For the record, I do support Lisbon, but was appalled by the campaign run by the Yes side. A second referendum will also be defeated - possibly by a wider margin - unless it is clear that clarification of some contentious issues has been achieved, Irish concerns have been taken on board, there is no sense of Ireland being bullied and there is a wider commitment to greater transparency and accountability within the EU - starting with the EU Parliament elections next June.
Sarkozy's intervention is precisely what we do not need if there is to be any prospect of a Yes vote if there is to be a next time.
BTW I also support the right of the other 26 Member states to go their own way and create a new Lisbon based EU leaving Ireland behind in a one member Nice EU. It's hardly democratic for one Government representing 4 Million to tell 26 Governments elected to represent 500 million what they can and can't do - now is it?
In my view, that is probably what will happen if a second referendum is defeated - and then Ireland will be headed back to the dark days of the 50's and 60's. I Don't think that is what 90% of No voters want - although some fundamentalist nationalist zealots want precisely that and they successfully hid that agenda from the electorate.
It is ironic that we are so good at lecturing Northern Unionists on the need to share power with nationalists, but when it comes to sharing power with 26 other Governments we suddenly become ultra-nationalists and want everything our own way.
I know there are many people within other member states who also oppose Lisbon and that is fair enough. However it is the ultimate arrogance and conceit for Ireland to claim the right to tell other democratically elected Governments how to run their countries - particularly when they have other constitutional arrangements which may or may not include provision for referenda.
The other governments will be perfectly within their rights to cast Ireland adrift and do their own thing in their own way if Ireland should seek to go its own way again. No one can force them to remain in a Nice EU or stop them from creating a Lisbon EU if they decise it is in their best interests to do so - and their electorates continue to elect pro-Lisbon Governments.
I am hoping it won't come to that, but Sarkozy's remarks run the risk of sharpening the divide between Ireland and the other 26 member states still further. Maybe that's fine from a New York perspective, but I doubt most people in Cavan will be too happy to go back to being outside the EU.
PS I referenced your US address because we have heard rather a lot from US based Irishmen such as Declan Ganly of Libertas with close links to the US defense establishment and who oppose Lisbon because it might impede the ability of the US to conclude bilateral agreements with individual European States on rendition, missile shields etc. - agreements that a common EU Foreign policy and Foreign Affairs representative might make more difficult to conclude.
I have no difficulty with anyone with any address expressing their views on Lisbon - but in a few cases there is at least a suspicious that some posed as patriotic Irishmen when in fact they were working for very different interests indeed. I don't have a problem with US neo-cons opposing Lisbon, but I would like more clarity as to who's interests they serve. I suggest it is not in Ireland's interest to alienate the other 26 Member Governments and that is what we are becoming perilously close to doing. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
'Course that doesn't prove anything in and of itself: The British Empire didn't like the unification of Germany either, but that does not in and of itself mean that Bismarck's Germany was a force for good in the world...
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
a), that Ireland is not bullied, because the Irish are allowed a voice; but (b) that voice should not be allowed, because it's running contrary to what other countries' politicians want, who have in fact usurped their own constituents right to speak on the topic.
The Irish can do and say as they want, subject only to the constraints of their Constitution and previous Treaty obligations freely entered into. Anybody (including Sarkozy) who thinks they can't be bullied is in for a rude awakening.
However the same applies to the other 26 Member nations subject to the same constraints - which may be different in each case. Which means they too can proceed to implement Lisbon without Ireland. Bottom line, the EU is a powersharing arrangement. If Ireland wants to go a different route, or stay where it is whilst the others move on, it is perfect welcome to do so. What it can't do - under any Treaty signed to date - is stop the others moving on.
You may not be a neocon, but you certainly share the explicit neocon and Murdoch Newspaper agenda of re-defining democracy as direct popular democracy on specific issues. Whether you are I like it or not, many EU countries have almost no tradition of plebiscites. They elect and defeat Governments to make decisions on their behalf on complex matters. An Opinion poll is not a form of democracy. Even the UK has only has a mechanism for conducting a plebiscite since the 1973 Local Government Act. (And neither does the USA conduct plebiscites on specific issue - Switzerland is one of the few countries to do so)
So your familiar rant about Ireland rescuing the people of Europe from the machinations of their politicians (or the Brussels bureaucrats who are completely irrelevant to this debate) is so much waffle designed to cover up that you - like the neo-cons - claim the right to tell individual EU democracies how they should run their democracies. (Incidentally, Sarkozy campaigned for the Presidency saying he would not hold a referendum on Lisbon).
I very much doubt you have ever read the Nice Treaty or can point to any specific deleterious effects it has has on those you so patronisingly call "the common man" in Ireland. A generic rant against globalising capitalism just won't do. The EU (and France/Germany) have a much stronger track record of regulating its excesses that the US/UK. Nice has helped to strengthen, not weaken, those regulatory and democratic controls.
Once again I invite you to write your own diary arguing (and evidencing) your case that Gregory Grene:
the results of Nice for the common man were pretty much uniformly bad
You have to date not given a scrap of evidence to support that assertion - either in the Irish Times or here. It comes straight out of Neo-con/Murdoch propaganda machine whether you realise it or not. NO ONE on the NO side in Ireland argued that case in any case. They argued FOR the Nice status quo. (Some are, indeed against Ireland's membership of the EU per se, but kept that agenda well hidden as they knew they would lose overwhelmingly if that became the issue at stake).
Over to you. Evidence please. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
Whether you are I like it or not, many EU countries have almost no tradition of plebiscites. They elect and defeat Governments to make decisions on their behalf on complex matters.
I'm always somewhat suspicious of politicians who want me to vote on compllex treaties. After all I really dont want to spend my life reading through the paperwork in much the same way as I dont want to read the licences that come with computer software. Fortunately I am paying some other poor fool to read the documentation and come to a considered opinion. If they are not going to read the treaty and do their job, why should I pay them?
Insisting on a referendum on the treaty means they're avoiding their responsibilities because they think theyve already lost the argument. Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
I said that the results of Nice for the common man were pretty much uniformly bad.
No idea re the neocons. I can't stand them myself, I think their creed is largely hateful and the effects endlessly destructive. However, I would suspect they would see Nice and Lisbon, in the same light as NAFTA, and side with you in supporting them, as all three benefit the tycoons and the power brokers while hammering the little guy.
The folks who really saw benefit from Nice are transnational industrialists and investors, who can utilize the cheapest possible labor, and sell/invest to the greatest profit, and that is ultimately screwing the common citizen. Folks aren't stupid or misled when they think they got screwed. They did.
The answer to this is EU economic governance, such that you have the power to limit the raise to the bottom facilitated by a free trade zone. A prime example for that would a some kind of tax harmonization. Would you support such a step? It has been Ireland so far which has been profited by giving excess to the European market to international cooperations, without taxing them properly.
Another solution would be to withdraw from the Union outright and erect trade barriers to protect Irish labor from competition.
You should make clear where you stand. It is not enough to reject the Lisbon treaty, but then to turn around and demand a solution from those "elites" you profess to despise.
I do support Lisbon, but was appalled by the campaign run by the Yes side.
