Fiscal Union Referendum very possible, very soon: Would you vote Yes or No?

[toxic avenger]

All the noises from Europe, particularly Germany's likely condition that it be a pre-requisite for their assent to the ECB's being let loose to issue Eurobonds and print money, make a fiscal union referendum a probability, even if they try to get around the constitutional requirement for one.

For years now, attested to in my posts on the Lisbon Treaty referendums since 2008, I have argued that our participation in monetary union has made inevitable our having to sign up for European fiscal union. Our political class has, for over a decade or more, lied or deluded themselves that there was no reason to think such a thing, that it was perfectly rational to sign up for the one and not the other, despite not being able to adequately answer the question 'well, why bother with monetary union in the first place if it wasn't a step on the road to full union?'.

Posters here (I won't name them, but they're still around) ridiculed me for saying that fiscal union was inevitable, or else said that it would be a voluntary sovereign decision if it ever came up (to which I responded that such decisions are never voluntary - a political momentum builds up behind the asssertion that a 'no' is 'holding up progress', and that the guilty party will suffer consequences, or be vilified, or be given an ultimatum 'either you're fully in or fully out'. A financial crisis (as I also stated) provides the perfect 'shock doctrine'-style opportunity to scare populations or less-willing governments to sign up for the 'do or die' proposals. We are now seeing this happening.

What is about to happen is a fulfillment of every expectation I have had - we will be required to sign up for fiscal union or risk being vilified as the people who 'sank the Euro', or else be told that the ropes will be cut. Either we will be presented with another referendum, or be told that no referendum is required (which I suspect they'll try) under existing treaties and protocols (perhaps we will finally see whether the infamous 'ratchet clause' was myth or reality!).

If there is a referendum, part of me would like to see a 'no' vote, but the rest of me thinks it is futile - monetary union without fiscal union is an absurdity, always was. The time to prevent fiscal union was at the time of the vote on monetary union, it is rather late now. I also suspect that all sorts of hellfire and damnation will be threatened or implied to ensure that no-one dares vote 'no', and that people are now simply too scared to do other than they are told by the received wisdom of the European political classes. If I still lived in Ireland I'm not sure I'd bother campaigning any more, resistance being very futile.

What about you? The question might very soon be coming (is likely, in fact). Yes or no to fiscal union?

[RepublicOfLuas]

No, no, no, no....

[clytaemnestra]

Níl.

[Cassandra Syndrome]

NEIN

(Written in my own blood)

[TommyO'Brien]

No.

[Jackass]

NO

[Mrs. Crotta Cliach]

I would so like to vote no, but the world is now too globally intertwined that the answer will have to be yes. We are going to have to be firmly attached to some larger group sooner rather than later.

[mhagain]

Oui.

[Astral Peaks]

Yes


<cowers in corner, waiting for derision to be heaped on his head>

[Grumpy Jack]

Anyone prepared to wait and see the details and terms before making a considered judgement based on the facts?