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About LinkBacksBit early for the soundbyte propoganda, don't you think?Originally Posted by FrankSpeaks
Yes
No
Bit early for the soundbyte propoganda, don't you think?
P.ie polls were pretty spot on for Lisbon 1.
It should not have come to this. What part of listen do they not understand?
On today, Friday 19 June, a little before 3 pm the Irish Prime Minister Brian
Cowen entered his briefing room on the 20th floor in the Justus
Lipsius bulding in Brussels to claim a big political victory.
"We came to have legally binding guarantees, and we got them."
The Irish had arranged a drama with the Council presidency and the
British delegation by leaking a confidential letter from the Irish
Prime Minister to the other Prime Ministers. He asked them to support
a legally binding protocol on Irish concerns, to be able to call
and win a second Lisbon referendum.
The British played their role to perfection. It would be very
difficult to deliver that to the Irish. The negotiations could not be
finished on the first day. The prime ministers needed to use the night
for these very difficult negotiations - resulting in a document that was
actually finalised days before...
The press was then invited to play their role in what looked like a
re-play of the famous fairy tale of Hans Christian Andersen: The
Emperor's New Clothes. Claim a big Irish victory to help the Irish
Prime Minister convince the Irish voters to change their No into a
Yes.
There is no real content in these so-called Irish guarantees. But they
will be inserted in the next treaty following the implementation of
the Lisbon Treaty. It may be the next accession treaty with Croatia.
It could also be with a new protocol changing the numbers of seats of the
European Parliament. Any treaty can include the document or part of
the document called "Ireland and the Treaty of Lisbon".
It will make it legally binding. Until then it exists simply as a
political agreement between prime ministers to agree on something at
some point in the future. This is possible politically, but not
legally. No government can bind the next government. No parliament can
bind voters to come back and give support for this Protocol.
If Ireland insists that the agreement made on 19 June is legally
binding, there is only one way forward: to open the ratification
process on the Lisbon Treaty again and have all 27 member states sign and ratify an amended Lisbon Treaty.
They cannot claim a legally binding victory and then avoid the necessary
ratification together with the Lisbon Treaty. Under EU law a protocol
is only legally binding when it is ratified by all member states. There is
no third way. You cannot have your cake and eat it. Not-binding is
still not identical with binding.
There is now a possibility of re-opening the debate of the Lisbon Treaty.
Others may have other suggestions, for example seekng legally binding
protocols on Democracy, Accountability and Transparency. These are
more needed than the Irish assurances, since the latter change nothing.
But they establish enough legal uncertainty on the interpretation of
existing treaty articles to make it fully legitimate to require new
ratifications in all Member State parliaments.
Hopefully some parties, MPs and at least one President - Czech President
Vaclav Klaus - may now demand that.
Lawyers will support this argument. For example, I have received the following
comment from Mr Leolin Price CBE QC today: " The Lisbon Treaty is not yet in force. To be in force it requires ratification by all Member States. The Irish 'No' means that the present position in domestic UK law is that the Treaty is not yet operative and does not have any relevant legal status.
"Changes to the Treaty to help the Irish Government get the Irish "No" replaced, in a Second Referendum, by a new Irish "Yes", will mean that existing ratifications by member states, including the UK, will be without effect; and re-ratification of the Treaty including the changes, will be necessary in order to give the changed Treaty operative effect and status under UK law.
" 'Guarantees"'given to the Irish, or new 'interpretations' which change the effect of the Treaty have the same consequence as any more formal changes: they make existing ratifications irrelevant and require re-ratification by all member states which have so far given their ratification. In particular the UK 'ratification' already given will not be effective and under UK law there will have to be a new ratification in order to give any effect to the Treaty. "
In 1992 the Danish government tried to bind a future Danish parliament
by ratifying a change to come at a later day. A professor of State
law, the late High Court judge Henrik Zahle, issued a memorandum
against "giving up sovereignty in advance".
The Danish Government had to withdraw this future decision from the
Referendum Bill and give a free hand to future politicians. It is just
as illegal to try to bind future politicians as to include the Irish Assurances
in a future treaty.
It is not possible. Then, the Irish Government will claim the
commitment is legal under international law. The agreement will be
sent to the register of international agreements at the United Nations
and thereby be legally binding between governments.
This is a breach of the Lisbon Treaty Art. 344 and the similar rule in
the Nice Treaty forbidding Member States from settling conflicts of
interpretation outside the EU institutions. There is only one
court that is able to settle conflicts between EU Member States, and this is the
European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
THE1992 DANISH OPT-OUTS
The European Council made a similar exercise after the Danish No to
the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. But that time the Danish opt-outs were
already in the treaty. The treaty articles were legally binding. The 1992
Edinburgh Agreement was more of a moral commitment from the other
prime ministers. Conflicts over the interpretaton of the Maastricht Treaty
could not be settled in the international court in the Hague. Only in the
EU Court in Luxembourg.
The whole EU Summit strategy for dealing with the Irish No vote was
similar to the way the prime ministers at the time established the
Edinburgh Agreement of December 1992. Denmark then exchanged its No to
Maastricht for political guarantees that the Danish opt-outs from
some provisions of that Treaty could only be changed by a new Danish
referendum.
The European Council has now made another "decision" of the prime
ministers and presidents of the EU Member States.
This so-called "decision" did not previously exist as a formal legal
instrument of EU summits. It was specially invented to get around the
Danish No to Maastricht in 1992, by the head of the Council legal
service, Jean-Claude Piris.
It is a creative way of giving people a feeling of legal certainty
which does not and cannot exist since only properly ratified EU
treaties, with their Protocols, can offer binding legal guarantees in
EU law.
This "decision" of the EU summit changes absolutely nothing in the
treaties. If it did change anything, even the smallest change could
only be validated through new ratifications by all 27 member states in
their national parliaments or by referendums.
Just as in the 1992 Edinburgh Agreement these Irish "assurances"
include an explicit statement that "these concerns (are) in confirmity
with that treaty".
This is the core sentence in the Summit document. In the so-called
"Irish assurances" not one single comma in the Lisbon Treaty will be
changed.
Up until now no government has been able to give a single example of a
national law which cannot be affected in some way or other by the
Lisbon Treaty.
This does not mean that the current generation of politicians has in
mind the establishment of European laws in all areas. But in reality
they could do this if they wished with a few derogations. Decisions of
the European Court could also affect virtually every single area of
what is currently believed to be a purely national responsibility.
This "decision" of the EU summit isn't signed by the heads of states
or government. In legal form it is simply an Annex to a Summit
Declaration which, in contrast to a Treaty Protocol, is not binding in
EU law.
The "decision" is followed by a common "solemn declaration" which may
express the intentions of the politicians taking part. It does not
prevent politicians at future summits affecting these "assurances".
Finally, Ireland has its own Irish Declaration. A unilateral
Declaration of this kind has to be interpreted as a statement of
position by one state which the others do not necessarily agree with.
If they did agree to it, itwould have been part of the joint declaration
or the earlier "decision", in the name of all 27 states.
Jens Peter Bonde
'Personally, I find the notion of changing our constitution in exchange for a loan absolutely disgusting'. - Tin Foil Hat
It will be closer once the full site membership has voted.
The place is crawling with FG and FFers.
It's a hell of an infestation!
“we will permanently end waiting lists in our hospitals within two years": Fianna Fail 2002 Manefesto
"41,000 patients on hospital waiting lists": RTE News (2007)
A resounding NO. Not only that, but I'll be pestering everyone I know until they agree to do the same.
If you 'pester' you will only pester them into voting Yes. Your not going to be in the polling booth with them. You can only persuade.
At this point in time, I'll be voting No. There are four or five months of campaigning ahead and I may be persuaded otherwise but I doubt it.
Just to give some context to this. I would consider myself centre right, loosely conservative on social issues and a supporter of globalisation and the free market. I'll be voting for FG in the next GE and I would never vote for sf or the other assortment of socialists who will be lining up against Lisbon II.
I am not a relentless Eurosceptic. Europe works as a trading bloc. I would also support the pooling of military resources in Europe so that the evil perpetrated in Bosnia (as the EU stood idly by) could never happen again.
I am, however, oppossed to the creeping federalisation of the EU. We will never be given a referendum with the question: "Do you support a Federal Europe?". In the EU, federalisation comes dripping slowly, treaty by treaty. For me, this is the time to shout stop.
No true democrat could feel at ease with how the EU has managed its latest Treaty. France and Holland vote No to the Constitution. The Constitution is then re-packaged as a Treaty (thus by-passing a second referendum in both countries). Ireland was the only country whose constitution offered us a chance to vote. We said No. We are being asked again to get the right answer. This is simply wrong. Does anybody feel at ease with this? Oh, I know there are legal reasons behind the scenario set out above. But the beauty of democracy is in its simplicity - one man, one vote, majority wins.
Democracy should not need teams of lawyers and bureaucrats finding loopholes and work-arounds. Should it?
Right then. 'Persuade' it is.
It shouldn't be too hard anyway. Almost everyone I know voted no last time. Nothing has changed, except that many of them are grossly offended at being asked to vote again.
Just like last time I'll be voting YES.
I think it'll be very difficult indeed to find those 500,000 who voted no the last time. As it stands, at least 10 people who I know for a fact voted no the last time have denied doing so! And the cock crew three times....
It was actually something like 860k that voted No IIRC.
