP. In the last 10years we have advanced from being the poorest state in the Union to one of the richest countries in the world. WE LOVE THE CAP!!!! That’s one of the reasons the NO campaign lied to farmers about Lisbon killing the CAP.
3.”Is it going to be a YES or a NO for Europe?” It was never a question of yes or no to Europe? The Lisbon Treaty does not equate with membership of the EU. Many people here in Brussels seem to have difficulty understanding that.
I work for the PES, so I clearly am pro-EU. But the aftermath of the NO vote has exposed a sinister element to the European project.
Surely you agree with me that it is quite a dangerous situation when anytime anyone challenges what the elite view of progress is, they are shot down as anti-progress and ungrateful. Many people in EU member states know nothing about the EU but nevertheless see it as infallible. This is dangerous. Skepticism enriches democracy, it stops it from silently transforming into authoritarianism. This is a particularly important principle in such an opaque institution as EU, which undoubtedly has done remarkable good for many countries, not least Ireland which has changed so much for the better in the last 10 years. But that doesn’t mean the Irish should have voted in accord with the executive that helped to facilitate these improvements purely out of gratefulness.
What a great reply! Point for point he has you bet hands down.