Lisbon defeated what happens next ?

TV said:
They must clearly deliver the message that the irish people have given their view. Respect this view should be the message.
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To respect the view it has to be understood. So the following explanations will be provided.

Irish people do not like abortion and prostitution and they thought that was in the Treaty;

Irish people hate being involved in wars even just wars like against Hitler, after all there has always been somebody like America or Britain to protect them. They thought this Treaty would force them into wars;

Irish women do not want their sons conscripted and they thought this Treaty would do that;

Irish workers do not like competition from Eastern Europe and 70% of them voted No, the killer punch; actually in this case they were accurately interpreting the direction of the European project;

People like TV think the Treaty is going to privitise;) education, and that is a cold place to be;

Still others are in fear of the dreaded "surveylance";

Others felt that decisions would be made behind closed doors as soon as there was a power cut and the proceedings of the Council could no longer be broadcast.

Our EU colleagues will make up their own minds but we can't insist that they respect the above views.
 
Harchibald said:
To respect the view it has to be understood. So the following explanations will be provided.
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Harchibald said:
Irish people do not like abortion and prostitution and they thought that was in the Treaty;

Irish people hate being involved in wars even just wars like against Hitler; after all there has always been somebody like America or Britain to protect them. They thought this Treaty would force them into wars;

Irish women do not want their sons conscripted and they thought this Treaty would do that;

Irish workers do not like competition from Eastern Europe and 70% of them voted No, the killer punch; actually in this case they were accurately interpreting the direction of the European project;

People like TV think the Treaty is going to privitise education, and that is a cold place to be;

Still others are in fear of the dreaded "surveylance";

Others felt that decisions would be made behind closed doors as soon as there was a power cut and the proceedings of the Council could no longer be broadcast.

Our EU colleagues will make up their own minds but we can't insist that they respect the above views.
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YOU are characterising the no vote under these terms. That’s fine, but it is actually adding little to the discussion. There is little from the above that actually points to any real understanding of why the majority of people may have voted no. Just a blinkered one sided tirade.

I would say in responding to the above however. To take it point by point.

1. When this treaty does come into force the European court of justice has a greater say in these kind of ethical issues. It is not so farfetched to suggest that the Irish rules surrounding abortion could be undermined in the future from interpretations from the ECJ??? It is a possibility, and maybe if you agree with abortion a good one, and even if we have got assurances about this from Nice 2 we have got assurances about Lisbon being scraped if there was not unanimity and look where we are heading with that assurance.

2. Irish people do not like an increasingly militarised Europe which is desperately trying to compete militarily with the big boys of America China etc. They perhaps want Europe to offer a different kind of direction in terms of Global politics rather than just complete in an Arms race and to prop up the fortunes of European armaments corporations. It is a reasonable concern.

3. Irish workers want their rights and the rights of migrant workers respected in any enlarged project. Another very reasonable concern

4. Yes many people including me believe a reformed public service is the best way to ensure equity to all citizens in terms of accessing essential services like health and education. This is a position I suggest that most European citizens would agree with.

5. There is a perfectly reasonable and logical ethical argument for suggesting that there is an ever increasing surveillance society emerging. This is a reasonable ethical debate in itself although I have not heard one person arguing this point as a reason for voting against Lisbon.

Continue with the diatribe if you wish. Continue with ignoring or misrepresenting people’s reasonable concerns about Lisbon. Continue to display an arrogant boorishness; it does little for the quality of your argument however.
 
I think the Treaty is dead. The No vote here as focused Europes attention on the Treaty, which many EU politicians had been hoping would get passed without any of their own electorate noticing. I would guess that a lot of these politicians will have to review their stance before the next election in their countries or else risk losing seats. Some of them were already a bit nervous about this treaty beforehand and are even more nervous now. A lot of the negative reaction we've seen in recent days is because of this - we've focused the EU electorates thoughts on the positions of their elected representatives and these representatives are not happy being put in the spotlight.
 
It turns out that an internal audit of the expenses and staff costs submitted by MEP's this year found serious abuse of the €16,000 a month allowance for paying assistants. Some paid their wives. Others claimed while employing no assistants.

So the European parliament would want to expose this, right?

Actually the parliament refused to release the report.

But they tell us to 'trust' them.

I believe that this is the Europe the Irish said no to.

On a positive note - it is good to see such a debate as we are having here. This same debate should be happening all over Europe, about the future European citizens see for Europe.
 
Any talk of Ireland being forced to leave the EU or being left out by the other 26 is just that. Whereas we may be small, there are other reasons why it is very difficult for the EU to let us go alone.

The EU, like all major world powers, has its thinktanks which consider future scenarios in great detail. No doubt that their strategists have considered the impact on the EU of various possible outcomes. Ireland leaving the EU, whether by choice or forced, is something that the EU cannot afford for the following strategic reasons;

Oil/Gas
Ireland is the only country in the EU that is likely to produce any significant reserves of oil or gas in the medium to long term future. With ever improving off-shore drilling technology, drilling for oil & gas is becoming more and more a reality. Unfortunately for the EU, Ireland has sovereignty over the Atlantic shelf oil and gas reserves.

Fishing Rights;
As per above, the fishing industry in Spain and Portugal would be eliminated overnight if it did not have access to Irish waters. We have sovereignty over the EU's major Atlantic fishing areas.

Air Transport:
Irish air traffic control covers half the Atlantic. Cant realistically fly from Europe to USA without going through Irish airspace.

NAFTA:
We are the only European country who could negotiate its way into NAFTA (or at least a favourable trading relationship with it), so the EU is not the only show in town for Ireland for free market access. EU would hate to have a NAFTA member on its doorstep.
 
TV I thought my analysis of the reasons for the No vote was rapier satire. However, you took the majority of my caricatures and actually jusitified them.:eek:


But maybe I'm wrong and we can survive without the EU. I take heart from csirl's post that we are verging on super power status if we could only exploit our vast strategic advantages.:rolleyes:
 
Harchibald said:
TV I thought my analysis of the reasons for the No vote was rapier satire. However, you took the majority of my caricatures and actually jusitified them.:eek:.:rolleyes:
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Satire or a tirade? Or only joking or half in earnest?? My point was that some of these concerns are legimate. Even if you do want to make satire out of them (pretty poor satire). As was mentioned earlier, loosing our coroprate tax rate was not in the document but after the no vote the French were quick to role back on that one. Funny that.
 
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Danger of going off topic here, but what's this all about our fishes? I thought we were only entitled to 3 miles off our coast. Do we own half the Atlantic fishing rights, except we gave them to the EU?
 
uiop said:
I was going to mention fishing myself. Talk is often made of the money we got from the EU. Noone ever mentions the billions upon billions worth of fish we gave back to them ; since 1973, worth far more than we took in EU grants. Barroso won't want to destroy the fishing economy of Portugal. Only problem is Cowen is untested as leader and seems a bit passive in front of these boys from the big EU smoke..
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The idea that other countries took more than €50bn worth of fish from our waters is pure fantasy.
 
Harchibald said:
To respect the view it has to be understood. So the following explanations will be provided.

Irish people do not like abortion and prostitution and they thought that was in the Treaty;

Irish people hate being involved in wars even just wars like against Hitler, after all there has always been somebody like America or Britain to protect them. They thought this Treaty would force them into wars;

Irish women do not want their sons conscripted and they thought this Treaty would do that;

Irish workers do not like competition from Eastern Europe and 70% of them voted No, the killer punch; actually in this case they were accurately interpreting the direction of the European project;

People like TV think the Treaty is going to privitise;) education, and that is a cold place to be;

Still others are in fear of the dreaded "surveylance";

Others felt that decisions would be made behind closed doors as soon as there was a power cut and the proceedings of the Council could no longer be broadcast.

Our EU colleagues will make up their own minds but we can't insist that they respect the above views.
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I voted NO and I didn't believe any of those things. I voted based on the document. The yes side like to explain away the no vote by attributing it to ignorance - that's just insulting. I voted no because I believe in democracy and guess what - now that France (sorry not France, they voted NO too) but Sarkozy is looking for another vote - I was right - the EU is no longer a democratic place.
Since when was a NO a YES?
 
cjh said:
I voted NO and I didn't believe any of those things. I voted based on the document.
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CJ, can you be more explicit. Was it the colour of the document? Its length maybe? The fact that it was an incomprehensibe amending legal tome? Or is there some particular substantive point you found objectionable?
 
Harchibald said:
Danger of going off topic here, but what's this all about our fishes? I thought we were only entitled to 3 miles off our coast. Do we own half the Atlantic fishing rights, except we gave them to the EU?
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Gave them to the EU, or were tricked out of them by those wiley eurocrats?
 
Harchibald said:
CJ, can you be more explicit. Was it the colour of the document? Its length maybe? The fact that it was an incomprehensibe amending legal tome? Or is there some particular substantive point you found objectionable?
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And you are an expert in the document?? Again why are people on here who disagree with the no vote ignoring many legitimate concerns people have about the Lisbon treaty based on the actual document.

1. Self ammending
2. Takes precident over irish constitution
3. Concerns over possible privatisation of public services (artical 188)
4. Allows for the Further militerisation of Europe (even if Ireland has an opt out, it has a right to voice this concern as European citizens)
5. Forcing us to eat staight bananas.
 
I was going to mention fishing myself. Talk is often made of the money we got from the EU. Noone ever mentions the billions upon billions worth of fish we gave back to them ; since 1973, worth far more than we took in EU grants. Barroso won't want to destroy the fishing economy of Portugal.
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One problem with this is Portugal only joined the EU in 1986 so our waters weren't give away to them or Spain in '73. Spain had been fishing our "precious" before we joined the EEC anyway. As had everybody else since how could we stop them as we've no navy to speak of.

Another problem is "noone ever mentions" isn't true, in the last week every single Noer I've heard has come out with more and more ludicrous estimates of the value of our fishing area. Apparently in the '70s we were a thriving fishing based economy, instead of the struggling backwater with a ramshackle fishing fleet I seem to remember. The EU should be thanking us for joining.

What's really going here is most reasonable Noers can see that they're being just a little ungrateful, so by "calculating" the value of fisheries they feel a little more comfortable. Much better than admitting that possibly they were wrong.
 
ashambles said:
One problem with this is Portugal only joined the EU in 1986 so our waters weren't give away to them or Spain in '73. Spain had been fishing our "precious" before we joined the EEC anyway. As had everybody else since how could we stop them as we've no navy to speak of.

Another problem is "noone ever mentions" isn't true, in the last week every single Noer I've heard has come out with more and more ludicrous estimates of the value of our fishing area. Apparently in the '70s we were a thriving fishing based economy, instead of the struggling backwater with a ramshackle fishing fleet I seem to remember. The EU should be thanking us for joining.

What's really going here is most reasonable Noers can see that they're being just a little ungrateful, so by "calculating" the value of fisheries they feel a little more comfortable. Much better than admitting that possibly they were wrong.
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Something dare I say fishy about this whole marine angle. I was waching a documentary about the impact of EU fishing policy on small scale African fishermen specifically Senegal. Something none of us should be proud of.
 
television said:
Ouch that gotta hurt Harchibald!!
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Not at all. I have freely admitted that I did not read the document. My vote Yes was on the following planks:

I trust our elected reps and the leaders of our society;

I most certainly mistrust Sinn Fein;

The rest of the looneys - Dana, Dunphy, Rossie, Ganly, Gaybo, Sinead (I have had an abortion) O'Connor, Vincent (I am oh so clever) Browne etc. etc. made Yes a bit of a no brainer;

I don't think it is a good idea to make enemies with Sarko/Merky/Brown et al.

And most definitely I do not want to get into bed with British fascists;

But most of all, No was never going to be allowed to stick. We are going to have to vote Yes eventually or get out. Meanwhile a No vote has completely blown our goodwill where it counts, and boy have we received it up to now and do we need it in future.

CJ rejected all your arguments for a No and a few others I had thrown in. His main objection was with the document itself. I thought that needed some clarification.
 
Harchibald said:
CJ rejected all your arguments for a No and a few others I had thrown in. His main objection was with the document itself. I thought that needed some clarification.
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To clarify, these were not my arguments they were your attempt at sacrasm. I was simply taking each one and making a legitimate counter argument from certain people who voted no and may have had these concerns.

One of the reasons I voted no is there all right the others I have not made an argument for.

1.The self ammending aspect of the treaty
2. Artical 188.
 
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