As I understand it, Lisbon is the first treaty to formally begin the process of embodying a concept of European citizenship - and so without Lisbon, discussion of the EU as a single political entity with a single demos is somewhat moot.

European citizenship has been in every treaty since Maarstricht. In point of fact, one of Denmark's four opt-outs to Maarstricht was to Union citizenship (an opt-out that has since been quietly dropped - it is now interpreted an opt-out from replacing Danish citizenship with Union citizenship...).

Even under current rules, I have rights by virtue of being a citizen of the European Union - among them, the right to move to any other Union country with my family. We may debate whether those rules are derived from sovereign parliaments who have entered into treaties binding them to enact such laws, or they arise from a genuine federal mandate. But what is clear is that they are enforced by the various courts at the federal level. And as they say, possession is nine tenths of the law.

No Treaty or common citizenship rights deriving from Lisbon or any other past or proposed treaty gives the right to one member state to demand a plebiscite in another on any issue.  We might like - e.g. the UK to hold a referendum on joining the Euro, or giving independence to Scotland, but we cannot demand it, or imply that the UK is somehow failing to live up to its EU Treaty obligations for failing to conduct one.

But we can refuse to enter into further commitments with them until and unless they do. Just as we could refuse to enter into further commitments with Belarus until and unless they start holding elections. I happen to think that, on balance, rejecting Lisbon on the argument that the rest of Europe lacks sufficient democratic credentials to entrust further Irish sovereignty to it is probably A Bad Idea. But I recognise that the case can be made (albeit probably not so convincingly by Libertas...).

So lets bring in the Nazis to make it better?

I'm gonna call Godwin on that one. Unpleasant as Ganley is, he is no Hitler.

On the larger point, I thought that you were the one who argued that the referendum on Lisbon should not be treated as a vote of confidence in the flagship parties of the "yes" campaign?

The EU is a fundamentally unstable and inert body for so long as any 1% can always hold the 99% to ransom.  That is the problematic the integration process is slowly trying to address through a series of incremental Treaties, and that is why it is so bitterly opposed by nationalist groups who don't want the EU to develop or even exist in the first place.

Of course that's true, which is why the requirement for unanimity is silly. But doing away with unanimity does not mean doing away with referenda - one could, say, move towards a double-majority system. But you're still trying to have it both ways - as long as Ireland cannot formally object to the ratification procedures of other member states, Ireland ought to retain its veto rights. For myself, I would be in favour of doing away with unanimity and further standardise ratification procedures in order to prevent precisely this kind of impasse in the future.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.