Private polling and focus groups indicate Lisbon 2 may be lost: Sunday Times

[myksav]

Yes OK. That's in Ireland, or the other 500 million Europeans?

Ask them.

Oh yeah, they don't need referenda for their Gov'ts to sign EU Treatys. Like someone who is not registered to vote here, those other 500 million Europeans votes don't count in respect to this Treaty.

[myksav]

Maybe here... again.

Bludy heck, you put the heart cross-wise in me with that picture.

[myksav]

A Lisbon 2 No means a descent into political turmoil in which no political party will be able to operate effectively for a decade or more.

Thanks for that line, tis a new one.

Think about the converse and what we have.

[myksav]

Lisbon 2 No win = bye bye automatic Irish Commissioner.
Lisbon 2 No win = bye bye any more FDI.

Have you switched sides, DS?

[SamVimesBoots]

The question is probably more like would Irish workers vote to go back to a deregulated arrangement (EFTA) where labour, employment and health & safety laws might go to pot.

That's ridiculous.

Are you saying that no conceivable Irish Government could enact sane labour and H&S laws that maintained acceptable standards while minimising bureaucracy?

Pro-EU people seem to have this dreadful inferiority complex whereby no Irish Government could ever possibly do things properly and we need Mutha in Brussels to civilise us.

Granted most of our Governments since Independence have been pretty useless, but the response to that is to educate the electorate to put a higher calibre of TD in the Dáil to run Ireland's business properly! It's not to do what you and other Europhiles are doing and advocating the abandonment of any meaningful nationals sovereignty on the grounds that we'll never get it right!

What is it with this country and the aiming for low targets and failing to achieve them? Sheesh.

Getting Brussels to wipe your arse cos you're too hopeless and apathetic to up your game and do it yourself is infantile and degrading.

[myksav]

can anyone else verify that ones ballot paper is traceable ?,i know it was at one time but i thought things had changed.

Only to a particular area, but no data on who is voting is trace-able. The only variation in the voting papers is the voter's choice, candidates in an election, yes or no in a referendum, otherwise the papers are identical in each box.

[CookieMonster]

Bludy heck, you put the heart cross-wise in me with that picture.

Why's that?

[MrFunkyBoogaloo]

Lisbon 2 No win = bye bye automatic Irish Commissioner.

Is this the level of debate from some on the YES side?

FYI; (Both quotes are from Wikipedia.)

Future of the Commission; Under the Treaty of Nice, the first Commission to be appointed after the number of member states reaches 27 will be reduced to "less than the number of Member States". The exact number of Commissioners is to be decided by a unanimous vote of the European Council and membership will rotate equally between member states.

We still act under Nice if Lisbon falls.. Ergo a unanimous vote means Ireland could block the reduction of the Commission!

The Treaty of Lisbon stated that the size of the Commission would reduce from one per member state to one for two thirds of member states from 2014. This would have ended the arrangement which has existed since 1957 of having at least one Commission for each Member State at all times. However, the Treaty also providedthat the European Council could unanimously decide to alter this number.

Important for Lisbon Yes, as it removes the 2014 criteria (i think?!?) but pointless when you take provision of Nice into account. A defunkt point IMO.. A commissioner job is to be independent and act on behalf on the E.U. Not the member state they come from!

Lisbon 2 No win = bye bye any more FDI.

First of all How? Has it happened before? By whom? When? and Why?

And secondly, imagine for a second (which you obviously are) that funding for FDI dried up if the Irish rejected Lisbon. What would that action say about the perception of the E.U. as a whole? It certainly would not be a democratic one.

You must also remember that...

[COLOR=#8b0000]"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly … All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way."[/COLOR]

[COLOR=darkred]"The difference between the original Constitution and the present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach, rather than content … The proposals in the original constitutional treaty are practically unchanged. They have simply been dispersed through the old treaties in the form of amendments. Why this subtle change? Above all, to head off any threat of referenda by avoiding any form of constitutional vocabulary."[/COLOR]

V.Giscard D'Estaing - (former President of France who helped to draw up the Constitution!!) speaking about the Lisbon Treaty in 2007

And here we are with the same Lisbon Treaty again.


And i apologise for skewing the thread off topic.

[hiding behind a poster]

We still act under Nice if Lisbon falls.. Ergo a unanimous vote means Ireland could block the reduction of the Commission!

Wrong. The vote has already taken place. It was unanimous.

[MrFunkyBoogaloo]

Wrong. The vote has already taken place. It was unanimous.

i'm glad to see that you either agree or see no fault in the rest of my post . But it does point out that Nice was, in respect of the commission, a far better deal for those who seem to care about it, even though the Gov sold them down the river on it post-haste.

..but i didn't know that a decision had been made.. would you have any links?