Why did you vote Yes/No to Lisbon?

[CookieMonster]

I voted no because I didn't like the contents of the Treaty as a whole. Most of the good points could have been implemented by inter-governmental agreements without effecting our Constitution. The parts I disagreed with out-weighed the good.

So there were parts that you liked, Myksav? Which ones?

I liked Europe Day, but they left that out.

[Earnest]

To much say given to the European Court of Justice.

To much secrecy in the council of ministers and the failure of The E.U to agree its own budget (operational)
for 10 years.

But Lisbon would have decreased secrecy in the Council of Ministers by insisting on legislating being in public.

The weakness of the Charter of Rights,

So you voted for it to be even weaker.

The fact Govt can only propose nominee to Comission in the future out of a short list for approval in Brussels,

"Brussels" - the Council actually - has always had the right to approve or not.

Failure in Ireland to engage with European wide parties in any meaningfull way at a time integration is being pushed so much
thus an political discourse out of synch.

So you voted against more power for the European Parliament, which would have made the emergence of Europe-wide parties more likely.

Subsidisation of the European Defense Agency.

Subsidisation? There's a payment all right, it has to meet its expenses.

The fact the British and Sarkozy France are promoting a cross atlantic new form of unilatiralism in world affairs and noone else
in Europe seem to be doing anything about it.

So you voted to make it less possible to do anything about it.

[Coleman]

Only states can have citizens and one can only be a citizen of a state.

Thats a very limited view. Citizenship was originally created for freemen of Cities, not states. Many countries retain this concept - In the Nederlands, every resident of a city must register as a Citizen of that city, giving them rights to vote in that district.

The truth has the limitation of being limiting.

The idea of citizenship in fact goes back thousands of years to the city-states of ancient Greece so the distinction you make is somewhat invalid. Declining with the fall of the Roman Empire the concept of citizenship re-emerged with the spread of democracy as people transferred their allegiance from the king to the state and consequently became known as citizens or nationals rather than subjects.

There have always been exceptions such as the example you cite but it is absurd to base an argument on rule-proving exceptions. Citizenship is an objective legal concept with political implications, bringing with it rights and duties, and normally means full membership of a country or state. This is why the EU wants to construct a citizenship for its artificial creation.

[ibis]

Only states can have citizens and one can only be a citizen of a state.

Thats a very limited view. Citizenship was originally created for freemen of Cities, not states. Many countries retain this concept - In the Nederlands, every resident of a city must register as a Citizen of that city, giving them rights to vote in that district.

The truth has the limitation of being limiting.

The idea of citizenship in fact goes back thousands of years to the city-states of ancient Greece so the distinction you make is somewhat invalid. Declining with the fall of the Roman Empire the concept of citizenship re-emerged with the spread of democracy as people transferred their allegiance from the king to the state and consequently became known as citizens or nationals rather than subjects.

There have always been exceptions such as the example you cite but it is absurd to base an argument on rule-proving exceptions. Citizenship is an objective legal concept with political implications, bringing with it rights and duties, and normally means full membership of a country or state. This is why the EU wants to construct a citizenship for its artificial creation.

The EU is legally unable to accede to the Council of Europe, because of the requirement for statehood, which the EU fails.

[R Paul]

Only states can have citizens and one can only be a citizen of a state.

Thats a very limited view. Citizenship was originally created for freemen of Cities, not states. Many countries retain this concept - In the Nederlands, every resident of a city must register as a Citizen of that city, giving them rights to vote in that district.

The truth has the limitation of being limiting.

The idea of citizenship in fact goes back thousands of years to the city-states of ancient Greece so the distinction you make is somewhat invalid. Declining with the fall of the Roman Empire the concept of citizenship re-emerged with the spread of democracy as people transferred their allegiance from the king to the state and consequently became known as citizens or nationals rather than subjects.

There have always been exceptions such as the example you cite but it is absurd to base an argument on rule-proving exceptions. Citizenship is an objective legal concept with political implications, bringing with it rights and duties, and normally means full membership of a country or state. This is why the EU wants to construct a citizenship for its artificial creation.

We already are EU citizens. We approved this back in 1992 if I remember correctly.

[Coleman]

Only states can have citizens and one can only be a citizen of a state.

Thats a very limited view. Citizenship was originally created for freemen of Cities, not states. Many countries retain this concept - In the Nederlands, every resident of a city must register as a Citizen of that city, giving them rights to vote in that district.

The truth has the limitation of being limiting.

The idea of citizenship in fact goes back thousands of years to the city-states of ancient Greece so the distinction you make is somewhat invalid. Declining with the fall of the Roman Empire the concept of citizenship re-emerged with the spread of democracy as people transferred their allegiance from the king to the state and consequently became known as citizens or nationals rather than subjects.

There have always been exceptions such as the example you cite but it is absurd to base an argument on rule-proving exceptions. Citizenship is an objective legal concept with political implications, bringing with it rights and duties, and normally means full membership of a country or state. This is why the EU wants to construct a citizenship for its artificial creation.

The EU is legally unable to accede to the Council of Europe, because of the requirement for statehood, which the EU fails.

That must be very disappointing for them after all their efforts.

[fergalr]

Only having a Commissioner 1/3rd of the time, whereas Nice didn't specify the precise size of the Commission (beyond it being lower than the number of states from Nov.2009 subject to unanimity) unlike Lisbon.

Not to disagree with Captain Infallibility here, but would we not have had a Commissioner two thirds of the time, and not one third?

[Coleman]

Only states can have citizens and one can only be a citizen of a state.

Thats a very limited view. Citizenship was originally created for freemen of Cities, not states. Many countries retain this concept - In the Nederlands, every resident of a city must register as a Citizen of that city, giving them rights to vote in that district.

The truth has the limitation of being limiting. i

The idea of citizenship in fact goes back thousands of years to the city-states of ancient Greece so the distinction you make is somewhat invalid. Declining with the fall of the Roman Empire the concept of citizenship re-emerged with the spread of democracy as people transferred their allegiance from the king to the state and consequently became known as citizens or nationals rather than subjects.

There have always been exceptions such as the example you cite but it is absurd to base an argument on rule-proving exceptions. Citizenship is an objective legal concept with political implications, bringing with it rights and duties, and normally means full membership of a country or state. This is why the EU wants to construct a citizenship for its artificial creation.

We already are EU citizens. We approved this back in 1992 if I remember correctly.

At present citizenship "complements" national citizenship with the latter clearly being primary. Lisbon institutes an important change making citizenship "additional to" national citizenship giving both parity of esteem. Over time it is reasonable to assume that the EU citizenship would be primary just as American citizenship is primary and individual state citizenship secondary. Having softened us up to the notion of being citizens of the EU, it now wants to clamp this into place, legally speaking.

[midlander12]

I voted NO because I favour a European free trade zone and THAT'S IT. Once the EU elite got the single market through they immediately turned their attention to reducing the sovereignty of the members states and their control over their economies (the famous 'European project'). In many ways it has gone to far for a NO to Lisbon to make any difference but it was no harm to fire a shot across their bows. By the way, I'm convinced the political class here are going to try and ratify it by stealth without another referendum. If the voters put up with this we really do not deserve what's left of our independence. So what if we are on the same side as the Tories, the evil Polish twin and the Czech president, it's because our 'opposition' is non-existent and would rather argue about how much FF spent on posters.

[Gladiator]

I voted Yes because I would rather be dead than be on the same side as Ganley, Adams, Higgins etc in any political argument. Pity there wasn't more negative campaigning from the Yes side against these self-serving publicity seekers. The Lisbon treaty would have been pushed through by a big margin if the political establishment had done it's job properly. Idiots. It was also naive in the extreme of those "confused" NO voters to believe that there would be no serious repurcussions.