Lisbon charm offensive
This time next year surely the Lisbon Treaty must either be dead and buried or alive and kicking. 
My prediction is that next week the Irish government will announce that it will ask the Irish people to vote again on the Lisbon Treaty in a new referendum next autumn.
The Irish prime minister is on a whistle-stop tour of Europe - first Luxembourg, then Germany, London on Thursday then a quick trip to Paris on Friday. While he does the major players, his Europe minister is visiting the capitals of the smaller countries. (Luxembourg may be a tiny country but Jean-Claude Juncker is a big player, on account of his political longevity and his role leading the eurozone countries.)
What they are hammering out is the outline of a deal to put to next week's European Council. They are looking for something that would allow them to say this is not holding the same vote all over again.
Whether the piece of paper ends up being called a protocol or an opt-out or whatever, it would amount to a series of disclaimers. Anyone who's been following the story would know what sort of things it would promise. It would say that Ireland's position on neutrality/abortion/tax will not be affected by the treaty. It's likely the other countries would readily agree that, if the Lisbon Treaty is voted through, the commission can stay at its current size. One of the worries was that Ireland would lose influence by losing a commissioner every so often.
Will this be enough for the No campaigners? Definitely not, they will regard this as undemocratic and insulting.
Will it be enough for the voters? It's a very high-risk gamble. On the one hand, in a deep financial crisis, the Irish government will argue now is not the time to cut ties and float away from the safe haven of the European Union - and there will be attempts to suggest that is what another No vote would mean.
But just look at Prime Minister Brian Cowan's poll ratings, which have been plunging since the early summer, and you know that he is gambling his job when the odds are against him.
And an even more intriguing question: what would a second No vote mean for the treaty? A famous Lady Bracknell quote - that losing one parent looks like a misfortune, but losing two looks like carelessness - might spring to the minds of other European leaders. But more to the point, it would either kill the treaty stone dead or force the EU to go ahead without Ireland.
Freeborn John: I will carry on writing about this and any other EU subject when I feel like it and when it is appropriate. Lisbon is important but so is the effect of such treaties in people's ordinary life: so what sort of cars we drive, and what fish people are allowed to catch are at least as interesting to me as grand institutional arrangements.
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My sense is that, even if Mr.Cowan does secure another vote and win it, the damage has been done. The cynics will point out that if you keep returning to the electorate over again until you get the result you want, the democratic process is not worth the candle. If the vote is lost, the enthusiasts will once again raise the spectre of a two speed Europe with Ireland in the slow lane and the sceptics will continue to heap scorn on the whole process as unrepresentative and undemocratic whatever the outcome.
Lisbon - and by this I do not mean the treaty itself but the process by which it has been ratified elsewhere without electoral consultation has done great damage to the democratic credentials of the EU and it's member governments. It will be a sadly missed opportunity if, after all the careful preparation, this is lost because of a PR disaster but it is beginning to look as if the treaty should now be buried.
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the eu is doomed it is forced on to the people sooner or later the people of the EU wikll bring it down just like the berlin wall
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Well...
If the Irish vote No, then I have lost 5 euros
I don't think that the Irish voting for No will cut ties to Europe or the European Union as it is now. The No vote will for certainly mean that the negotiations for two speed Europe will begin. For Ireland this will mean that it has less to say in negotiations as it has turned down so many EU treaties that those countries pressing on for the more Federal Europe will not count or bend for it: it will probably be take it as it is or stay as you are. The same probably is true to other countries that have been continuously eurosceptic and have not done their share to advantage European integration.
I even think that there is a possibility that France and Germany could even be prepared to repudiate previous treaties, dissolve the EU and dictate what the successor for the EU will be and what its relationships will be for those countries that don't join the new union, if they can get enough countries to sign up for their alliance. For Britain that is in deep economic crisis this could very well be a choice of risking total collapse of the economy if saying no what is offered to it, accepting the terms or joining the new union.
Of course what usually happens is not the extreme option, but we are in a deep economic crisis and in deep crisis extreme things do take place.
Now if the Irish vote Yes, well then I have won 5 euros, if the bet is still on, and things will continue more or less as they are.
Part of me wants the Irish to vote Yes as that would further integration and part of me wants the Irish to say No as that could be the more interesting and creative alternative. Its a good question what will happen... If the economic crisis deepens and the US economy collapses, goes to deep depression, then the Irish will probably vote Yes.
To threnodio (1):
Electoral consultation is a hobby horse. What does it mean actually? An survey? An poll? A story in 45 minutes? A referendum? ... The only one that tells what the citizens think is the referendum and in that there is a great risk on citizens not knowing anything, and as has been said many times before, some systems don't even recognize referendums so what's wrong with doing it via parliament and accepted protocols?
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I have no doubt that the EU will persist with the constitution. The thing is that almost everyone with power deeply believes in the damn thing and can't understand how anyone but a liar or a fool can disagree.
The EU as it stands has enough power to get badly in the way of the Member States, but lacks the institutions necessary to wield that power. So it either has to go backwards, or create something like a powerful EU executive. The constitution is a move towards the latter, and the former is unthinkable to the powers that be.
Of course, once the executive gets up and running it will begin to eclipse the Member State politicians, who will look more like senators to an effective EU presidency. If it is, as our government pretends, merely about creating an envoy for the Member States and a stable co-ordinating officer for the European Council then little will be achieved towards giving the EU an effective government for the important powers it holds.
That is my prediction. The only thing that is certain is that, come the next Treaty, the pro-integrationalists will be swearing blind that the Treaty of Lisbon was of massive significance and the next one is a mere detail in comparison.
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To the moderaters of the coments,
please let the free speech reign, and allow all EUphiles say that our coments should be banned.
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Mark.
Well done on a gentlemanly riposte to Freeborn John.
He should appreciate that here he can write pretty much what he wants when he wants and his views do at least get read whether people agree with him or not.
If he's not happy with your blog he can always stick to the Telegraph or set up his own.
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I don't claim to understand the Lisbon Treaty. It is very difficult to read.
What about article 48? If I understand anti-Lisboners claims about it, it means that we would never need another treaty because they can change this one as much as they like. I feel more inclined to believe them than people like Blair, Barrosso, Brown etc.
If it isn't clear then don't blame me for not understanding it. I am reasonably good at that sort of thing. REWRITE IT!
If it's OK for Merkel, then it must be bad.
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On the Austrian Radio website I read that the "EU" is taking over the anti-pirate mission off Somalia from Nato.
This was reportedly announced by Javier Solano in Brussels on Wednesday.
I presume that this is part of the attempt to turn the "EU" into a superstate with its own military.
Millions don't want Lisbon and the Greater European Reich but their arrogances ignore us.
I wouldn't mind cooperation but not under the flag of the "EU".
Having to wear the "EU" flag on my uniform or operate under it would, for me, be a reason not to join the British forces or to leave if I was already in them.
Anti-democratic "EU"-lovers are the worst pirates.
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To SuffolkBoy2 (8):
So killing Iraqis under the British flag is a-okey, but protecting shipping and people from pirates under the EU flag is out of question? Sounds logical.
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My understanding is that if Ireland do not ratify the Lisbon Treaty, it is finished as it requires unanimous approval.
Countries can of course negoatiate a different treaty, but again it would require unanimous support of countries if it effects the institutions and running of the E.U. That is highly unlikely.
The only option would be for those that want ever closer political union to break away and form a new Union from scratch, leaving the remaining countries in the current E.U. Again highly unlikely.
The most probable course will be a stale mate with the E.U carrying on in it's present shape. There will be attempts to bring in some of the changes by the back door, but the game is up for this generation re the 'european project' - good
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The question though is should the BBC Europe Editor be able to report on any topic he pleases, when in practice he pleases to write a long stream of topics supportive of the EU cause and filter out other topics of arguably greater public interest?
How can it be explained that there was no BBC Europe coverage of the failure of CAP 'heath check'? Is it mere coincidence that the BBC Europe editor was in Scotland when this one off event was going on in Brussels, such that instead of reports of the failure of the EU to deliver on the one major reform that the British public had been led to expect would flow from sacrificing 20% of the UK rebate in 2005, we were instead treated to a series of BBC broadcasts about how great the reform of the common fisheries policy is?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/11/falling_fish_stocks.html
And is it not also a little fishy that the BBC man on the spot does not feel like blogging on the main story running in the UK this morning, i.e. the Today interview with Peter Mandelson during which the former Commissioner was asked who President Barosso was talking about when he said 'the people who matter' in the UK are now planning to take the country into the Euro?
The BBC is not any media outlet. I think we licence payers are entitled not just to impartial reporting of each EU story, but impartial selection of the stories which the BBC Europe editor 'feels like' reporting.
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#3 - Jukka_Rohila
It is not a hobby horse. It is about giving some kind of legitimacy to a process which has the appearance of being less than democratic. I hear everything you say about problems with refernda in parliamentary models such as the British and Finnish one where supremacy of parliament is paramount. I hear everything you are saying about numbers of people voting on matters that they have not fully understood. I still think that, without pursuing an elitist and undemocratic path, you cannot exclude people from a process purely on the basis of a lack of political sophistication, neither can you foist treaties onto people when there is a deep seated suspicion that the views of the people are being deliberately circumvented. I was careful to state my view that this is not necessarily a bad treaty but that it has turned into a PR disaster. I stick by that view.
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Anti-EU people are desperate to scupper the EU by any means as soon as possible.
Why as soon as possible?
Because time is against them.
As more and more young people become fully-fledged Europeans, the Anti-mob starts to shrink. To die off.
If they don't get their referenda soon, the game will be up.
The next few years are critical for both sides in this respect.
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I make the presumption that the Treaty of Lisbon will eventually be ratified. To not do what the Treaty strives to do achieve is illogical.
Part One:
As an interesting conundrum, ratification and implementation of the the Treaty of Lisbon could make the dealing with global crisis more problematic in the future.
One of the advantages of Lisbon is that it gives the EU Parliament ownership of the EU Regulations and Requirements - one of which is the anti-competitive legislation that prevents one country unfairly subsidising its own national industries to the potential disadvanyage of the same industry in other EU Member States.
As of this week, the French have sought to relax the EU anti-competition rules - allegedly in response to the global financial crisis. One immediately has in mind that the French may be seeking to protect Renault form the chill winds of the global recession.
Currently, such a request is most likely to be discussed privately between the various Council of Ministers and a consensus decision taken to deny or support the French proposal. One imagines that if the consensus for France to do something to protect its industry was to agree then the change could be done by France fairly quickly.
If the Treaty of Lisbon is implemented then I wonder if 750 (or 732 if Lisbon is not implemented) MEPs could as quickly agree on such a measure allowing one country to do something that is clearly to the detriment of other industrial EU nations and either, likely to cause mistrust at best or retaliation at worst.
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Part Two
As an aside, although the basis for the existence of the Lisbon Treaty does seem to be logical when viewed from the standpoint of further European integration, it does seem remarkably odd to me that the Treaty of Lisbon does uniquely enshrine the fact the the EU MUST target global climate change as a matter of policy.
This seems to give combatting Global Climate Change a higher degree of intent than say - poverty, social and racial disintegration or loss of civil liberties - which are some examples of policy direction that SHOULD have EQUAL importance to the EU dealing with Global Climate Change and should also be at the heart of EU Parliamentary debate and purpose.
My concern would be that MEPs would at some time in the future declare that they MUST put legislation for combatting Global Climate Change BEFORE they dealt with other social matters that are of equal gravitas.
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Jukka_Rohila @ #9
Your riposte to suffolkboy2 is a great example of an asinine comment.
As(s)inine; a definition
Failing to exercise intelligence or judgment; ridiculously below average rationality.
or
Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of donkeys.
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#13, The Midland 20,
You've lost the plot I'm afraid so stick to the Midlands as the EU won't save you, you say "If they don't get their referenda soon, the game will be up.". Sadly it's not just the UK that is fed up, but to the people who wear rose coloured glasses and have their own bizarre agenda you wish to subjugate the peoples of the EU. Maybe you should pay attention to history as sleeping dogs eventually wake up.
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11. Freeborn-John:
And off he goes again.
Maybe FBJ feels that the blog should be a democracy and we should all vote for what we want Mark to blog about?
Ah, but the catch in that of course would the absence of FBJ's dearly-beloved polity.
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"As more and more young people become fully-fledged Europeans, the Anti-mob starts to shrink. To die off."
Incorrect. But very poetic.
Young people were more inclined to reject Lisbon than middle-aged people in the June 2008 referendum. This will likely be repeated at a second vote. If anything, this indicates that "euroscepticism" (try not to swoon at the sight of the word) is actually on the rise in Ireland.
The patronising attitudes of foreign pro-Lisbon observers/politicians actually helps the anti-Lisbon campaign in Ireland, so by all means, keep it up. The one thing that Irish people will take from foreign reaction to the Lisbon rejection is this: the pro-Lisbon crowd were critical and snide. The anti-Lisbon crowd, in the UK especially, were supportive of Irish voters. We won't forget that.
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15. Menedemus:
Part Two
"it does seem remarkably odd to me that the Treaty of Lisbon does uniquely enshrine the fact the the EU MUST target global climate change as a matter of policy.
This seems to give combatting Global Climate Change a higher degree of intent than say - poverty, social and racial disintegration or loss of civil liberties"
There may be those who believe that the consequences of failing to combat climate change will make the issues of poverty, social and racial disintegration or loss of civil liberties fade into insignificance. I'm one of them.
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#16, Menedemus,
That's another word to use in conjunction with cozener when it comes to describing the asinine cozeners that seek to subjugate the poor, and elderly and us peasants who are unfortunate to be under the repressive dictate of an elite that makes an amoebae look intelligent.
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#20, greypolyglot,
You're in a very small and insignificant but voluble list these days, and also very gullible as you have succumbed to the politically correct scientists whose incomes depend on funding generated by people like you.
Soon maybe even you might come to regret that the issues of poverty, social and racial disintegration or loss of civil liberties are not of importance as to most of the non political elite in Europe they most certainly are.
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At least the Irish are being treat with respect and not rail roaded into the treaty as all other countries have done.
It will be interesting to see how many Labour MEP's loose their seats because of this although they will of course blame the economic state of our nation.
It will be a big test for our government the up and coming euro elections,i predict major loses for them because of the contempt they have shown to us all.
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How did peace come to northern ireland?
The trouble making generation grew out of it...
Where is the EU going?
The same way...
Youngsters don't see the need for the EU - they can easy-jet anywhere in europe whenever the feel like it, they tend to enjoy the national differences - otherwise they might as well stay at home...
What we need to do is minimise the damage the EU does as it thrashes around in its death throws - the treaty will give it false hope and prolong its misery - a second rejection by ireland would be a humane act.
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#20 - greypolyglot
This, presumably on the assumption that failure to address climate change will mean the end of us all? And the possibility that if we do not address poverty, social and racial disintegration or loss of civil liberties there will not be a lot of point in carrying on anyway does not occur to you?
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To Menedemus (16):
Thank you, thank you, thank you... You are too kind. To hear this kind of feedback gives me power to continue my thrive for excellence. I couldn't have do it with out you, you all have helped to achieve my goal, thank You!
To Menedemus (14):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_treaty
About part one...
The EU parliament in a case that you mentioned couldn't do the decision all by itself. It would still need the acceptance of the council of ministers. The other thing is that the parliament probably wouldn't do the decision, at least not in the form wanted by the French, after all there are free market advocates in other countries than UK.
Even after the Lisbon Treaty, the decision making system of the union will largely be and behave like it did before...
http://ec.europa.eu/codecision/stepbystep/diagram_en.htm
About part two...
So? Climate change is very important as if the climate changes it will change the environment of many countries and in worst case scenario can make some parts of Europe inhabitable. Large scale environmental changes in Europe or European zone of interest can have unsuitable effects to the union itself.
Just to give you an example... We in Turku, a city with metro are population of 230 thousand are building a new water source to get water to the city. Guess what the maximum capacity of it is? 500 thousand people. There is no way that our natural growth will reach 500 thousand people in 2050 or 2100, quite the opposite. When the local paper asked from the water works on why they are over-building it, their answer was more or less "due to climate change, we can't be totally sure that there wouldn't be 500 thousand people living in here in the future". The climate change is very real, and in a worst case scenario it can threaten the very existence of our civilization.
To threnodio (12):
"It is not a hobby horse. It is about giving some kind of legitimacy to a process which has the appearance of being less than democratic."
The legitimacy to treaties comes from the legitimacy of governments that accept them. If the people feel their government, their system, to be legitimate then the treaty and its consequences of it are accepted. If a government is legitimate, it can do decisions, even stupid ones and they are accepted as they were made by a legitimate government.
Besides, we should remember that the EU Constitution, which the Lisbon Treaty is, was made in the European Convention ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention ). The constitution was written and discussed at the time in public and people had the chance to take it in account when voting for their parliament members.
To jordanbasset (10):
What you want to ask is what is left of the EU if the Eurozone countries, minus Ireland, leave the EU and set up their ever closer union. The answer is nothing, the EU will be no more, there is no benefits, no advantages to those left behind.
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As an Irish voter who took the time to read the Treaty, I'm always disappointed, if rarely surprised, by how much paranoia and upset is caused by even the faintest mention. It's referred to as 'undemocratic' by people who have never read it, have no understanding of the democratic and accountable institutions it proposes, and who have no idea of how and why it was negotiated over the course of many years by the EU member governments. And who are similarly unaware of the many other Treaties signed on their behalf all the time, nor the very specific and very local constitutional reasons why this Treaty went to referendum in Ireland in the first place. I've heard it referred to as 'fascist' by people who have never heard the midnight knock of a secret policeman's.
The consolidated treaty text -- what you get after you apply the textual changes defined by the Lisbon Treaty to the current set of EU's current founding treaties -- is available from here:
http://tinyurl.com/589dmr
Anybody concerned about the EU turning into a superstate, or heavens above, a police state, might like to take the time to read this treaty, rather than assuming opinions which owe more to imagination than fact.
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As an Irish voter who took the time to read the Treaty, I'm always disappointed, if rarely surprised, by how much paranoia and upset is caused by even the faintest mention. It's referred to as 'undemocratic' by people who have never read it, have no understanding of the democratic and accountable institutions it proposes, and who have no idea of how and why it was negotiated over the course of many years by the EU member governments. And who are similarly unaware of the many other Treaties signed on their behalf all the time, nor the very specific and very local constitutional reasons why this Treaty went to referendum in Ireland in the first place. I've heard it referred to as 'fascist' by people who have never heard the midnight knock of a secret policeman's.
The consolidated treaty text -- what you get after you apply the textual changes defined by the Lisbon Treaty to the current set of EU's current founding treaties -- is easily found on the internet (ed -- can't insert a link here?)
Anybody concerned about the EU turning into a superstate, or heavens above, a police state, might like to take the time to read the consolidated text, rather than assuming opinions which owe more to imagination than fact.
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"Lisbon is important but so is the effect of such treaties in people's ordinary life: so what sort of cars we drive, and what fish people are allowed to catch are at least as interesting to me as grand institutional arrangements."
As an Irishman born in the late 60s these questions are indeed of vital importance.
I can vividly remember as a child in the 70s being driven around
- in a car with remoulds
- no safety belts
- unlaminated windscreen !
- on potholed roads where alot of the other dirvers were 3 sheets to the wind.
EU legislation did away with all that garbage.
It also made it illegal to discriminate against anoyone on the basis of gender / disability etc
(My mother along with many other women were forced to give up their jobs as soon as they got married !)
Ireland was a cabbage patch at the back of beyond before we joined the EC / EU.
It wasnt just the 17 billion the EU spent building our roads, training programmes for the unemployed, water, sewage, telecomms, forestry, fishing, tourism, farming and rural development, equal opportunities and childcare programmes.
Europe dragged us kicking and screaming into the 20th century.
So yes those small details matter. I am thankful for the very things those so-called journalists who write for Rupert Murdoch complain about: EU regulation and beaurocracy.
As an Irishman I love Europe and the EU has earned the right to our trust.
The most salient fact about Lisbon is this:
It is a treaty agreed by the democratically elected politicians of the 27 democracies of Europe.
www.europeanhome.ie
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You might have noticed that there are elections to the European Parliament in june 2009...
"it would either kill the treaty stone dead or force the EU to go ahead without Ireland."
therefore, there exists a third option, alternative: that the European people vote for people opposed to the TCE (and this Lisbonn treaty) who would, then, kill it off and start a new process for writing a new text.
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As an Irish 'youth' i need the raise my voice in this forum. The Irish electorate is a very intelligent one but it will not be bullied by Europe. I am a huge supporter of Europe and also Lisbon, believing that European Integration is the future, is my future.
If this treaty is passed it will be because of fear in this economic climate, and that is not a victory but a submission.
Despite my support of Europe and Lisbon during round one i will be happy to see the rejection of Lisbon 2, a two tier Europe will not be good for Ireland or European morale but the Eurocrats have left Ireland no other alternative. My Irish friends let you voices be heard, reject this insult.
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Ireland is right to put the vote to the people for a second time as failure to accept this treaty will result in Ireland being isolated and left out of the EU as we know it.
What I would say to any person on the issue of the Lisbon Treaty and Ireland is as follows
- While others have not been given the right to vote directly on this treaty, that in itself is no reason for Irish people to reject it. Why should Irish people sacrifice THEIR economic well being and prosperity on the altar of someone else view on how democracy should work?
-Secondly, lets consider Ireland's present economic condition-economy contracting by 4% next year, budget deficit to hit at least 6.5% of GDP, unemployment to rise to over 10%. How is rejecting a treaty and damaging Ireland's goodwill in Europe going to make that better? How would Ireland survive outside of the EU>take a look at Iceland, the only other nation that embraced the rough seas of the Atlantic.
Thirdly, what has the EU done to our lives that makes it such a difficult organization to respect and develop? It has provided us with free travel, the right to work, a bigger voice on the world stage, greater co-ordination of policies across a range of areas of importance in our lives, how have all these actions damaged member states? How has a single currency that, today is protecting Ireland from speculators, damaged its members? How has a drive to tackle global warming or co-ordinate the fight against cross border crime hurt us? How was the EU Supreme Court hurt us? Newsflash, it has not. People need to start getting real and recognize the benefits that we take for granted. Lisbon is an important step in ensuring the EU becomes more effective, transparent and democratic.
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#26 Jukka_Rohila
...
"The legitimacy to treaties comes from the legitimacy of governments that accept them. If the people feel their government, their system, to be legitimate then the treaty and its consequences of it are accepted. If a government is legitimate, it can do decisions, even stupid ones and they are accepted as they were made by a legitimate government."
...
Does rather beg the question about whether the national governments are in fact genuinely representative of the peoples that they purport to serve.
The UK government is not elected - its members are selected from MPs who are largely in safe seats where no amount of political debate is likely to dislodge them.
The government itself long ago ceased to be in touch with the "man on the Clapham Omnibus".
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a lot can change in the next 12 months, so it is way too early to speculate on the outcome.
the eurozone may come under severe strain if there is another bout of international bank insolvencies (very possible given the current recession will lead to a cascade of corporate bankruptcies in the next 6 months). on the other hand, if there is a severe weakening of the dollar (e.g. if obama starts a trade war with china) then the eurozone could end up being the new "flight to quality" currency (which would be bad news for the european economy btw, but possibly good news for unity).
i do wonder whether the irish, particularly seeing what is happening in certain other north atlantic islands, are not feeling very grateful for the protection offered by the eu, and whether this will translate into warmer feelings towards the treaty. it would not take a very big swing in the vote to change the result.
my personal feelings are still very ambivalent. i don't have any problem with the degree of pooled sovereignty in lisbon, but i am very concerned that others will find it a step too far. more importantly, i think the eu needs to suffer some kind of major crisis to force the issue of direct democratic accountability of the commission onto the intergovernmental table. european leaders are consciously ducking this issue now.
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Mark, a good piece as always, however, one thing annoys me intensely. In Ireland we do not have a Prime Minister, we have a Taoiseach. In news bulletins here we do not refer to Gordon Brown as the Taoiseach, and it would be great if the English press could reciprocate.
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Freeborn John: I will carry on writing about this and any other EU subject when I feel like it and when it is appropriate. Lisbon is important but so is the effect of such treaties in people's ordinary life: so what sort of cars we drive, and what fish people are allowed to catch are at least as interesting to me as grand institutional arrangements.
------------
Quite right to.
I could not be more euro sceptic but it would be a sad day when BBC 'bloggers' were not allowed to write about all topics.
I may not agree with the insinuations made in some of Marks ramblings, but at least he gives us all the chance to get stuck into a good debate.
On the issue in question, I half hope they do have a new vote. If Ireland say no again, the constitution will finally be dead in the water.
At the very least, the EU will be forced to make some dramatic changes if they want to keep it alive.
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Re post 229, Prof Moriarty, your post symbolises one of two opposing views some have of the E.U. On one side we have people who criticise the E.U for bringing in silly legislation such as no bendy bananas, and who see the E.U as an authrotarian monster who want to entrap the peoples of Europe into a federal state where they will have no say.
On the other side is people like you. Who can see no wrong on the E.U. Who claim (wrongly) that the E.U is responsible for stopping drink driving, car safety, and peace in europe
The truth, like always is some where in the middle. Drink driving, for instance, legislation was brought into the U.K. in the 1960's, however chnage only really happened when social attitudes made it no longer acceptable to drink drive. The U.K. brought in legislation prior to their entry into the EEC and have continued to legislate independently in this area. The E.U has helped with setting standards so that tests are similar etc and have helped standardise components.
Fishing, the E.U. opened up previously protected national waters to much larger and perhaps more efficient fishing fleets and boats. Recognising the problems this has caused, it is now trying to rectify it with quotas etc
Peace in europe, (not mentioned by you I know), more to do with Nato than the E.U as most of western europe were members of the NATO alliance prior to the E.U.
Equally do not believe that the E.U. is full of meglomaniacs intent on creating a totalitarian european super state. (Think some have a vision of what they would wish the E.U. to become and lika many visionaries they some times do not understand the mentality of people who do not share their vision)
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To Gaoth_ (35):
In this blog we speak English.
The literal translation of Taoiseach would be chieftain or leader. Personally I wouldn't mind Mark using chieftain..
"The Irish Chieftain is on a whistle-stop tour of Europe"
"But just look at Chieftain Brian Cowan's poll ratings, which have been plunging since the early summer"
So how do you prefer it, Chieftain or Prime Minister?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoiseach
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If the Irish have any sense whatsoever they'll vote Yes. The EU should be taken very seriously. It is a remarkable experiment of pooled governance and sovereignty that aims to drag europe, screaming and kicking into the 21st century.
In such a time of crisis the Irish would be foolish to vote Lisbon down. With a resurgent Russia and a booming China, Europe cannot survive as a collection of unco-operative states. Expansion of the CFSP also means we can see a united front over security issues.
People so often talk in these hard times of "international solutions to international problems". Globalization is here to stay, and the EU is a prime example of the "together we're stronger" attitude of co-operative governance that we should be advocated. The benefits far outway questions of compromised national sovereignty. And let's look where nationalist dogmatism has got us? It's got us into war, economic disarray and environmental destruction.
Ireland won't vote no again, because they should never have voted no the first time. Because referendum are pointless. The average Joe Schmo on the street hasn't got a clue what's in the constitution. They merely react to lies and hearsay peddled by the No campaign. It should be down to the elected officials to decide based on advice from scholars, academics and experts. The very concept of referenda demonstrates the tyranny of the majority that so many political minds have discussed. In these times we need strong, united, and most importantly, wise and informed leadership. Technocracy, not beaucracy. The EU needs reforming, and this is what Lisbon will do. But the European project will never be abandoned. If the Irish really are that stupid, and vote no, it will simply trigger another re-write.
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@ SuffolkBoy2
You asked about Article 48. I noticed that No-campaigners in Ireland during the referendum in June claimed that because of this Article, people would never be allowed to hold a referendum on another treaty again. I'd like to explain to you what the Article is about and that those claims of No-campainers are not true.
Article 48 regulates three different ways to agree on a new treaty OR to change the current treaty.
Paragraph (2) to (5) regulates how Member States can agree on a NEW treaty and ratify it. What's new is that also the European Parliament can suggest changes now. At the moment only the national governments or the European Commission can ask for changes. What's additionally new in the Lisbon Treaty is that before a new treaty enters the international ratification process, the national parliaments will be given the treaty so they can comment on it. So they will be actively and by law be involved in creating a new treaty from Lisbon on already BEFORE they vote on it during the ratification process. Paragraph (4) II says that the new treaty can only come into force as soon as all Member States have ratified the treaty according to their national constitutions - which means, it stays the way it is nowadays.
Paragraph (6) regulates one of the simple processes of changing a CURRENT treaty. That is actually a new thing in EU-treaties, but it's not a big deal, too. Only the Part Three of the TFEU can be changed, nothing else. Only a unanimous vote of the European Council can lead to a - let's say - proposal of a change of Part Three. The Member States then have to unanimously agree on those changes according to their national constitutions. Since - according to paragraph (6) III - those changes of Part Three can NOT lead to a transfer of more national rights to the European Union, it will mostly not be necessary to hold a referendum in e.g. Ireland. I guess national parliaments will mostly just vote on those changes, which will most probably be minimal.
Paragraph (7) regulates another simple process of changing the CURRENT treaty. You possibly already know that even after ratifying the Lisbon Treaty there'll still be parts within the treaty that force the Council of the European Union to agree unanimously. Unanimous votes will not be completely abolished, even though in some more areas than before a majority vote will be enough from Lisbon on. So in those areas in which unanimous votes will be necessary after all, the European Council can agree on changing it from a unanimous to a majority vote. But some areas are excluded from this simple treaty change process and unanimous votes will still be necessary - those are the defense and military parts and the parts which are named in Article 353 TFEU; especially Article 352 TFEU (the flexibility
clause) is important here.
So I think you can see that in general there is a slight improvement concerning the international ratification process, but all in all the Lisbon Treaty does not include a major change that would lead to an exclusion of referenda on new treaties and on a transfer of additional power to the European Union. Ireland would still vote in a referendum, unless the Member State itself changes its national constitution. The simple treaty changes are really marginal and cannot lead to an extension of the rights and therefore power of the European Union, because they do not lead to a transfer of additional national power to the European Union.
I hope I made this as clear as possible. It's maybe not easy to understand if you read those Articles for the first time, but just read them several times.
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Mr Mardell,
You should be reporting fairly, difficult as it may be to you that there are many euro-sceptics in your audience, we through the mandatory tax - the BBC licence fee - pay your salary.
A little more balance please.
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"But more to the point, it would either kill the treaty stone dead or force the EU to go ahead without Ireland."
I really, really hope that this time around, both the irish government and the EU have their agreed "Plan B" (if they vote no again) lined up and ready to communicate before the campaign starts.
Vague and not-so-vague threats about kicking ireland out, if they vote no again, are going to be extremely counterproductive. Would in fact guarantee a no vote.
At this point in time, the Yes vote is weaker than last time. Even those who held their nose and voted for the treaty were insulted by the reaction from more europhile quarters.
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Jukka_Rohila comment 38
how offensive and patronising. Understandably Mark uses Prime Minister, as this is the political, if not linguistic, equivalent of our Taoiseach. No problem, though it would be nice to use the real term. However, a bit of respect for our language (an offical language of the EU) would be greatly appreciated.
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Today is a wonderful day I can finally say something good about an E.U Institution. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the U.K Police must destory DNA of people who are Arrested but not then convicted of a crime.
Well done, I expect a directive on this soon.
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To cailinsanfhrainc (45):
Excuse me, but could you perhaps read the comment to which I was answering.
Gaoth_ in comment 35 wished that BBC and Mark would use the term Taoiseach instead using the term Prime Minister.
To his comment I pointed out that 1) in this blog we speak English, and 2) asked what is better to use Prime Minister or Chieftain as a translation of the term to English.
So, did you read the comment to which is responded or did you just blast without thinking?
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Freedom of speech is what I find in Mark's blog. Under this right, my bet -and my wish, given the facts- is a EU in two speeds.
The second speed states could defend a much lighter commitment with the EU, even a complete withdraw. But they should ignore those who want a ever closer Europe.
This reminds me when the Euro became a reality in 2002 and the Europhobes expected -and hoped- a big failure of the single currency, instead of defending their "monnetary independence".
Well, this hasn't happened, on the contrary. The pound is in a very weak and uncertain position. It went from 1,5 euros a year ago to nearly 1 euro, and the Sterling free fall continues.
Do whatever you want: the Eurozone doesn't need the UK anymore, that's history. Nowadays, it is the other way round. My solidarity though goes for those many Britons who would like to join the Euro.
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Ballymichael
Thank you for giving us an insight into the No vote mentality.
Far from considering the treaty on its merits, folk should vote No out of petulance at being lectured to.
You show 'em.
jordanbasset
I am not sure what your point is, I was referring to irish legislation.
Should the 27 democracies of Europe each have our own laws governing everything from drink driving to patents ?
Our own little currencies and rules governing e.g. trade.
No wonder the CBI is behind both Lisbon not to mention the euro.
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Jukka Rohila (3)
You argued that the Lisbon treaty should be ratified 'via Parliaments and accepted protocols'
The argument against this is that modern parliaments, under all constitutional arrangements, are part of the mechanism of government. We delegate the right to rule us to governments, and they should return that right to us at the end of their mandates. The power is not a gift that they can dispose of as they choose - out-sourcing some to the EU, for example. It remains our property, and they should return it whole and undamaged. If they want to change anything, to give us back less than we gave them in the first place, they should ask our permission.
robindch (27)
You informed us that the Lisbon treaty was 'negotiated over the course of many years'.
The European Constitution was negotiated over the course of many years. It was rejected by the voters of 2 of the 4 countries that held referenda. We were assured that those voters didn't have to be consulted this time because the Lisbon treaty was a totally different thing. The Lisbon treaty - unless we were misled in that respect - wasn't negotiated over the course of many years. It was cobbled together in a few months.
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@ WhiteEnglishProud (46)
The European Court of Human Rights is not an EU institution but linked to the Council of Europe and the establised by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) of 1950.
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Re post 49, european union countries should and do have different drink drive laws, look it up. It is up to the individiual country what criminal laws they wish to introduce.
Re patents and harmonisation of trade I believe that is something that the E.U. should have an input on. Re currenccies that is down to each nation state to decide.
My point is that the E.U. is not all good or all bad, but shades of grey. Either side claiming it is one thing or the opposite does not help the debate
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To Blog or not to Blog...
Here we've been talking about Mark's choice of subjects and his treatment of them - set me wondering:
1) Has anyone had their opinions changed or modified by something Mark has written (in any of his blogs) or by any of the comments? No details required - just a simple indication.
2) Does anyone in a position of influence (Brussells or elsewhere) read these blogs and do they take any notice of the opinions expressed? I note that some blogs (elsewhere) get responses from the appropriate commissioners; is there someone in disguise here?
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One of the benefits that comes from the Treaty of Lisbon (which is not provided by the Treaty of Nice!) is that the National Member State Parliaments do get more opportunity to discuss planned EU Directives and Legislation BEFORE they are ratified and approved.
The national Parliaments do not get a veto but it would certainly give more open accountability to the decisions made in the Council of Ministers meetings as the Ministers are beholden to their national parliamentarians who can have their say on the merits or demerits of EU Legislation in a more democratic setting.
I see this is a good thing but some might question then what is the future value of the EU Parliament?
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Ultimately, what the EU will be saying if they force a re-vote is that they consider the Irish too dumb to exercise democracy.
The Irish said NO based on their understanding of the arguments put to them by both camps.
Of course, this is not the first time Ireland has been treated this way by the EU. This time, however, they have the support of populations (if not politicians) right across Europe.
They need to stand up to the EU and let them know that NO means NO!
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To mrpaulgiles (50):
You do realize that all governments have the right to repudiate treaties as they wish. There is nothing to stop UK or any other government on repudiating a treaty. The power to rule is there, its passed from parliament to parliament.
The position that you have is more or less untenable. If governments couldn't sign treaties or if the treaties would come to an end after the term of the current government then all treaties and international commitments would end every fourth year... So new votes to join EU, NATO, WTO, World Bank, UK, etc..
Your position is more akin to having the cake and eating it.
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@ProfMoriarty
"Thank you for giving us an insight into the No vote mentality. Far from considering the treaty on its merits, folk should vote No out of petulance at being lectured to.You show 'em."
Actually I was giving an insight (I hope) into the "yes" voters last time, but might not this time around.
The EU has what in eurospeak is referred to as a "democratic deficit". It is entirely legitimate to interpret the treaty and any campaign for a "yes" vote in the light of that deficit, and to extrapolate how the treaty would play out in practise, based on the clarity or otherwise of the presentation of the consequences of a "no" vote this time around.
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ClaphamBusman @ #53
1) "Yes".
I was very sceptical of the EU because of media and external influences when I started reading Mark's blog but my views have changed. I am now of the opinion that, although the EU remains deficient of real democratic repesentation and is more of a technocracy or autocracy than I would like at the present time, the existence of the EU and my individual citizen membership of the EU is essential to my future and the future of my daughter, her daughter and any future childrens' children that I may be lucky enough to enjoy in my lifetime.
2) I firmly believe the answer is "Yes" and "Yes"!
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Profmoriarty, Post 46 and 51 are good examples of what I was talking about re my posts above. A poster, white english proud, points out something good about the E.U. re the DNA issue. But as pointed out by Kosmoplito this decision is actaully nothing to do with the E.U.
(Sorry whiteenglish pride I do appreciate the thought behind it and you were trying to be fair to the E.U., which is all the more commendable bearing in mind your normal view of it:)
My point is that some times the E.U. is crediited for things it has nothing to do with and on the reverse blamed for things it had no part in.
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To ClaphamBusman (53):
1)
No goes for Marks writing...
Yes goes to comments...
2)
I don't know at least I'm not in any position of influence.
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Just how many times do the people of euope have to say 'no' to this so called european ideal.
The Irish, French, Dutch all said NO yet here we are having a discussion on a 2nd Irish vote which, if it happens, I hope will be an even greater NO vote.
The people of europe are behind the Irish in this as so many of us have been denied a vote on the constitution / lisbon treaty
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Kosmopolito & jordanbasset
Thats wonderful I don't have to give the E.U any credit at all then.
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Repost 62, White english proud, always happy to cheer people up:) I will be back to my normal E.U. realist/sceptic view now as well
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"So, ahh, Best of three??"
Overheard in the No camp after it is voted through on the second attempt
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The Irish will be made to vote again and again and again until they get it right. That's the European idea of democracy. Except in Britain. In the UK, the PM decides what to do and fifty million people have to go along with it whether they like it or not. After all, he was elected by his local constituency to Parliament and chosen to lead his party by its members. Isn't that good enough for them? IMO its too good for them. They should let the Queen decide. Otherwise, what's the point of having a Queen in the first place?
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#53 - ClaphamBusman
Interesting questions.
No.1 undoubtedly yes. I have notice changes in positions from a number of regular posters. Interestingly most have these have been away from dogmatic entrenched positions towards a willingness to be open minded and discursive.
No.2 - I am afraid I have no idea but it would be good to think so.
On the subject of the little spat between Freeborn-John and Mark Mardel, I would say to FBJ that the big consititutional questions we a currently discussing come up every few years. The day to day issues of fish catches, carbon emissions and so are what occupies the minds of Brussels most of the time and we would be foolish to neglect them. It is not often I take issue with FBJ but on this occasion, I am with Mark. These are all important matters and many of us continue to be interested.
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MarcusAureliusII
IMO I would rather the Queen decide than Gordon Brown
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A few things are clear:
1. Despite the clear NO in the referendum, this treaty will be put to the Irish electorate again.
2. If we thought there was an onslaught against the NO campaign last time round by the body politic, the business establishment, and their friends in the Irish Times, the Irish Independent and, more subtly, RTE, then we're going to have to think again. This will be a bloodbath. Libertas and Sinn Fein are going to be battered like never before. This will be a hate-fest of biblical proportions. And boy, we Irish do hate-fests well, especially when our betters require our assistance to maintain their positions of power.
3. The result will be the stampeding of a sufficient proportion of the electorate from the NO to the YES side to ensure victory for the latter.
4. The reputation of the Irish political establishment will regardless remain in tatters. As usual, that won't matter. We'll still vote for some collection of centre-right non-entities. We like our politicians to mirror ourselves i.e. not very coherent, but with an eye for the main chance and for little else.
5. The understanding within the EU's smaller states that there's a level playing field within the putative super-state will be shown up as a mere delusion of grandeur.
6. The word of the EU's oligarchs i.e. that "all state's must ratify the treaty before its adoption" will have been shown to be worthless following their displays of contempt for the Irish electorate in the first instance.
7. The concept of rule by the "educated" elites of the EU without the consent of their present electorates will have gained currency within those elites.
8. Democratic processes in the EU will be significantly diminished from their already weakened states.
And the Lisbon Treaty was supposed to enhance democracy in the EU?
The EU's Commissioners and the political and business elites within the EU states have formulated this treaty on the basis of sustaining the catastrophic fiscal and societal policies which are unravelling before our eyes. These evangelists for globalisation are determined to force through, without the express consent of the peoples of the EU, a treaty which will copperfasten the streamlining of the very measures which have led us to the brink of economic, social and environmental catastrophe.
And we, the people of the EU, are being led, like the sheep we're proving to be, along this path of proven failure.
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Will everyone please either stop being so pedantic or start being correct in every case. Gordon Brown is the First Lord of the Treasury, for example. We all know what prime minister means and, even if it is not correct in the strict sense in some cases. The term does at least let us get on with discussion of substantive issues rather that tedious exchanges of a semantic nature.
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Mark, the Lisbon Treaty is DEAD. Why did you choose a topic that is a done deal? This topic, we all should coansider it as DEAD.
NO=NO ....Period. NO..... NO this is EUphiles must get in their brain.
Lets focus on EU democracy. Where are the people voices?, where is the referendum?
To all the EUphiles, you may not give us a referendum, but keep in mind that you will bear all the consquences and will be judged if things go wrong, as they are going. The economic crisis that is unfolding will be blamed on you, but not the people, because people were never asked.
By falsely (premediated) trying to make people accomplice in your crimes of corruption, missmanagment, and stolen funds, and reminding them that they too partecipated and contrbuted to the above messes, it will not be so easy, just because of that referendum that was never given to people.
Diversion methods/techniques are well known for EUphiles.. as well as dictatorship in the free speech.. by removing to voice to people... but it want work, becuase we can have no voice, but we can still write..
are you going to cut our hands as well..??
let us know where and when the mutilation will stop..?
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To MarcusAureliusII (65):
Well, ask yourself, which is more democratic, European vote again democracy or American "hey, you guys have WMDs!" democracy.
But then again, you guys get things done. Maybe we should follow your example... I just can't wait for...
In the UN security council...
Merkel "The German intelligence confirms that Ireland has been trying to buy nuclear material from Africa"
Sarkozy "We must form an international alliance to prevent Ireland on obtaining WMDs!"
Berlusconi "I have receiver intelligence that the Irish government is working with Al-Quada on terror strikes against Europe! The Irish regime must be destroyed!"
Phone rings at Newscorp "Hello! Is this Mr. Murdoch? Yes. I would like to request a quota on global PR -campaign for invading Ireland. Ah. I see. That sounds affordable."
My god! You Americans are so far ahead of us Europeans. We really have to start learning lessons from you.
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If anyone is in any doubt about the way the European can be constructive in protecting the rights of citizens, you should read THIS and then ask yourself which is the real facist state from which we require protection.
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When the Irish government and parliament decide to do a second vote, many will argue that it is undemocratic. The critics will hold that the Irish people have spoken and that this decision should be respected. From a democratic point of view, they are entirely right. Surely, one can debate whether the referendum as such is a democratic political tool, but if we assume for the sake of simplicity that it is, holding another one because the outcome was unsatisfactory is not proper democracy.
There is, however, also another point of view. The same critics who claim to be the defers of democracy fail to ask themselves whether democracy actually has a place in international relations. International relations? Isn't the referendum in Ireland a domestic affair of the Irish?
Yes and no. While on the one hand this is a domestic affair because the Irish people have the constitutional right to ratify treaties, on the other hand, not the Irish people, but the Irish State is part to any such treaties. And there lies the fundamental problem which can be seen in so many of the modern western liberal democracies: a discrepancy between the institution of democracy and the institution of the State.
To understand this, I think one must look back into the history of both. The State is a very old concept which has evolved through time and has roots going back to ancient times. The concept of the state gained a more concrete form at the end of the medieval times, for instance in northern Italy, and by 1648 at the Treaties of Westphalia it was established as the prime institution by which the world's territory was ordered.
Democracy has long roots too it goes of course back to the Athenian democracy and has roots in ancient Republican systems. The concept underwent a redefinition by the end of the medieval times when it became understood as representative democracy. The idea remained fledgling for a long time, even in the United Kingdom and it was only with the French Revolution that the concept of representative democracy gained a concrete form. the United Kingdom had had a long tradition of non-universal suffrage and gradually other countries adopted this idea. Most of Europe would have to wait until the early 20th century still before real democracy, universal suffrage, was introduced.
Comparing the two concepts, the one of the State is much older than that of democracy. Indeed, the States of today's Europe already existed in this or another form. Democracy was only added to change the internal way of government of the State, not to replace the State as such.
The concept of the State was designed to have one sovereign in whom all power would be united: legislative, executive and legal power. The division of the powers and especially the democratisation of the legislative power could be understood as being fundamentally at odds with the idea of the State. One could also say that the concept of the State was not designed to deal with a domestic power other than the monarch.
So in the modern democratic State, it is quite normal for the concepts to have some friction. This conflict between the two manifests itself mainly when the executive and legislative powers are at odds over international issues. Because in the international arena, Ireland is represented by the Irish State, which may have entirely different ideas about what is in its highest interest than the Irish people. Domestically the Irish State might be subject to democratic control, internationally it has a mandate of its own and indeed the means to pursue its interests and ignore the Irish people if it deems this necessary.
It is quite easy to show that, according to our current understanding of international relations theory, it is for most European States in their highest interest to let the European Union further integrate, because they derive power from it, which they have lost as a result of decolonisation, Cold War and globalisation. In other words, for the European States, the EU constitutes a tool whereby they can regain a large portion of the power they have lost over the course of the 20th century. Indeed, today the European States are much more powerful than they were say 30 years ago. And just one look at how the EU solved the conflict in the Caucasus tells us the EU is today much stronger than it was in the middle of the 1990s, when it could not solve the Balkans conflicts.
For European peoples the advantages of greater European power largely overlap with those of the States, but there are some important differences. Often these lie in the area of cultural issues. Culture is typically something domestic and something the State does traditionally not care for. Another thing is the Irish neutrality: for the Irish State this would not be an issue, but in the event of a military mission, the Irish people are the ones who would have to bring forth the soldiers for it.
However, perhaps most importantly, States are internationally not interested in democracy. It constrains their manoeuvrability and as such they are very reluctant to implement it. Except for the EU there is not a single international organization (and there are hundreds) which can be called democratic because they have a directly elected parliament with substantial powers. The EU is the only democratic international organization. Perhaps not as democratic as we would like it to be, but still a day-and-night difference compared to say the United Nations or NATO or the WTO or any other organization the critics of the EU never have critique on. So my point is that it is right to criticise the EU and I'm very glad the critics do, but one has to put that critique into perspective.
It is almost a miracle that given the undemocratic nature of the international relations, where sovereign States and not peoples still hold most of the power, a remotely democratic body was created, which is, with every new treaty still becoming a little bit more democratic. The first democratic international body.
Personally, I think very positive of that. It is an accomplishment of epic proportions much like the first national democracy, the abolition of slavery and the founding of the UN. The EU is a raw gem that requires some serious polishing, much like the first national democracy ever (wasn't that the UK?) was far from perfect. Breaking it down doesn't help us there and causes us to lose all the benefits it gives us. As a matter of fact, breaking inventions down because they were not perfect never got us where we are today. It's been development, the careful polishing of raw gems. Contributing to that process of polishing is the way forward.
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Apart from the fact that a second vote is so obviously "repeating a vote till the stupid sheep get it right". I always understood that a "NO" vote by any memeber state sunk the "whatever-it-is" completely and finally. It did not mean that the state voting "NO" were to be sidelined, sent to Coventry and, generally, ignomiously left out in the cold.
Or maybe I'm one of the stupid sheep that always keep getting it wrong. I voted "NO" (in Catalunya) and a fat lot of good it did me, but I have to accept the result much as I dislike it.
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#71 - Jukka_Rohila
This has got to stop Jukka. The Brits are the slaves of the Americans who are all evil? Get outta here!
Basically, we all want three things. To live in peace, especially free from the threat of organised terror - to sort out the economic mess into which we have been plunged - and hopefully to do all this without sacrificing the basic freedoms we have come to enjoy. We may differ on how it is to be done but that is quite different from simply writing off entire nations as not fit for purpose. You firm commitment to European cooperation is manifest. Why can you not broaden your horizons to embrace like minded people elsewhere?
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Exercising democracy does NOT mean necessarily to vote in a referendum. Many crucial decisions are taken all the time by democratically-elected governments, even in Ireland. What is important is that the democratically-elected people that take such decision understand what the issue is about and are aware of its consequences for their country. This is what happened in all the other EU countries. Irish people did not get sufficient information on the Lisbon Treaty and the question in the referendum was vague and unclear. A democratic referendum should ask citizens to give their vote on a very clear issue, not on a complex and lengthy document. This is why I expect the result of another referendum will remain the same.
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Could someone please explain why people who want a more democratic EU are so strongly opposed to a treaty that makes the EU less undemocratic?
That does not make sense to me... unless improvement of EU democracy isn't their real motive, of course.
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I see even the Eurosceptics are divided about whether or not we should be discussing the Lisbon treaty on this blog.
A few observations on the Lisbon treaty:
1) The Lisbon Treaty is mostly about the extension of Qualified Majority Voting. The topic of Qualified Majority Voting is of absolutely no interest to anybody except for certain politicians and the EU?anoraks (both pro and anti) who frequent this blog.
2) If the Lisbon Treaty is adopted, nobody in the real world will notice the difference.
3) If the Lisbon Treaty is rejected, nobody in the real world will notice the difference.
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At least the Irish have been given the chance to vote on the issue which was promised to UK voters by all three parties at the last election. They did this because they knew that this was what voters wanted.
Rather than have the debate, where there is a lot to be said on both sides, our government reneged on its solemn promise to UK voters. I feel lied to and cheated.
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@ ClaphamBusman
Answer to 1
I definitely have not changed my mind due to other people's opinions. I made up my mind on the treaty by myself. Due to my Law studies and major, which is European + International Law + Human Rights, I am in the fortunate position to go through such a treaty and be able to understand a lot of it. At least I know where I can get help if there's a problem I do not understand. Apart from that I took part in a seminar about the treaty during the summer, in which I had the chance to discuss this treaty with my professor weekly. I've spent very much time with this treaty, and if I had found any serious problem within this treaty, I know I would not agree with the treaty.
Answer to 2
I blog about European Law myself, and I know that several European institutions read my blog from time to time. The European Commission does it quite often. Also politicians working in the parliament of my country have read my blog.
Therefore I'm sure they read other blogs, too. Mark's blog is rather popular, so I'm 100% sure it is read by European lawmakers and politicians regulary. I just believe they underestimated the power of lies during the referendum in Ireland and therefore didn't take the situation serious enough.
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@ ClaphamBusman
Answer to 1
I definitely have not changed my mind due to other people's opinions. I made up my mind on the treaty by myself. Due to my Law studies and major, which is European and International Law and Human Rights, I am in the fortunate position to go through such a treaty and be able to understand a lot of it. At least I know where I can get help if there's a problem I do not understand. Apart from that I took part in a seminar about the treaty during the summer, in which I had the chance to discuss this treaty with my professor weekly. I've spent very much time with this treaty, and if I had found any serious problem within this treaty, I know I would not agree with the treaty.
Answer to 2
I blog about European Law myself, and I know that several European institutions read my blog from time to time. The European Commission does it quite often. Also politicians working in the parliament of my country have read my blog.
Therefore I'm sure they read other blogs, too. Mark's blog is rather popular, so I'm sure it is read by European lawmakers and politicians regulary. I just believe they underestimated the power of lies during the referendum in Ireland and therefore didn't take the situation serious enough.
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I do not understand how anyone can claim that the Lisbon Treaty is too difficult to read through and that this is a valid reason for rejecting it.
Do you think that the constitutions of Sweden or France are much easier to read?
Do you also think that your national MPs understand each and every paragraph of each law they vote upon? Of course not. In our complex world we have to delegate responsibility and expertise. It's a fact of life.
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threnodio
I have to agree that we need to worry about the British Political System and the power grab by the British Government over the last couple of years.
I earlier believed that I could congratulate the E.U because i mistakenly believed the European Court of Human Rights was effectively the Judiciary for the E.U.
Although we have to keep an eye on events at home, it doesn't mean that the E.U could be allowed to evolve into something even worse.
On the Lisbon Treaty I believe that this is a Question that should be dead and burried.
The E.U requires all member states to ratify the treaty. The Irish Constitution says that there must be a referedum. The Irish voted No.
Its that simple the Lisbon Treaty is dead.
If the E.U wish to propose a new Treaty that all 27 nations are prepared to ratify then that is fine.
Asking the Irish to vote again is insulting, infuriating, possibly illegal and probably unconstitutional.
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The Lisbon Treaty is far from bring dead. It's all a matter of will power of the Member States. There's probably a solution to every scenario we're supposed to expect. Some solutions are rougher than others.
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The Lisbon Treaty is far from being dead. It's all a matter of will power of the Member States. There's probably a solution to every scenario we're supposed to expect. Some solutions are rougher than others.
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To WhiteEnglishProud (83):
You said: "Asking the Irish to vote again is insulting, infuriating, possibly illegal and probably unconstitutional."
Insulting to who? Maybe to other European countries and leaders that have to make amendments to one member country that is keeping all down.
Infuriating? Yes, to all those who want the common European project to advance.
Possibly illegal? Illegal to who? There is no law in Ireland that prevents a referendum to be set a second time and neither does EU have any rules on this.
Probably unconstitutional? Again, the EU doesn't have constitution so it should be a-okay, and usually countries don't have any limits on how many times a issue can be put on decision.
When reading comments like your I just am inclined to think that the EU should be dissolved, all the free-loaders to be let hanging on cold and those willing to go ahead to form a new union to go on. If you think that UK or any other country outside the new union would have any free trade you might want to look on to the border of Finland and Russia... trade maybe free, but you have to wait at least few days to cross the border and fill out endless amounts of forms, pay varying fees that change from time to time. Yes sir, just having free trade has done good to African countries, it will do good for UK too.
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#72, threnodio,
For once the European court of human rights has actually made a good decision rather than defending undesirables from being deported etc. The question of retaining DNA has been a sore point for some years as it is really a symptom of the control freaks that run the UK these days. No doubt if all were on the DNA database such heinous crimes as putting waste in the wrong bin could be easily solved. Now the poor darlings in the much maligned police force will have to rely on traditional detective work. As an aside it is also feasible from DNA samples to identify the paternal line for a male sample if the Y chromosome is analysed, this effectively identifies the surname of the suspect if their Y matches a Y already on file (certainly in most cases).
As with all things the Blair/Brown governments have done it's always necessary to read between the lines. In connection with the Lisbon treaty that is especially the case as there are a number of issues amongst the good things in the treaty that are not so good. There have been a number of posts on previous threads concerning the change to QMV that seems at first glance very fair and logical, but when examined in detail it reveals that the Franco-Germanic alliance benefits most of all in being able to force votes their way. The wikipedia entry on QMV gives a third Polish alternative that would have been a lot fairer and balanced. Instead if Lisbon is adopted one of the current three tests is removed on the sole assumption that four countries can block any vote. Bearing in mind the treatment the Irish have received over rejecting Lisbon I very much doubt that there will be four countries willing to put their heads on the block and risk the abuse that the elite will shower on them.
Therefore whilst there are a lot of things in the treaty I could support, were I to be given a vote in a referendum in Belgium, my vote would be no due to the small number of issues that I don't like the repercussions of. Furthermore the treaty does little to redress the non observance of directives by member states, France being by far the worst, and does nothing to fully implement Social mobility that is so shouted about but which reveals itself as a quagmire when you actually exercise that right.
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Fionavroom
What is important is that the democratically-elected people that take such decision understand what the issue is about and are aware of its consequences for their country. This is what happened in all the other EU countries.
Which other European Countries?
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Fionavroom
This is why I expect the result of another referendum will remain the same.
The result will remain the same as that is the will of the Majority. There are two reasons there hasn't been referendi in other E.U countries
1. There are not demanded by the Countries Constitution
2. The answer would be NO
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Its because we want a MORE DEMOCRATIC E.U not a LESS UNDEMOCRATIC one.
simple
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To WhiteEnglishProud (90):
If you want truly democratic EU you have to dissolve all the member countries, make a one unified European state, set up parliament representing people and and upper house of parliament representing regions, found European parties, etc...
I'm a-okey with that if you are too.
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***77. At 1:54pm on 04 Dec 2008, JohaMe wrote:
Could someone please explain why people who want a more democratic EU are so strongly opposed to a treaty that makes the EU less undemocratic?
That does not make sense to me... unless improvement of EU democracy isn't their real motive, of course.***
hahaha... can you explain me the logic behind your assumption that we (the people) are strongly opposed to the treaty without even allowing us a referendum(aksing us)? How did you come to this conclusion? maybe we are just against the decision of not giving us a referendum.
where is the less undemocratic EU in this logic of you, which says not giving people a referendum, is less undemocratic than imposing a Treaty by the force of corruption and dictatorship?
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22. Buzet23:
#20, greypolyglot,
"You're in a very small and insignificant but voluble list these days, and also very gullible as you have succumbed to the politically correct scientists whose incomes depend on funding generated by people like you."
It seems that I shall have to return my BSc (Hons). On your assessment it would appear that I didn't learn a thing when I studied Earth Sciences including Oceanography, Geology and Climate.
And those infinitely better qualified scientists on the IPCC must be a bunch of idiots as well.
Are you scientifically qualified or do you just KNOW that you're right?
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25. threnodio:
#20 - greypolyglot
"This, presumably on the assumption that failure to address climate change will mean the end of us all? And the possibility that if we do not address poverty, social and racial disintegration or loss of civil liberties there will not be a lot of point in carrying on anyway does not occur to you?"
Yes. And yes the other issues do of course occur to me and are very dear to me. I even put my money where my mouth is and contribute substantially to charities in said fields. Do you, or are you just a do-nothing critic?
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Jukka (56): International law is just that; the law. International treaties are the law of this country and others because we have accepted them as such for a very long time. They are not optional and if we as a nation break international law, the breach is justiciable at The International Court in The Hague.
Caspar Heetman (73): Two points about your post, the first of which is minor. The EU has not solved anything in the Caucuses. They made some noises in unison, and then they backed down in unison, but the reality on the ground is that the Russians still occupy the territory and the only power on Earth that could change that remains NATO. Since no vital interest of the West is at stake, it is not appropriate to use NATO which affords an opportunity for some EU grand-standing. But lets not confuse that and real power.
You analysis concerning democracy and international relations has one very major flaw. The principle that the majority decides is not and never has been accepted outside the nation-state. Any attempt to introduce it is equivalent to populous nations forcing smaller nations to do what they want. The very existence of nation-states is predicated on the refusal to accept this. Why was the Irish state created if not to assert that the Irish people would not do what the majority in Westminster want?
International organisations like the WTO, NATO, etc. only preserve their democratic legitimacy through the use of unanimity. The EU is the only international organisation with a serious problem of democratic legitimacy because it is the only one that has abandoned decision making by consensus. This was at first masked by the triviality of the issues (maximum curvature of cucumbers, etc.) decided by qualified majority voting but as the supranational community method has been applied to more serious issues the fundamental problem of the illegitimacy of the community method has been steadily revealed The Lisbon treaty would make this problem worse by extending the community method into new fields, and reducing blocking thresholds to make it easier to overrule the policy preferences that we express in our elections.
The proof that your logic is wrong is in the increasing unpopularity of the EU. If you were correct the WTO, UN, NATO, etc. would be the most unpopular international organisations in the world and the ones people said had a democratic deficit. The EU would actually have become more popular as the power of the European parliament were increased. However the opposite has happened and your analysis cannot provide any explanation for why.
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#39 Zerr_Matty (a very irish name if i do say so) pro-europeans like you make eurosceptics jobs so much easier. Rather han debating any key facts surronding this issue you simply say
"If the Irish have any sense whatsoever they'll vote Yes"
and "Ireland wont vote no again because they never should have in the first place"
Surely that is there perogative?not for some jumped up "european" to tell them.
The problem with most pro-EU ppl is they refuse to debate any facts and simply look down there nose at anyone offering an alternative opinion to theres (very leftwing if you ask me)
I am personally a UK resident and believe the EU is a pointless waste of time for us (granted that doesnt h9old as much weight given the last couple of months)
But the recession of the nineties was not helped by the EM
Pro euros consistently mention how we would be worse off out of the EU due to free trade et al. However we are one of only 2 net contributors to th EU (the other being the germans who ill come to in a minute) overall we 'SPEND' around 50 billion a year being a member of the EU, surely this could be put to better use being invested in our infrastructure or manufacturing (which has collapsed due to the EU's free trade treaties, and cheaper made products on the continent), or our fishing industry (desamated by the scandalous EU treaty) or farming industry (where we get tiny subsidies to leave fields in fallow in order to allow french farmers to shft produce)
As far as the trade tariffs and 'cost' of leaving the EU you pros go on about, why not simply negotiate a free trade treaty as Norway (woulnt join as their government knew they would lose their vast fishing waters, and a key industry of theirs) or Switzland?
As the great Margaret Thatcher said "God knew what he was doing putting water between us and Europe"
My personal opinion? Whether the Germans take over Europe by tanks or treaties its the same result. Many millions of our fore fathers died to defend this once great isle, only for those in power (with no mandate might I add) to give away the liberties and sovereignity that so much blood was spilled to protect.
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haha it seems Mark is delaying comments from EUphiles...
let them speak Mark... lets hear what they have to say..
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the more the EUphiles speak, the more people understand what incompetent people are there in the TOP of EU..
but people dont know this, since they keep a certain distance from the people.. in order to hide they(EUphiles)'re loosers.
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#65 MAII
Interstingly enough, people always seem to go on about Gordon Brown not being democratically ellected, however they seem happy to keep the Queen as a head of state! In case anybody thinks that the queen has no real power, they should think again- I recently learned by the same BBC that the Queen has the final say regarding whether a British nuclear strike is to go ahead. It gives me the kreeps just by thinking about that. A lot of the readers of the Sun who would hapilly vote against the EU treaty, because of some perceived 'un-ellectedness' of Gordon Brown and always seem to demand a referendum on the EU, are quite happily supporting the mere symbol of anti-democracy. Before voting on the EU, can we have a referendum on the monarchy? Or on preserving the Union between Scotland and England? As we are all aware, nobody has asked the people about their opinion on these issues, yet nobody is complaining about that.
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Whether the Irish vote again or not is their decision. The governments of all 27 countries would prefer Irish ratification of the Treaty so that they can move on to dealing with important issues facing all Europeans without having a big institutional question mark hanging over everything. If the Irish decide not to vote again or vote no a second time, the Treaty of Lisbon is dead. It is unlkely that the other 26 governments will say "too bad" and forget all about it. They will find a way (perhaps by tacking on a new 26 country organisation to the existing EU) to get on with the substance of what all 27 governments want to achieve and Ireland will in effect have voted to become an associate member of the new structure.
There is nothing anti-democratic about this. The EU is first and foremost a union of states and each state has its own rules for making decisions. Ireland asks its citizens to vote on all constitutional amendments. This is very commendable but it is a purely Irish rule and a purely Irish vote. No Europeans vote because, as yet, there are no "Europeans".
The principal reason for the relatively low turnout in the first referendum, as well as the principal reason for voting no, was ignorance about the treaty - and even about how the EU is run. The right to vote has another side - the obligation to cast an informed ballot. That obligation was not respected in the first referendum. If there is to be a second referendum, it is to be hoped that people will cast informed ballots - and that includes being clear about what the consequences of a no would be for Europe, but particularly for Ireland.
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whatever all you EUphiles say, your actions show the opposite.
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Why is there never any anti-EU reporting on the BBC?
I thought the BBC wasn't supposed to show bias one way or the other??
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Caspar_Heetman @ #73
Thank you for your input.
This was an enlightening read and I very much appreciate what you wrote because I have developed very much the same views through reading the discussions in this Blog over the past few months.
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Jukka_Rohila
In principle yeah
However i doubt even just between me and you we would be able to agree the practical implementaion of it, let alone a constitution to govern it all
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JohaMe @ #77
Quite rightly said.
In many ways and on different levels the Treaty of Lisbon does introduce accountability to national state parliaments, make QMV more representative by introducing qualified veto as opposed to an unwritten veto that currently exists whereby the major nations hold far more power of veto now than they will necessarily if Lisbon is implemented and the EU MEPs are given far more responsibility that they do now.
Arguably, there is every good reason to ratify and implement the Lisbon Treaty particulars.
But, I can also see that many people (here within the comments of this Blog and probably at large in the EU) probably feel that the Lisbon Treaty is being ratifies and implemented without any discussion at the level of the electorate.
Some people suggest that the "general populace" are too ill-educated to understand the question so it is a matter that should be decided by their patricians, elder and betters.
Other people suggest that the previous experience of allowing the French, Danish and Dutch electorates to have referenda and who deliberately voted "No" to development of the EU means that the "people" cannot be trusted to vote on such major political endeavours.
I am pro-Lisbon Treaty but I am against treating the people of democracies of whatever ilk as the great unwashed and plebeians who should not have the right to decide their futures. Thus it is not the Treaty of Lisbon that is at fault it is the deliberate, albeit unpublicised, decision by 26 of the 27 Leaders of the EU Member States to proceed to ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon without any recourse to their electorates that for me IS the problem.
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#73 - Caspar_Heetman
This is a very good post which gives cause for serious consideration. Broadly speaking, I would agree with everything you say. It does, however, raise an interesting question. You would normally expect a country - any country - to enter into a treaty commitment in a very serious spirit and with every intention of respecting it in perpetuity or, at least until it was amended or updated by subsequent agreement. For example, you would not expect a British government to decide that they do not like the cluster bomb treaty they signed yesterday and decide to use them again.
On the other hand, there are treaty arrangements which make assumptions about the state of affairs in other countries over which one signatory may have no control. Treaties of alliance are a case in point whereby you could very well find a situation in which a friendly and collaborative government were to give way to a belligerent regime. In those circumstances, such an arrangement would have to be regarded as voidable.
This begs the question of what the nature of this treaty is. A number of posters on the sceptic wing have asked the question of whether the UK government has the right to enter into treaty obligations which are binding on future governments. I would argue, although not everyone would agree, that there will always be an ability to repudiate a treaty if circumstances change to the extent that it's provisions are no longer appropriate or viable. However, there is very little point in enacting something into law while at the same time reserving the right to 'tweek' it more or less at will.
So is Lisbon a solemn binding long term commitment to a process from which there is no turning back or is it another staging post along an evolutionary route which begins in Rome, progresses to Maastricht and will eventually be replaced by something else? If it is the former, should it not be demonstrably the case that it enjoys the support of the people and, if the latter, does it really matter as it will be by its nature temporary?
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****And those infinitely better qualified scientists on the IPCC must be a bunch of idiots as well.*****
hahhaa.. IPCC... when did they get it right? IPCC scientists or better say the fortune tellers.. who scare people to get money..
same as church who scare people about god to get money..
IPCC-the witch, the messenger of god, the telepathic modlers, the non-sense logical models.. haha
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Can you believe that IPCC scientists? are scientists because of what? or why?
because they had the privileges that some other people didnt have/were discriminated against by the so called politically correct in line with the state policy.
The whole system has gone MAD, and is out of controll.. since now everybody is a scientist and has a Bsc, Msc, or Phd, in whatever field, only by doing *bullsht*
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87 - Buzet23
There are virtues to the changes to QMV which might not be to the liking of the Franco-German axis. As you say, it only takes four to upset the apple cart. I suppose you might expect the Benelux group to generally tow the line but they would not have too much difficulty bringing Denmark on side in the event of a disagreement, the Baltic republics are a group of three, Visegrad is already a group of four. I suspect that in practice, the Lisbon process will lead to some unexpected results which were not at all what was intended.
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#93, greypolyglot,
No I'm not a qualified scientist, but neither do your qualifications prove that you understand nature any better than anyone else. As you should indeed know nature is not an exact science and is to a certain extent unpredictable. There are many qualified scientists who do question the validity of the climate change phobia often on the basis that it has always happened with or without mankind, plushow much influence do we actually have by the measures being forced on us, a laughably tiny one. If you want to actually learn something potentially useful you should spend your time investigating the suns cyclic system or how to utilise gravity or one of the other unknowns that could cut down carbon emissions. However I doubt there are too many commercial companies willing to fund research in these areas as they are making too much from the current measures.
#91, Jukka_Rohila,
Why is it always a federation or nothing with you, there are other options like a confederacy that are just as workable. If the Irish rightly consider a second vote to be an insult against them then other solutions to create a democratic workable EU need to be found. Don't keep coming up with the conclusion before the analysis of all options has been done.
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#94 - greypolyglot
"I even put my money where my mouth is and contribute substantially to charities in said fields. Do you, or are you just a do-nothing critic?"
You presuppose that I have money. I was under the impression that there were other ways of addressing issues than throwing money at them but then again, I have never subscribed to the Pontius Pilate school. I am open to persuasion but I am not for sale.
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To Freeborn-John (95):
"Jukka (56): International law is just that; the law. International treaties are the law of this country and others because we have accepted them as such for a very long time. They are not optional and if we as a nation break international law, the breach is justiciable at The International Court in The Hague."
And then what? The International Law is a sham. The law doesn't apply to a country if it doesn't want to follow it. If the UK wants to repudiate all treaties that it has, it can. And guess what, because UK is still a fairly large power and has nuclear weapons, there would be nothing for others to do.
The only universal law is... "I have a aircraft carrier parked next to your shore loaded with cruise missiles armed with nuclear weapons, do you want to 'negotiate' with me, or will I fry your capital to ashes?"
That is the only international law that is true, other things are just purely arenas to negotiate between countries that want to play, or to better say it to which its advantageous to play, with the rules.
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threnodio @ #109
I must admit that whne the EU Constitution Treaty was kicked into the long grass by the French and the Dutch and the Treaty of Lisbon seemed to arise form those ashes like the proverbial Phoenix, my first thoughts were what shenaigans are the EU up to now?
But, having actually sifted throught he Treaty and looked at the implications it actually looks like a good deal for developing the EU as an organisation that is less driven by the Executive Arm with the pre-agreed consent of the Council of Ministers to one that is more driven by the consent of the MEPs ( and even the MPs or national sovereign parliamentarians).
QMV in particular creates little change to percentage population weighting but does take into account that the mechanism for veto was previously unwritten. Now it only takes the UK and two of Italy, Poland or Spain to veto an EU change or indeed two or three of the lesser populated nations to work with any one or more of the 5 highest population nations to veto an EU change.
This in a way gives more power to population density but by the same token gives countries like Cyprus, Greece and the Czechs the opportunity to have veto and the option to drive the EU forward to the benfit of all and not just Germany and France and the Benelux countries.
Not that there should be any discord in how the EU develops but just in case it is always a good thing to have a veto to hand! ;=)
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107. karolina001:
"****And those infinitely better qualified scientists on the IPCC must be a bunch of idiots as well.*****
hahhaa.. IPCC... when did they get it right? IPCC scientists or better say the fortune tellers.. who scare people to get money.. "
And your own scientific credentials are ..... ?
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What does a No in a referendum mean?
In Denmark, it probably was an answer due to euroskepticism. In France, it was more a protest vote, from left-leaning parties and people who were more worried about what kind of europe did they want. But the idea of EU was not really into question. My impression is that the reasons for the irish NO are closer to those of France.
So, UK euroskeptics: it is normal that you try to channel your own frustrations through other countries' referenda. But to think that other countries' voter's reasons for a No are the same as yours is just wishful thinking. Nevertheless, in a sort of mean way I agree that is funny watching other people tear down a house that you don't like. So I understand your excitement.
An Irish no won't be the end of Brussels and its endless burocracy and mindless spending. And that is a sad thing. Instead, it will bring closer the idea of a two-speed EU, and it will likely reduce the influence that UK now has in EU decision making.
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Democracy. Such a small word, but the antics of the EU continue to demonstrate they either do not understand what it means, or else more worryingly, they do not believe in it. The Irish voted "NO"...should be end of the story. Why is Mr Mardell's postings always as a cheer leader for the EU and never seeming to challenge anything. Is it not outragious to change the rules after the match to try and give the result to the other team? The Irish situation was well known when the process started, so when they voted "NO" why was that not accepted as the result. Mr Mardell your job is to challenge not to be a spokesman for the EU....
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To Buzet23 (110):
Confederation that, confederation this... Confederation is not an option, its just a watered down federation.
To quote Wikipedia...
"Usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution, confederations tend to be established for dealing with critical issues such as defense, foreign affairs, or a common currency, with the central government being required to provide support for all members. A confederation, in modern political terms, is usually limited to a permanent union of sovereign states for common action in relation to other states.[1]
"The nature of the relationship among the states constituting a confederation varies considerably. Likewise, the relationship between the member states and the central government, and the distribution of powers among them, is highly variable. Some looser confederations are similar to international organizations, while tighter confederations may resemble federations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation
The EU is already a confederation, actually its much more than a confederation already. The EU is a sui generis, one of a kind, not just a confederation anymore but not yet a federation.
The thing is that going back is not an option. What going back means is going back to more disjointed Europe that is more divided, more quarreling and very much weaker than the current EU or what a Federal state could be.
The thing why its always a Federation is that its the only option to avoid conflict inside Europe and influence word to avoid conflict with it and European interests. Let me give you an example...
The British financial and banking sector, thanks to it and the US, what we have now is recession, possible depression and with a bad luck a total collapse of the global economy if all goes wrong. Now let me give you an example of what happened today... The BoE decreased its interest rate with 1% to 2%, the ECB had to follow an lowered its interest rate 0,75% to 2,5%. Why I say the ECB had to do that? Well, if the interest rate difference with the BoE and ECB grows too big then what will happen is the capital will flow out and with a worst case scenario threaten the liquidity of BoE. Now what is the big problem? Well, the economy of UK is very tightly interlinked to Eurozone and if British economy collapses it will have very large impact on Eurozone. So why I'm worried about ECB lowering interest rates more? Because it money is too cheap then in some time-frame we will have rebound that is build on easy money: the same that happened in 2001 and why Americans are now going to pay a big bill.
The thing is that the interests are just too large to be let them be taken care in 27 different member countries. That hasn't worked to this day and it for sure not be working in the future. What we need is a strong federal government that settles all interests and takes care of them.
But hey, lets keep going with current setup, it hasn't worked before and wont work in the future. Let we watch together, in the worst case scenario, the US economy collapsing, British economy following and the rest of us following after that.
Thank you very much for destroying the world economy dear US and UK -the rest of us.
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110. Buzet23:"
#93, greypolyglot,
No I'm not a qualified scientist, but neither do your qualifications prove that you understand nature any better than anyone else."
Mmmm, maybe a little bit better than the average man in the street.
"As you should indeed know nature is not an exact science and is to a certain extent unpredictable."
Ah, yes, I did actually know that, thank you. Forecasts are possible nonetheless.
"If you want to actually learn something potentially useful you should spend your time investigating the suns cyclic system or how to utilise gravity or one of the other unknowns that could cut down carbon emissions. "
Yup, yet again you're telling me stuff I do actually know. (except gravity to cut down carbon emissions - ref. please - it sounds like gobbledegook)
But do you know something? I'd rather be sitting here in 10 years going "oops, we got that wrong" than "ohmigod we got that right and it's now it's too late". Did you never hear that "prevention is better than cure" or "better safe than sorry"?
One thing that I will tell you is that if the climate does get into an overheating feedback loop then we're fried and there'll be no cowboy in a white hat riding over the horizon to save us with a last minute technological fix. But the the water wars and food riots should keep us from worrying too much about that.
But look on the bright side. You'll be able to forget arguing about the rights and wrongs of the EU forever and ever and ever!
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111. threnodio:
"#94 - greypolyglot
"I even put my money where my mouth is and contribute substantially to charities in said fields. Do you, or are you just a do-nothing critic?"
You presuppose that I have money. I was under the impression that there were other ways of addressing issues than throwing money at them"
A fair point. So you offer you time or labour, I suppose?
"I have never subscribed to the Pontius Pilate school."
Good for you. Neither have I.
"I am open to persuasion but I am not for sale."
Likewise. See how much we have in common and how well we're getting along together?
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for 13- Midland20
Anti-EU people are desperate to scupper the EU by any means as soon as possible.
Why as soon as possible?
Because time is against them.
As more and more young people become fully-fledged Europeans, the Anti-mob starts to shrink. To die off.
If they don't get their referenda soon, the game will be up.
The next few years are critical for both sides in this respect.
It sounds a very convincing argument for the European cause. There are other democratic ways to achieve your dream: deprive the over 40 of their right to vote or even more drastically get rid of them alltogether. Alternatively the Europhiles should try and put up a better argument than just abolition of frontiers, no more wars, and bla bla bla The economic interests of a few lucky ones are trying to rebuild an empire without a war. The younger ones like you who have been deprived of the knowledge of history should look back and see what happened to all attempts to build empires from the times of ancient Greece. EU will end up the same way. Hopefully we will not get to that point in which case we would have to be forever grateful to the Irish. Long live the Irish.
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In the mix for discussing the importance of Global Climate Change and the IPCC being so authoritative, something that has struck me as weird is that The IPCC Fourth Climate Change Report (2007) states Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values over the past 650,000 years.
Airplanes and motorised transport was not around in 1750 and, I might be wrong, but actually not around until about the 1900s!
If the change has been monitored over this span of time then clearly, if the cause IS anthropogenic (e.g. man made) climate change, then this has been going on for longer than cars, lorries, vans and airplanes have been around.
I don't dispute the need to tackle climate change but I question the attempts by the EU to put all there efforts into combatting climate change into screwing down motor manufacturers and the airline industry when clearly preceding the days of modern transport, other anthropogenic causes of climate change must have existed. Certainly, since 1750 when records regarding increasing greenhouse gases are there to indicate increasing levels over the intervening time something else that man has been doing (other than using motorised and jet transport) must have contributed to this increase in greenhouse gases?
What is the EU going to do about those other undisclosed causes given that it has a specific Lisbon Treaty driven policy to do so?
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I have just returned to this blog and I find that it appears to be still a repository of bile and bigotry without too much reasoned thought.
It amazes me that the anti-Europeans see fit to rant so much. They can not seriously expect to have any impact on the other side of the argument. Slanging matches generate heat and not light.
The World's economy is in a desperate condition, Europe's economic outlook is terrible and all of the constituent parts of Europe are similarly 'blessed'. Is it impossible for us to try to work together for the common good?
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Menedemus
I would imagine the other other anthropogenic causes of climate change were the burning of coal and wood in every household for warmth and cooking. This has been replaced by electricity, oil and gas.
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haha Now we have people with supposed worthy credentials, the self-called scientists who do nothing, but feel they are important.. giving us lectures by quoting wikipedia... this is so funny..
it is interesting to have now, except EU, also IPCC scientists in defence of EU..why not? get EU funding for just write a report every year or so.. saying climate this and climate that.. and next year.... climate this and that and we all gonna die..
of course that if I will get paid by EU and work for IPCC i will say whatever to get the funds..
Again i must say that the system has gone MAD. Out of controll, it is infiltrated by incompetent, who feed on it..
those who have a degree must remember that we the workers feed you, we the taxpayers feed you with money.. if we decide not to produce and pay no taxes, you with a paper or credential have nothing... zipp... writing a paper or report, a fortune teller romance is not productive.
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They can not seriously expect to have any impact on the other side of the argument.
Is it impossible for us to try to work together for the common good?
If we can not compromise how can we work together?
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WEP @ 123
My ancestors are to blame then.
They should have gone cold and eaten raw meat as we will have to do now! ;=)
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I have just returned to this blog and I find that it appears to be still a repository of bile and bigotry without too much reasoned thought.
It amazes me that the Pro-Europeans see fit to rant so much. They can not seriously expect to have any impact on the other side of the argument.
Is it impossible for us to try to work together for the common good?
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Having had no chance to vote on the Lisbon Treaty and seeing the underhand way it was forced through and ratified, I am suspicious of it.
Eire will not be offered any softeners on this, will they?
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Democracy? Yeh: the non-elected Rupert Murdoch - right on Gov! After all, Gordon Brown and co were elected by a minority of the British electorate. Let's get really well-informed before we post here.
I don't remember being asked to vote in a referendum on NATO membership, nor the WTO, nor the UN, nor on any changes to their constitutions. But then, I expected my government to act in the best interests of the country and its citizens.
Oh, and I didn't get to vote on the abolition of hanging either.
Funny thing this "democracy'.
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Midland20 (13), giannir (12) etc: Contrary to what Midland20 suggests, it is the Young who have voted most strongly against the EU in the last 5 referendums. The pre-referendum opinion polls in Ireland showed that there was a majority in favour of the Lisbon treaty only among the over-50s. A majority in all age groups under 50 voted against it. http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/david-mcwilliams/why-yes-and-no-voters-are-in-a-class-of-their-own-1404851.html The same phenomenon was observed by the EU's own Eurobarometer post-referendum surveys of the 2005 referendums in Spain, France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Page 9 of the 4th of the 2005 post-referendum surveys conducted by the EU says the following: "The sociodemographic breakdown (in Luxembourg) confirms phenomena noted in Spain, France and the Netherlands and shows that the voters of the two camps have a well-defined profile irrespective of the country where they are. So, the 'Yes' come out on top more clearly among women (60%) and especially among the more elderly (72%), whilst the great majority of young people (62%) tend to side with the 'No'." [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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I guarantee this now. We'll vote no for the simple fact we were absolutely screwed over by the budget. I voted yes the first time but it'll be a solid no this time around, simply as a protest vote against the government (i was a fianna fail supporter my whole life until the budget).
I won't be the only one either.
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#129 frenchderek
"I don't remember being asked to vote in a referendum on NATO..... etc"
-And you are HAPPY about this?
It is like letting politicians write blank cheques. You should not do it.
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Regarding NATO, that is the model I would like the E.U. to be, but of course in connection with the economy.
Get rid of the pretense of democracy that is called the European Parliament, get rid of the commision. Let the E.U be directly controlled by Nation states with a much smaller bureacracy ensuring free trade and freedom of movement. All else should be got rid of
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Mark, Thanks for addressing this subject. (Whether or not as a result of 'popular demand' ;-)
You write:
"And an even more intriguing question: what would a second No vote mean for the treaty?"
Surely you mean a fourth No vote.
The Lisbon Treaty has already been voted down twice before - by France and the Netherlands - when it was called the 'Constitutional Treaty'
Anyone with an once (28 grammes) of honesty will tell you that they are substantially the same thing.
A famous Lady Bracknell quote - that losing one parent looks like a misfortune, but losing two looks like carelessness - might spring to the minds of other European leaders. But more to the point, it would either kill the treaty stone dead or force the EU to go ahead without Ireland.
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To jordanbasset (133):
I almost suffocated when I read your comment. You can't be serious?
There is already an organization called WTO that works in the same way as the NATO of economy. Nation states are in full control.
The thing that you and other advocates of "lets just have free trade" is that there is no free trade or in another words "others are more free to trade than others".
What the WTO has showed us is that in the area of economy the only thing that counts is economic power and willingness to use to further ones own agenda. Do I have to remind about US vs. Antigua, where the US even succeeded to intervene and twist the decision of the internal board. Or do you remember when the US set up steel tariffs and EU retaliated by setting punishment tariffs that targeted swing states that voted Bush.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_steel_tariff_2002
The thing is that in the area of economy there is constant conflict of different interests and different actors and with them the only applicable laws are the laws of the jungle. In this world the UK or any other European state is so small actor that they are overran by everybody else and that's a sure way to poorhouse.
What we need is a strong EU state that can combine European economic, political and military into one harmonious power that can be applied against other powers. To control this power we need democracy and accountability so that the power will not become corrupt or the power be used in wrong aims.
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Jukka_Rohila @91 wrote:
"If you want truly democratic EU you have to dissolve all the member countries, make a one unified European state, set up parliament representing people and and upper house of parliament representing regions, found European parties, etc...
I'm a-okey with that if you are too."
There is no 'European demos'.
Where is the common in language, attitude, mentality, language and natural affinity between, say, the Finns and the Greeks?
The idea of a European Nation is a fallacy.
Try again in 500 years (maybe).
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To MaxSceptic (136):
Where there are common economic interests there are not only common economic policies, but all policies as general are common as they associate themselves to the economic backbone.
The idea of European nation is fallacy, but the idea of European state is not a fallacy. The era of nation states have been very short and only began in 19th -century. Is there any reason why multinational states functioned before 19th -century, but for some reason they wouldn't function now?
The other thing of course is that we as Europeans can't afford on being not united, either in a single state or in a Federal state. If we are not united then the others will get us someday or another and we will be in the paying side.
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#119 - greypolyglot
"Likewise. See how much we have in common and how well we're getting along together?"
That is an eminently reasonable idea and I am happy to go along with it.
I do what I can - which I am perfectly happy to admit is not a lot - but it might be a good start were we not to give or take offence.
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Thought that would wake you up Jukka. I want more than the WTO but less than the cuurent E.U., in the words of the 'great one' we need to find a third way (can't believe I wrote that).
We are currently at the tipping point for the E.U., if we go any further on the federal route it will become impossible to stop. I believe provided we can halt all forward momentum of the E.U. it will have no choice but to start to go back - regress if you wish. After all the most pro e.u. supporters are forever saying the status quo is not sustainable, I believe they are right, so lets go back.
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To threnodio (75):
You said: "This has got to stop Jukka. The Brits are the slaves of the Americans who are all evil? Get outta here!"
Actually this time you and the British were collateral damage. The point of my original comment 71, that didn't even mention UK at all was to note that...
1) Americans can't afford to judge others as they have just invaded, together with loyal allies, a country, set up a puppet government, dictated its trade and even bill it for the costs of occupation.
2) If the EU was such a horrible anti-democratic dictatorship as many of the anti-Europeans (yes that is right, if you are against EU you are a nationalist and thus not European) have put out, then the Irish would now getting cruise missiles to Dublin and not a polite fish to vote again with out a fear that their country will be occupied.
And yes, we all should work together, but then again conflict is an eternal part of life, and we have to live with it and the best way to live with it is to embrace it, the conflict.
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136. MaxSceptic :
"There is no 'European demos'.
Where is the common in language, attitude, mentality, language and natural affinity between, say, the Finns and the Greeks?
The idea of a European Nation is a fallacy.
Try again in 500 years (maybe)."
OR
"There is no 'British' demos.
Where is the common in language, attitude, mentality, language and natural affinity between, say, the Welsh and the Scots?
The idea of a British Nation is a fallacy.
Try again in 500 years (maybe);-)
Although to be fair, the four very countries and economies have managed to get along with a common currency for quite a while now. ;-)
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138. threnodio:
"#119 - greypolyglot
"Likewise. See how much we have in common and how well we're getting along together?"
That is an eminently reasonable idea and I am happy to go along with it.
I do what I can - which I am perfectly happy to admit is not a lot - but it might be a good start were we not to give or take offence."
Agreed! Agreed! I wonder if you and I might start a peaceful revolution on Mark's blog whereby people express their views and disagree with each other without descending to rant and ire. Oh, what a utopian I am! (true, I sometimes descend to sarcasm but I am only human after all and I do have weaknesses. ;-) )
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141. greypolyglot:
136. MaxSceptic :
Oops! Tired, I meant:-
Although to be fair, the four very DIFFERENT countries and economies have managed to get along with a common currency for quite a while now. ;-)
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To jordanbasset (139):
Actually we are long past of tipping point, or tipping points...
The tipping point was the establishment of common market in 1992. After that the national production networks of individual states have merged together into a single production network. Dissolving the common market would mean the collapse of the said production network and its results would bring Europe into the level of eastern European states after the fall of communism. What that means is that 2/3 of EU legislation is out of reach without severe economic consequences.
The second tipping point was the creation of Euro in 1999. The effects of Euro were lower interest rates than what was before; increased monetary stability to governments, reduced monetary risks and lowered over-head for European companies etc.. what this means is that if monetary union would be dissolved then the operating environment for companies and states would differ so much that the economy would go on to a severe depression and few of the Euro area states could even see their economies collapse totally. We should also add that the Euro is an important piece in international arenas, the Chinese want to trade with Euro, so do South-Americans, so do Oil sheiks and Russians with little hesitance. What that means is that European companies monetary risks will diminish when all trade is done in Euros and the ECB can externalize the inflation as has the Fed done and this means big boost to our GDPs.
The thing is that both common market and Euro need more centralization to work even better. Dissolving them would mean the economic collapse and Europe diminishing its place in the world.
So now, please, I want to hear your thoughts about these, would these be in your third way or how would you compensate for these?
PS. And don't count for US dollar. Ben Bernanke has suggested that the Fed should start buying US government bonds if necessary. In the plain old language they are going to print dollars as there would be no tomorrow. Now guess who is going to suffer most from this... Oh yes, other states and central banks that have huge dollar reserves. That's the Americans telling us "Yippie-Kai-Yay Mother...".
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#140 Jukka_Rohila
"you are a nationalist and thus not European"
You can't put other people into such categories.
I (like a significant number of Scots) am both a Scottish Nationalist and a European Unionist.
I'm a Nationalist because I want Scotland to run its own affairs, and have the same status in Europe as other small nations.
I'm a European Unionist because I recognise that, in the modern world, my nation needs to pool its sovereignty in a wider union for the "big" things, and the UK is too small and unimportant for that purpose.
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Jukka_Rohila @137 asks:
"Is there any reason why multinational states functioned before 19th -century, but for some reason they wouldn't function now?"
Yugoslavia?
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121. Menedemus:
"something that has struck me as weird is that The IPCC Fourth Climate Change Report (2007) states Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values over the past 650,000 years."
I'm not going to attempt a tutorial on the subject but the internet is wonderful resource for finding explanations of scientific methodologies for establishing the data in question.
If you actually are interested do some research and you'll discover the answers you seek. And, no, I shan't point you in any particular direction - that way I can't be accused of bias. Sincerely, I wish you good luck in your search for answers.
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#141 greypolyglot
"the four very countries and economies have managed to get along with a common currency for quite a while now."
It's always been true that at times, the economic decisions by the UK in support of sterling have not suited Scotland when our economy has been "out of sync" with England.
However, it has also been true that we have benefited from our currency being part of a wider economic union (the UK) with a more diverse economic base.
How much better for Scotland (and England if it would give up its dreams of past imperial strength) to be in the euro with an even more diverse base.
There are ups and downs to having ones own currency, but the English europhobes only see the downs.
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141. At 10:08pm on 04 Dec 2008, greypolyglot @141,
To be fair (though not politically correct) Britain has always 'been' predominantly 'England' - which is only reasonable considering the fact that the English were/are 85% of the population; that they originally conquered the Welsh and the Irish; and forced a bankrupt Scotland into the Union.
Over the centuries, enterprising Scots, Welshmen and Irishmen have always always done well in Britain, but the underlying resentment that comes from being a 'second' (or third or forth nation) in the Union has over the years simmered and now finds its expression augmented by the 'regional' policies of the EU (classic divide and conquer).
It is a pity, but the Union is coming to a ending.
An artificial and forced 'union' of 'Europe' will not work. The only question is: will it collapse peacefully or in bloodshed?
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146. MaxSceptic wrote:
Jukka_Rohila @137 asks:
"Is there any reason why multinational states functioned before 19th -century, but for some reason they wouldn't function now?"
Yugoslavia?
Switzerland?
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To oldnat (145):
Actually you are right about that. I just couldn't resist on making the comment as I actually feel somewhat like that.
Then again you are technically wrong about your own position. You are now an Scottish separatist, when you become independent and you become just Scottish. If this whole time you have embraced Europe and want to be part of it then you have been all the time European.
But then again...
Of course I can make the categorization! Like the great decider George W. Bush said, many times, "You're either with us or against us".
PS. I actually like George W. Bush as an person, don't like the policies of his presidency, but as a person seems to be terrific. Funny discordances of life. ;-)
To MaxSceptic (146):
Yugoslavia had one of the highest standards of living in the eastern block. The thing that dispersed Yugoslavia was Serb and Croat nationalism that were never tamed. If Yugoslavia would have had more stronger Federal government with out communism or autocracy then the country would have worked fine. By the way ex-Yugoslavia is a one funny example as they are all part of the same nation, they are only separated by religions, the languages don't differ more than dialects differ from each other and the culture is the same.
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Ticape @150,
Swiss Cantons are not nations.
(And it is notable that the sensible Swiss has so far avoided entangling themselves into the EU).
====
(Good night everyone)
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#142 - greypolyglot
". . . people express their views and disagree with each other without descending to rant and ire".
That may be pushing your luck just a tad but I am interested to see looking back on past posts how a surprisingly large number have moderated their positions in recent times. There is hope.
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#151 - Jukka_Rohila
I have no idea when you were last in Yugoslavia but your vision of it bears no resemblance to the fragmented society I know.
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152. MaxSceptic:
"... it is notable that the sensible Swiss has so far avoided entangling themselves into the EU)."
Try asking the Swiss Embassy for a list of EU legislation to which the Helvetic Confederation adheres. I think you'll be awfully disillusioned. And they don't even get a say at the negotiating table because they're not in the EU.
And, yes, I am aware of the various areas in which they have negotiated separate EU-CH agreements. The end result is not much different from the various opt-outs that UK has.
Oh, and would you believe it? CH joins Schengen although UK doesn't!
http://ec.europa.eu/youreurope/nav/en/citizens/travelling/schengen-area/index_en.html
Hm, so much for that one. When the Swiss change their minds - ever more likely in fact - you'll be left with just Norway with which to beat up the EU.
I could suggest that you ask the Norwegian Embassy for a list of EU legislation to which that country adheres but I would fear for your blood pressure or your sanity.
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#118, greypolyglot,
You said "Yup, yet again you're telling me stuff I do actually know. (except gravity to cut down carbon emissions - ref. please - it sounds like gobbledegook)".
Gobbledegook? it seems that your marvellous qualifications also meant a suppression of appreciation of the inventive qualities that led to so many inventions from the UK and Germany over the last few centuries. Not everything comes from a book I'm afraid.
In terms of gravity and other effects from the sun or even cosmic sources, can you not see the benefits of non polluting engines or energy sources. After all the principle of the linear motor was around a long time and was even prototyped as being water driven over a hundred years ago before the current electro-magnetism system, and solar panels, wind farms are mostly just a nice little earner for business with limited real potential as their capicity is too restricted.
My point is simply that there is so much hypocrisy being spoken by politicians and scientists about carbon emissions who keep on supporting the traditional or recent renewable energy systems primarily because big business demands that. Futuristic alternative energy forms are largely ignored as the R & D cost doesn't give a short term profit to big business and anyone who knows accountancy and accountants know that short term return is all that counts these days in business. I also have long held the view that many inventions have and are being suppressed due to market manipulation, if there is a genuine concern about climate change what we are doing won't even scratch the surface of your overheating feedback loop. A lot of the green taxes are simply an excuse to raise taxes with ridiculous lip service to recycling.
In conclusion, whether or not gravity and/or solar energy etc can ever be understood and mastered I don't know, but if it can it's a lot better for the future of the world than the cottage industry that global warming has become. I'm hoping that nuclear fusion is eventually mastered but that is a lone star on an empty horizon.
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I voted 'no' in the June referendum and, if there is a second referendum, I'll be voting 'no' again.
My reasons include: the sweeping extension of QMV, the reduced voting weights of the smaller countries, the fact that member states will only be able to suggest rather than to nominate a commissioner, the inclusion of justice and home affairs within the supranational EU structure (Ireland had negotiated an opt-out in this area but the defeated constitutional amendment would have allowed the government power to opt-in without a further referendum), the requirement to increase military capacity, the establishment of the European Defence Agency on a legal basis, the opening up of the education and health services to commercial tendering ...
But more than anything else, I want to teach the EU technocrats who imagine they know best the simple lesson that in a democracy the people are sovereign and their voice cannot be ignored. If the Brussels mandarins can be forced to acknowledge that they need to win popular consent for any further accretion of power, the EU will have changed radically for the better.
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just thinking: but a lot of people are clamouring that asking the Irish to vote a second time is undemocratic?
A rather odd thought, as if people aren't allowed to change their mind.
Imagine if you could only decide once on every issue!
The Chaos, Glorious Chaos!
Not to mention eternal backwardedness. Progress of any kind is only possible by learning and reviewing your decisions, and changing them when appropriate.
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#117, Jukka_Rohila,
Re confederation or in fact any other permutation of the EU that's possible, can you explain the difference between someone to whom the answer is always a federal Europe no matter what the questions are, and a dictator that wishes to impose their views on an unwilling region or neighbour. Should the EU become the huge superstate you seem to desire it is quite possible that they will seek to impose their system on neighbours, and it is not inconceivable that this could be by force if the Lisbon treaty is enacted. After all both Switzerland and Norway have to agree to EU directives and pay into the EU in order to have a trade agreement and a European defence force could be abused by a future fanatical president.
Remember Jukka, that in most things there is always more than one solution and the future of the EU is most certainly in that case.
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Grumpy_Fogey 157 - you strike me as someone who is against the EU and not just the Lisbon Treaty. Do you have any comprehension of the damage a second no would do Ireland's prosperity? the increased instability that this would bring to the economy? Surely while we have concerns about the EU it is better to be inside Europe shaping debate than turning our backs?
This entire concept of democracy is odd, each member state has a democratically elected parliament, we all vote for the EU parliament, the Commission is allowed to propose directives but they need to be signed off by the democratically elected heads of states or relevant ministries, or it is ratified by EU Parliament. What kind of democracy in the EU do you want!?
People have worked themselves up over this so called 'democratic deficit', but that should be no reason why Ireland should damage itself and its future because someone in Cyprus or Malta did not get a direct vote on this treaty.
Why so many Irish people are willing to damage their future for a treaty that is in their best interest is beyond me. Worse case scenario for those that remain in the EU, the treaty will come into force after Ireland signs away their full membership of the EU and EURO. ( have a think if Ireland had its own currency now?....Iceland here we come!)
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156. Buzet23:
"#118, greypolyglot,
You said "Yup, yet again you're telling me stuff I do actually know. (except gravity to cut down carbon emissions - ref. please - it sounds like gobbledegook)".
Gobbledegook? it seems that your marvellous qualifications also meant a suppression of appreciation of the inventive qualities that led to so many inventions from the UK and Germany over the last few centuries. Not everything comes from a book I'm afraid."
Sadly, my qualifications fall far short of marvellous are and relatively mundane. However, I do strive to keep abreast of all new developments in clean energy generation and in energy conservation.
So, please, give me a ref for "gravity to cut down carbon emissions". I am not being sarcastic or contentious - I am genuinely inviting you to point me in the right direction. Please.
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#156 - Buzet23
#118 - greypolyglot
I think there is virtue in what you both say and I don't think your positions are inconsistent. While I agree with GP that this probably is the most important single issue of the age, I also feel that the cause has been hijacked by the PC brigade and that we should be seeking common sense solutions rather than pontificating about it.
If people would stop talking about doomsday scenaria and simply accept that we cannot go on polluting the planet in the profligate way we have done up to now, we will begin to recognise that green technologies represent not merely a saner approach to looking after the world but an incredible business opportunity, particularly at a time when recession will be putting into the job market people whose skills could be applied to this field.
In my experience, nothing kick starts progress as effectively as the prospect that there is a good living to be made. At a time when the automotive industry is looking to governments to underwrite loans for car purchase, is there not a case for selective underwriting? If people see a positive advantage in buying green, the manufacturers will be encouraged to concentrate their efforts on this building 'cleaner' cars. This will have a far more immediate effect than imposing rules on specifications. I could cite many more examples but you get my drift. A little more carrot, a little less stick and a lot less moralising is going to get us a whole lot further forward.
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To Buzet23 (159):
If there are other solutions then start presenting them, tell what they are, tell how the system works, tell what effects the proposed solution has on economy, politics and to overall security and wellbeing of Europe.
If you are just going to say, "we should have a confederation", with out defining what that structure would be and what in practice it would mean then is there anything to discuss about it? Does it include single market? Does it include monetary union? What is it in practice. Until you and others who don't like the direction of ever closer union start proposing real alternatives with connection on real world, then as long you will get from the same answer "Its the federation or its the high way".
If we go to a Federal Europe, you don't seem to get it, that the very reason for its existence is collecting European economic, political and military power into a one and use it. In economics why the union shouldn't use its power to shutdown money laundering and tax heavens? Why shouldn't the union intervene on using child labor? Why shouldn't the union advantage human right, democracy in all over the world.. Of course Europe could try to achieve these goals by using military power, but then again that's more expensive than just using trade as an weapon and as an incentive.
You also make the mistake to think that the Federal Europe would be the exact copy of the USA. Well, the USA is a failed state. What we have in the US seen is that first-past-the-post system gravitate to extremes and executive power that isn't responsible to parliament is susceptible to corruption and misuse of power. There is no reason why the EU couldn't have parliament and senate that chose the cabinet, why the whole EU couldn't vote for a president that oversees the cabinet with force to ordain new elections before the term is ended.
Now of course there are many solutions to a one problem, the problem is that you are not putting them out. Like I said, if say the EU should be a confederation then you should start listing what it does and what it doesn't do and what effects will those things have to the functioning of European economy, politics and overall security. So, please be my quest and present your case.
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152. While each canton may not be a nation (they used to be sovereign states though) Switzerland is definitely not a nation state and consists of four different nations.
At the moment it seems to works just fine as a federal multi nation democracy (it's also the only direct democracy in the world) then again it's not like Switzerland is the only multi ethnic democracy in the world.
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BernardVC @158 wrote:
"just thinking: but a lot of people are clamouring that asking the Irish to vote a second time is undemocratic?
A rather odd thought, as if people aren't allowed to change their mind.
Imagine if you could only decide once on every issue! '
Good point! Can we therefore expect the EU to press for referenda in the member states that voted 'Yes' the first time round to see if they've changed their minds?
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Menedemus @ 15
Article 5(3) of the Maastricht as amended by Lisbon. (Not that difficult to read ...)
"In its relations with the wider world, the Union shall uphold and promote its
values and interests and contribute to the protection of its citizens. It shall
contribute to peace, security, the sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity
and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and
the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of the child, as well as to
the strict observance and the development of international law, including respect
for the principles of the United Nations Charter."
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Mark
As always you have a great capacity to provoke a number of interesting "opinions " on the Treaty of Lisbon. I am greatly surprised it is being suggested that the Irish Government wants to "perhaps" hold a second vote sometime in 2009. Somewhow I doubt it. Turkeys and votes for Christmas spring to mind. This is an Irish leak to test Irish reactions. The political and economic situation in late 2009 would almost certainly cloud the issue the electorate would be called to pronounce on. The popularity of the Irish Government is hardly going to improve in such a short time frame and under the prevailing circumstances. The decision of the Irish electorate should be respected as should the views of the elected Irish Government. Whatever happens regarding the Iriosh the remaining 25 or 26 Member States should proceed by a Decision of the Council to implement the Treaty minus the Irish. The Irish could seek EEA status for example and remain part of the Eurozone. This could be done without insurmountable legal difficulties. The EU needs to move on. Global events require effective internal and external EU action. The Lisbon Treaty is designed precisely to facilitate this process.
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Freeborn-John (95): I like your reasoning but I do have my comments:
You use the term nation-state to refer to the subjects of international law. The problem with a nation-state is that it is not a legal term (what about federations, confederations or de-centralised states such as Spain?)
You presume that the most important decisions affecting us all should be taken on the level of that 'nation state'. Why?
The fact is that the majority vote may be applied at different levels (commune, region, state, international organisation). It all depends on the arrangements that the interested parties accept. In the case of the EU, the basic arrangements are in the treaties.
This also explains why I am not particularly concerned with the so called 'democratic deficit' of the EU. It is simply a superior level of decision making to all other levels mentioned above. In which way is it worse than ,say - the national government overriding the policy decisions taken at the level of my village?
As long as the subsidiarity principle stays in the treaties and the role of the EP is maintained, the democratic factor of the EU will be at least as strong as that of an average EU state, which is already very good on a global scale.
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To EverCloserUnion (168):
If the Irish say final No to the Lisbon Treaty then I'm afraid that is it for the treaty. The Council of Ministers certainly can't make a decision one going ahead without Ireland, that would be in preach of treaties regarding the European Union, and an unwanted decision.
No, if the Irish say No, and the No is final then the Union needs to starts new negotiations on basis of two speed Europe where member states can opt-in. I think that even if the the Lisbon goes throe, Irish giving a Yes vote, even then the EU should start seriously drawing plans for multi speed Europe and how that would work.
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I guess if I'd been eligible to vote in the Irish Lisbon referendum I might have been tempted to vote 'no' as well. After all, it's a bit like your union announcing that they've negotiated a 2% pay rise and asking you to vote on it. You might think that 2% is probably realistic but 3% would be better, so you reject the 2% since you've got nothing to lose (you've no intention of striking) and you send them back to the negotiating table. Later, they come back with an offer of 2.5%. It's not much of an improvement, but it was worthwhile voting no the first time round. It is the same with the Lisbon treaty. There was no risk in voting 'no' because there was no realistic danger that Ireland would leave the EU. If, as a result of the 'no' vote, Ireland keeps its permanent Commissioner, and gains clarifications on abortion, tax and neutrality, it will be seen as a victory (even though the permanent Commissioner should make no difference since a Commissioner's allegiance is towards the Commission, not his country of origin).
Therefore a no-yes strategy might be seen as being good for Ireland. Whether it would be a good thing for the EU in the long run though (bearing in mind that the over-abundance of Commissioners would have to remain) is a different matter.
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To (112) Jukka_Rohila:
Your 'realpolitik' approach is certainly confirmed by many unfortunate events in the history of mankind. But then, as someone before stated - international law is just law. By definition, it can be broken (just like criminal law or civil contracts). The problem with enforcement is indeed a subject of debate but we all have to be realistic.
However, the good thing is that apart from arms, we have other instruments to enforce treaties and other legal acts across borders.
For example, the European Commission has the power to impose its competition decisions in an extraterritorrial manner. It can block a merger of companies based outside of the EU if the antitrust rules are broken. What about enforcement? The companies in question may be prevented from trading in the world's largest market (EU). That is enough to dissuade them from opposing the Commission. As you see, cleverly used non-military tools also work.
Someone please tell that to W. Bush.
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"Losing two"? The EU seems to have lost a lot more than 2 referendums over recent years. Pretty much every single referendum that has been put, in fact. But we all know by now that it isn't a democratic institution. We all know they'll keep asking the same question again and again until they get the answer they want. This is why the referendum is rightly regarded as a fascist tactic. It seems to appeal to popular democracy, but in fact it just legitimises decisions made in the bureaucracy's committee rooms.
My suggestion to the Irish people would be to boycott the next referendum en masse. Anybody who wants to vote "No", don't vote. That way they'll get their Mugabe-esque 100% approval and everyone will see them for the great democrats they are.
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Michael_Walsh @ #166
I am not sure what you mean by "(Not that difficult to read ...)". I sincerely hope your intent is not to insult my intelligence?
My argument is with the Treaty of Lisbon which adds explicit and specific sentences stating that combating climate change (and global warming) are policy targets of the Union.
"Uphold and promote" is not exactly "targeted policy intent" merely nice words to indicate the beneficial and moral intent of the EU.
The Lisbon Treaty specifically uses the words "promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems, and in particular combating climate change to be inserted into the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Excuse me but, and this is merely my opinion, I read that as a targeted intent to make combating global climate change as a specific policy be inserted into the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
It is the degree of importance attached to combating global climate change that concernes me. It is my view that the policy intentions of the EU should be equally divided between some of the major human population ills of the EU and the wider world such as poverty, social cohesion and peaceful coexistence.
It just strikes me that the lobbyists for combating global climate change have influenced the Treaty of Lisbon to direct the EU towards their pet hobbyhorse and therein lies the risk that the EU spends too much time devoted to legislation to restrict carbon emissions when family life, properity and the world at large are suffering more direct and adverse problems that are not related to global climate change but are as equally important to the citizens of the EU and the wider world.
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No doubt, as you say, the Irish government will argue such. But saying no to Lisbon would not equate to a choice to "float away" from the European Union.
If the Lisbon treaty were to die and be buried - as it rightly should given how many times now its substance has been rejected in popular votes - the EU would continue to exist and operate just as it does today, on the basis of the existing treaty.
After a 'No', as we are already witnessing, Ireland would remain a member of the current EU and there is no provision in the current treaty for any other country, nor group of countries, to change that.
Only the yet further unnecessary and unpopular power transfers of the Lisbon Treaty will be blocked.
Also it will be difficult for them to argue convincingly that giving more powers to the EU will not affect Irish tax decisions, given the French are already busily trying to push a harmonised EU corporation tax base. Are the EU's ambitions in this area likely to end there? Dream on!
The key problem that the seemingly 1950s-dwelling European centralisation obsessives among today's political class need to consider is why their arguments are so full of holes.
Could that be, possibly, because the same applies to their outdated EU centralisation ideology?
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Singingprincealbert (169): Nation-state really refers to the alignment of two things. A nation is a group of people with sufficient common feeling that they desire to be governed by themselves. A state is a supreme political authority over a given territory (country). When these things line up then you have a nation-state. One key advantage of a nation-state over others form of government is the opportunity for representative government. The solidarities afforded by national identity mean that the principle that the majority decides is accepted, which is important to our concept of democracy. However national solidarity is also key to the redistributive functions of the modern state (e.g. healthcare, education, social security, etc.). We accept our taxes being taken from us to fund such benefits to others within our national community but not to others elsewhere in the world (even though there are many poor countries with greater need). Therefore it is no exaggeration to say that that modern government as we understand it today is totally dependent on national solidarity.
Federalism is a way of distributing the functions of government. This is typically used in a very large state where communications difficulties (in the past at least) made a centralized government impractical. However the legitimacy of a government does not depend on whether it is unitary or federal, but only on whether it is national. This is the key difference between the US federal government and the EU. The former is accepted because it is a national government; the latter is rejected because it is not.
There is also a form of federal government over distinct communities (rather than separate geographic areas) such as one can say exists in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, The Lebanon, Belgium, etc. This type of government is appropriate when the communities are too intermingled to be geographically separated into distinct nation-states and where the risk of inter-community violence is high. In such cases the principle that the majority decides breaks down becoming instead (as during the years of the Stormont parliament) an instrument by which the larger community can oppress the smaller. This form of government (Consociationalism) is therefore only advisable in conflict scenarios. The EU arguably resembles a consociational state but distinct nation-states seem much more logical to me in Europe (except for certain trouble-spots).
Confederation is a voluntary association of sovereign states. They tend to be rare and fragile beasts. The historic rational for confederation was to team up against larger neighbour states that were perceived to represent a common danger. Switzerland prior to 1848 was an example of a Confederation. The key attributes of a confederation are that the members continue to be recognized as independent states by the world community of states, and that they have a shared defense and foreign policy. There is no need for a confederation in Europe today because there is no large external threat that we face. Arguably NATO fulfilled this role when there was such a danger, and would again in the unlikely event of a resurgent aggressive Russia.
You ask why it is OK for the policy preferences of a village to be overridden at national level, but not for the policy preferences of nation to be overruled by the EU. The answer lies in the definition of nation as a community with enough in common that they seek self-government. Members of a village identity themselves primarily with the nation such that they are willing to accept the majority verdict of the nation even on matters which they personally disagree. However when the majority opinion of the nation is overruled then the human response is to regard this as an oppression, and when such oppressions are repeated often enough (as in Ireland prior to 1921) then there will be political pressure for the nation to form its own state such that they can make their own decision to suit their own circumstances. This pattern has been played out across the world leading to the creation of the 200 (and rising) nation-states that we see in the word today.
In my opinion, it is the refusal of EU federalists to recognize the basic desire for self-governance essential to the human condition which is responsible for the deepening EU crisis. The harder they push, the greater the feeling of oppression they engender and the more they undermine their own cause (which is why I let Jukka argue that cause with others).
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#161, greypolyglot,
I can't give you precise projects on gravity to look up about I'm afraid, but there are plenty of people including scientists interested in the subject, including those cosmologists who have been investigating black holes and cosmic behaviour. Whilst there are also many science fantasy believers around and a friend of mine who was a highly qualified nuclear technician is one of those, the basic underlying principle is that there must be a better way than using fossil fuels. It is far more beneficial to the planet that more effort is spent in finding these solutions than scratching the surface with the global warming cottage industry. It has also been pretty clear that the oil industry and car makers are very reluctant to pursue these alternatives since they would lose their business.
My words are simply that there is far too little pressure put on finding 'real' solution(s) whilst the global warming cottage industry continues unabated and will never do more than scratch the surface of the problem. The various nations need to fund new research no matter how much it hurts the oil company's and car makers. Just look at the reluctance to design hydrogen powered car engines, in the US and EU vested interests rule.
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#176 Freeborn-John
I agree with much of what you say, but I think you description of "Federal" and "Confederal" paints them as absolute position.
It would be more accurate to say that there is a spectrum of constitutional positions, with "Federal" at one end giving central government the ultimate authority, while "Confederal" at the other end gives the ultimate authority to the sub-state (Americans would call it sub-national) level.
The more Confederalist structures don't require that international recognition is needed for the units of the Confederacy, simply that the members have agreed to pool some of their sovereignty at the Confederal level. That can include international relations.
It's on that basis, that I want to see a proper Confederal Europe, where the European Executive is controlled by the European Parliament for those functions that we have agreed to pool.
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#163, Jukka_Rohila,
You ask for the arguments when you have already heard them but refuse to consider their value. We have conversed on many threads now and a great number of posters have eloquently put alternatives to a federal EU that you dismiss without consideration as your mind is fixed in one line only. The posting from #176, Freeborn-John is a very good description of federal and confederal scenarios and the point is that it's never going to be one or the other as neither is good for the diverse nations that make up the EU. What is needed is something in between that combines national identity, open markets, social mobility, welfare, defence whilst not being an overbearing, undemocratic, bureaucratic superstate that only benefits political ambitions.
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To Freeborn-John (176):
"which is why I let Jukka argue that cause with others"
How nice of you :-)
But to be serious, I think that you are wrong on few issues. If you are going to argue for something then you have to use cold hard facts and put them on table. You won't sell federalism nor any form of government with fluffy kittens and promises of eternal love. The only way further is just put the facts out.
The thing that I don't understand with you or with many other commentators is that you disregard economics, power politics and in essence the issue of conflicting interests almost totally. This is something that I just can't understand especially when in the last decade we have seen almost a burst of trade war with US and EU, an old time imperial war in Iraq, etc.. The economic struggle is present at the very moment, and to me it seems that you totally disregard it in your thinking.
To me it seems that you and others who argue against the EU and its federal direction totally disregard what the world will look on 2050 or 2100. In that time frame all European countries alone will become just small powers that if alone are vulnerable to any pressure or threat against them. US is already abusing its power, and I can hardly wait on what China will do when its economy reaches parity with the US. I can hardly wait on what kind of struggle erupts in Africa and in the Middle-East when oil and other raw material output are starting to decrease.
From my point of view, if the Europe is not united strongly into a single economical, political and military unit we will someday get polite letter that tells us that we have two choices and the other of them is burning our capitals to ashes. We are moving from Euro and Atlantic centered world to another world where the centers of the world are not our capitals. We have to prepare for that future, now!
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The EU editor is very much in the Speaker Martin mode. Hopelessly biased and determined to put the best establishment spin on European affairs.
Eventually we assume that someone else will be appointed (maybe after the elections) and a more balanced view will be espoused.
Meanwhile Brussels will continue its quest to be the power base of nations and all those employed in the enterprise can look forward to increased rewards.
I and other citizens will continue to pay our taxes and not complain to much.
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177. Buzet23:
"#161, greypolyglot,
I can't give you precise projects on gravity to look up "
OK. A straight answer and I thank you for that courtesy.
"the basic underlying principle is that there must be a better way than using fossil fuels."
Yes! Yes! Look, this is like threnodio and me - we can find common ground if we don't just slag each other off.
"It is far more beneficial to the planet that more effort is spent in finding these solutions than scratching the surface with the global warming cottage industry."
Confucius was a pretty smart chap - 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.' Let's just make a start somewhere before it's too late. It feels to me as if you would have preferred the Wright brothers to hang on until we could start flying with Concorde. And I'm not that that IS your view.
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@92, karolina001:
"Can you explain me the logic behind your assumption that we (the people) are strongly opposed to the treaty without even allowing us a referendum(aksing us)?
How did you come to this conclusion? maybe we are just against the decision of not giving us a referendum."
It's the combination of two things, actually:
1. The treaty will be almost certainly ratified by Parliament if no referendum is held.
2. Most people calling for a referendum were never and never will be supporters of direct democracy.
This strongly suggests that a referendum is only a means to an end.
"Where is the less undemocratic EU in this logic of you, which says not giving people a referendum, is less undemocratic than imposing a Treaty by the force of corruption and dictatorship?"
I was talking about the contents of the actual treaty, not about the question whether a referendum should be held or not.
There are basically three possible net outcomes after the Lisbon treaty is ratified: the EU will become more democratic, the EU will become less democratic or everything will stay the same.
The treaty text suggests that it'll be more democratic (or less undemocratic if you prefer).
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To Buzet23 (179):
Actually Freeborn-John's comment doesn't touch in anyway practical questions as haven't other comments about this subject that reject EU or reject the ever closer union.
I wrote earlier to jordanbasset about tipping points in my comment 144.
I haven't heard from you nor from anybody else any suggestions on what would happen to common market or single currency in confederation or in any other form. I haven't heard on how these things would be organized and how they could even work as well as the current setting. Only things that I hear are just manifestos on how free trade frees us all, but no suggestions on how that trade will be organized etc..
You said: "What is needed is something in between that combines national identity, open markets, social mobility, welfare, defence whilst not being an overbearing, undemocratic, bureaucratic superstate that only benefits political ambitions."
The key here is "something in between that combines". What you are setting is the aim, but you are not providing the game plan, you are not giving any explanation on how things will be organized and they will work. You just ask for something, but without giving an thought on how things would work.
When you start going to practical things as common market or single currency, or how their replacements will work in confederation or in any other form then I can reply to those and valuate them as they are. What I however won't do is to give any thought on wishful thinking without practice.
So first start answering to these questions...
What will happen to common market and how will it work?
What will happen to single currency and how will it work?
When you do that then I will give my own assessment on your reasoning.
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181. kcband8:
"Meanwhile Brussels will continue its quest to be the power base of nations and all those employed in the enterprise can look forward to increased rewards."
It seems that you've missed a post of mine earlier on this blog (but not this thread). Staff of EU institutions have been getting below inflation pay rises for a decade or more. Happy?
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#158 BernardVC
"just thinking: but a lot of people are clamouring that asking the Irish to vote a second time is undemocratic?"
A second vote is wanted by the Euro gang and if that is NO, they will want a third vote.
Once you have voted YES, there will NEVER be another vote even if you have changed your mind.
Hitler was elected. There was no further voting.
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#144 Jukka_Rohila
"What that means is that European companies monetary risks will diminish when all trade is done in Euros and the ECB can externalize the inflation as has the Fed done ....
In the plain old language they are going to print dollars as there would be no tomorrow. Now guess who is going to suffer most from this... "
So loads of Euros are going to be printed!
Apparently loads of GBPs will be printed too.
So all this paper becomes so much toilet roll?
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Do you people who want us to adopt the Euro wish to pay for the pension of a Frecnh train driver who worked a 35-hour week and retired at 55 by working until YOU ARE 70?
No?
Google 'unfunded pension liabilities euro'
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I was in Ireland last year shortly after the vote on the Lisbon Treaty. My Irish friends are of the opinion that the document is very difficult to understand and that factor played a big role in the negative vote. (Reminds me of my mother's old Bavarian saying that roughly translates, "What the farmer doesn't recognize, he doesn't eat.")
One of my Irish friends said she was out shopping when her butcher asked her if he was stupid since he didn't understand the thing. She replied that he needn't feel badly because even with a college education she didn't fully understand it either. What it basically looked like to her is that Ireland would lose representation in Europe.
I suggest re-writing the document before going back to the voters. The average person needs to grasp what it actually says...
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Austrian Radio website reports that Sarkozy intends in future to appoint and fire the bosses of public broadcasting services personally. Reportedly the opposition are furious.
This bloke could end up being the president of the "EU" one day. Quite clearly he would be wanting to continually increase his powers.
I am not a celebrity, but get me out anyway!
I cannot find this story on the BBC website. Have I missed it. OR is it another one of those stories which shows our "partners" in a bad light and doesn't make it for that reason?
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#183 JohaMe
"The treaty text suggests that it'll be more democratic (or less undemocratic if you prefer)."
And your definition of Democracy is:
A) Where people are elected and they carry out their manifesto promises.
B) They get elected and please themselves ( like this lot and the lot before ).
It was that burk Edmond Burke who said they could do B) was it not?
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#182, greypolyglot,
Thanks, It not that I think nothing should happen it's simply that what is being done has been hijacked by the politically correct brigade, the eco terrorists, the politicians to raise the tax take et al. I don't anyone in Europe minds recycling etc but trying to maximise say wind farms immediately encounters the PC brigade who are also coincidently often Nimby's. My own commune has just had installed eight 2 megawatt wind turbines, each 95 metre high, for a bit more expense and 40 metres higher they could have been 16 megawatt. So far nobody can explain why the higher output version was not used, so I'm led to believe it was more fear of the footprint from nearby Nimby's.
Likewise concerning new research it's too interesting for big business to do nothing other that simple restyling the same old box contents, and whilst everybody is concentrating on the global warming cottage industry innovative research is on the back burner. I'm also pretty convinced the EU's politicians are in the pockets of business. In the old Wright brothers era there were literally loads of people coming up with aircraft designs, even a member of my own family had two exhibits in a very famous international exhibition, and there are several conflicting claims as whether the Wright brothers were first, Sir Hiram Maxim also had a good claim but that's another story.
This is another lacking in the Lisbon treaty as it seems to be simply following the cottage industry direction judging by some earlier posts on this thread rather than actually promoting innovative research that is against the vested interests of big business or even certain EU member states like Germany who have long flouted EU law regarding their car manufacturers.
BTW, one project that is curious is the large Hadron collider, and whether it's worth the huge investment I don't know, but maybe someone in the know thinks this is the key to unlock the energy door as it's quite incredible the money that's been spent on it for so long unless there is some unspoken return on the investment.
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#184, Jukka_Rohila,
You say, "So first start answering to these questions...
What will happen to common market and how will it work?
What will happen to single currency and how will it work?
When you do that then I will give my own assessment on your reasoning."
As I have already said both myself and many others have detailed opinions on this blog on both of these. In my case I have submitted many postings on the Euro, especially since I was involved in the introduction of the Euro by working in one of the central banks. My conversations there with senior colleagues were much in line with my feelings now. By adopting a single currency the only weapon left in the arsenal to control inflation, deflation etc is taxation, since interest rates are controlled by the ECB. Should the EU (and you) get it's wish to harmonise taxes then there is no means of a local adjustment, it's all or nothing for the whole EU. I trust that even you can accept that as a fact, interest rates are ECB + Taxes are EU = No effective means of control on member state level.
In the case of individual currencies we all know that this is not a perfect solution as it invites hostile speculation by the predatory banking system, but then the Euro is also not immune to that and should there be little flexibility to introduce corrective measures because of central control then the Euro could also fail. I'm sure you realise that if the Dollar can fail then so too could the Euro, nothing is immune my friend.
As for the common market I'll make another post tomorrow as it's time to go out.
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I read that the EU is planning to spend 27 Million GBP to encourage voters to participate in the 2009 EU PArliametary Elections. The percentage share of votes cast in ALL EU countries has shown a steady decline and a Paris-based EU Think Tank has recommended that the EU bolster voting figures as the implication is that EU Citizens have become disenchanted with the EU.
Clearly the Irsh Taoiseach, Brian Cowan and his Europe Minister must have something to say to the Heads of Governments of the major and minor EU Nations that they are visiting on this whistlestop trip.
Does anyone in Ireland know if there have been any opinion polls taken to understand if Brian Cowan and his unpopular government have any chance of getting a "Yes" vote for the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009.
Obviously, there would be no point holding second referendum UNLESS Cowan (and the other EU Council of Ministers ) was/were of the opinion that a referendum would be pro-Lisbon.
A second "No" vote would not only sink Lisbon but could damage the EU irreparably. Especialy so, if the EU Parliamentary Elections are, yet again, not taken seriously by eligible voters.
Are there any Ireland-based commentators who can give any links to any such Irish Polls?
Is this something that perhaps the BBC European Editor might want to investigate?
An Irish "No" vote together with a low voter turnout across the EU in the Spring of 2009 could be catastophic for the future of the EU and be a much bigger story than a simple "No" to the Treaty of Lisbon.
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188. Toldyouitwould:
"Do you people who want us to adopt the Euro wish to pay for the pension of a Frecnh train driver who worked a 35-hour week and retired at 55 by working until YOU ARE 70?
No?
Google 'unfunded pension liabilities euro' "
You appear to be referring to a ten year old scare story worthy of the Daily Mail. Can you please give a solid reputable reference? By which I do not mean a biased inference by an ill-informed journalist. Something solid - like a respected economist perhaps?
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Oldnat (178): The definitions I provided in post 176 were pretty much dictionary definitions whereas if I understand you correctly (which I may not have) you are applying the terms a little differently. If I understand, you are suggesting that there should be some areas where the EU can make decisions that are superior to national law (and which therefore are binding on the nation-state) which you call a "federal". And there could be another category (which you call "confederal") where the EU could come to agreements that could be overruled on the territory of individual nation-states (i.e. where a nation-state has the ultimate authority). Although you did not say it, I assume you must see some difference between your confederal powers and those areas where the EU simply has no power, i.e. purely domestic issues. If this is a correct understanding of what you are saying then it could perhaps be a position to be supported, but that would depend totally on which policy areas were federal, confederal and domestic. However this is not the EU of the Lisbon Treaty.
Under Lisbon there is nothing that corresponds to what you call confederal. There are only areas where the EU has either exclusive or shared competence. Since under Lisbon 'shared competence' would become the default (and 'shared' in EU-speak only means shared in time, i.e. until the EU first legislates) the EU would be federal in character by your definition in all except the handful of areas (e.g. defence, foreign policy etc.) where the community method does not apply. The original EEC treaty defining the community method (which is federalism by your definition) is renamed the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) such that this decision-making method would in future be applied to general matters of politics.
The difference between your definitions and mine is such that the EU as per Lisbon is federal by your definition, but is not recognised as a federal state by mine (since it is not a state, recginised as such in international law). However this is an academic distinction because unless a member state actually leaves the EU its voters will be required to lived under a binding federal authority anyway. One might perhaps say that this form of governance could be accepted as legitimate (i.e. enjoy the consent of the governed) if the various peoples of Europe had knowingly consented to it, but that is obviously very far from being the case.
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Toldyouitwould @ 188
I am a UK citizen and retired with several Pensions and I would be very grateful if the UK joined the Euro. In that event, your French Train Driver would be able to contribute to my Pension payments through his taxes (for the rest of my life and then my Spouses life!).
Instead of 30 million UK Tax-payers paying towards my Pension(s) as now, I think it works out that 200 million tax-paying Europeans would contribute to my public service "costs".
That actually works out as saving to the UK Tax-payer. Every coin has two sides!
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#188 - Toldyouitwould
You know as well as I do that the UK would not just torch all their fivers over night and issue Euros. There would be complex and tortuous negotiations. You comment about French trains drivers pensions is scare mongering, pure and simple.
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#190 - SuffolkBoy2
"I cannot find this story on the BBC website. Have I missed it. OR is it another one of those stories which shows our "partners" in a bad light and doesn't make it for that reason?"
No, Sarky threatened to sack the DG if it was mentioned.
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#198 threnodio
"Your comment about French trains drivers pensions is scare mongering"
-Like the Financial Services Review, then:
http://www.financialservicesreview.com/?p=186
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Jukka, one more time, you can have a common market and even a single currency (for those nations that want it) without the other trappings of the E.U.
For example you do not need the CAP. You have argued and will argue this is necesary for food security (I disagree) but even you do not argue it is necesary for a common market.
You do not need a European Parliament for a common market and or single currency. You do need a smaller bureacracy to ensure people are playing on a level playing feild and a court (ECJ) to settle disputes.
You do not need to take money from contries in order that the E.U. can decide on what to spend it on within the country who originaly donated it. What you could have is a smaller pot of money which countries donate into to support the new accesion countries into building up their infra structure in the short term
You do need need a common defence force for a common market or euro currency.
There are others, but that will do for now. For all of the above you could argue they would be necesary if you objective was a european superstate, but they are not essential to achieve a common market.
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Re my post 201, that should of been you do not need a common defence force of course :)
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To Buzet23 (193):
Going back to multiple currencies would be worser than having Euro. Your suggestion only costs money and productivity. But lets go to your reasoning...
You say that individual member states don't have room to maneuver because they can't control interest rates and if taxes were harmonized they as you claim wouldn't have any means to control their economies. This is false.
The best and the correct way for a state to influence its economy is rationing its own activities. In boom times states should decrease public spending, slow down started investment projects and halt starting of new projects. In down turn states should increase spending, fasten investment projects and start new projects. In essence Keynesian economic policies are the answer.
For example what I'm describing is happening in Finland right now. The state is soon going to give go-ahead to build at least 1 and in max 3 new nuclear plants. The state is also going to speed up building an addition to Helsinki Metro and other road and rail road projects might be speed up too. Building unions and construction companies are in process of negotiating with the state to start building new public housing projects. I should also mention that the state is pumping money to start-ups and growth firms via their capital and venture capital funds. They are also pumping money to universities for them to make joint research and development projects with companies.
There is very much what a state can do to influence economy. My country is in a good position as we have had surplus budgets and we have managed to decrease our public debt to acceptable level. Even those countries that haven't managed their economy as well can still get money from the markets. I really can't accept a position that a state can't influence its economy without interest rates or tax rates.
Now if we go in the area of currencies then I disagree with you. US dollar hasn't failed yet, but its failure will not be due to external matters, but for decades of negligence of US economy. The Euro is so big and ECB has so big reserves that speculators can hardly no anything against it. We should also remember that most of the trade that EU countries have is with each other and even in turbulent times having the same currency will protect European trade.
Now, where do you disagree?
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#196 Freeborn-John
Definitions of Federal/Confederal tend to vary, on where one looks.
However, I find the "spectrum" a much more useful concept on most political dimensions, than attaching labels to various fixed positions. Political parties, of course, like to pretend there are these fixed positions as it helps to persuade us to vote for one or other of their artificial "options".
I'm arguing for the Europe I'd like to see, as opposed to what appears to be on offer.
"Under Lisbon there is nothing that corresponds to what you call confederal. There are only areas where the EU has either exclusive or shared competence."
I want to see the countries of the EU having exclusive competence in all areas in which sovereignty has not been specifically pooled.
The areas of pooled sovereignty should be the exclusive competence of the European Parliament and its chosen Government.
There would, of course, be a wide ranging debate as to which aspects should be pooled.
Naturally, Scotland (as with most countries) would require a referendum as sovereignty resides in the people under our Constitutional Law, while the English and Finland (where sovereignty resides in Parliament) needn't bother :-)
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Toldyouitwould @ 200
If anyone reads this article they would see that President Sarkozy is attempting to do something about the public service pension schemes in France and is going to have to confront the French Trade Unions to do so.
The reason he is doing this is the unaffordability of French Public Service Pension Schemes and the article does not blame the Euro or the EU it blames the increased longevity of train drivers as an example of the problem. The article suggests that a French Train Driver could be drawing a Pension for longer than he did service driving trains.
Is this so odd?
What about the gold-plated public service pensions being earned in the UK where in some parts of the country more than half of some town's populations are employed by the Local Authority rather than in private sector employment where they would be on investment pensions rather then the Local Government Pensions that ALL UK tax-payers are having to contribute to.
Are these UK non-productive workers less likely to live to a ripe old age than the French equivalent? I hardly think so.
The fact is that the French tax-payers pay for the inflation-proof pensions of their civil service and public sector workers just the same as the UK tax-payer pays for the UK equivalent.
In broad terms this has nothing whatsoever to do with being a problem with the way the EU or the Eurozone works but is a liberal-socialist problem of the 1950-9170 when these public sector pension schemes were put in place for non-productive state employees and all Western nations are going to have to do something about it sooner or later as no one country could afford these pension schemes before 2007 and after this years financial crisis no one country is going to ever be able to afford to maintain these gold-plated pension schemes going forward.
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I've read most of the blog entries on the EU but not one addresses the true paradox of our membership and the increasing control of our lives. The vast majority of those who govern us want us to have closer links and wish for the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty. Why is this? Surely, as the EU becomes more powerful, our own MPs' hold on power weakens. They will have less authority and their jobs will become little less then that of parish councillors. What's in it for them? Personally, I believe all our MPs are lying, cheating, incompetent buffoons, who in 50 years have reduced this country and its great institutions to the rubble we experience now. So what's in it for them? Please don't anyone suggest that our MPs truly believe that our country will be better off in the EU. Pass the sick bag and ask what's in it for them?
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Jukka_Rohila @180
I agree that the future may be (to quote leonard Cohen) 'murder', and that the possible* rise of China and India, etc may pose European countries with, um, problems.
I don't see the EU as a 'solution'.
The EU is flaccid and flabby: militarily about as effective as a eunuch in a whorehouse.
As an Englishman I'd rather face the 'wide open sea'.
*(I say 'possible' because they could both easily implode or fragment)
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200. Toldyouitwould:
"#198 threnodio
"Your comment about French trains drivers pensions is scare mongering"
-Like the Financial Services Review, then:
http://www.financialservicesreview.com/?p=186 "
OK. Read it (even if you did reply to threnodio rather to me.) True, I did find "After all, this means many train drivers retiring at 50 will draw pensions for far longer than they were sitting in a cab."
But nowhere did I see an indication that the UK taxpayer would be paying for French train drivers' pensions. Where does that come from, please?
By the way, there are plenty of British examples of people taking a full pension at 50 - or less. I'll offer, for a start, a police officer joining at 19 and retiring after 30 years service (age 49 !) Or how about a soldier joining at at 18 and retiring with a pension after 22 years (age 40 !)
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Just to make a point about whether Lisbon is 'dead' or 'not dead'.
The point of a ratification process is that, even if one of the parties that is required to ratify for the process, fails to do so, that does not mean the process is dead.
Case in point, the 27th Amendment to the US constitution, which prevents congresspersons from raising their own salaries until after an election.
It was proposed in 1789 by James Madison; like all amendments it required a two thirds' majority of states to ratify. Unfortunately for the Amendment, this didn't really happen: 7 states ratified, but after Kentucky ratified in 1792 it faded from view. It was effectively 'dead'.
However the ratification process began again some time later when Maine ratified the amendment ... in 1983. This began a ball rolling, and between 1983-1992 states began falling over one another to ratify the amendment. It was finally ratified in May 1992, 203 years after it was originally proposed.
So, who knows, come 2211, we may have a Treaty of Lisbon after all.
Or the Irish could just revote after all, and we could have it in 2009.
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207. MaxSceptic:
"The EU is flaccid and flabby: militarily about as effective as a eunuch in a whorehouse."
Ouch!
But doesn't that statement imply that we ought to be doing something about it then? ;-)
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To jordanbasset (201):
Fair enough. Lets start from EU decision making...
In your model you don't have EU parliament. You still have the EU commission and ECJ. I presume that the commission will still suggest new legislation and uphold its execution and following, and that the Council of Ministers will be making decisions with QVM in some cases and with unanimous vote in some cases.
I presume that you would want the EU decision making be as democratic as possible. In that case the votes on EU legislation would need to be voted in member state parliaments and the results of those votes would then be the result of the Council of Ministers. Lets also presume that all parliaments would cast vote exactly in the same and results be released after all parliaments would have voted.
In theory this would be quite a good model and it would be more democratic than the decision making system that we now have. In practice I believe that this kind of system would lead into increase of back room deals. The governments would make deals with each other more and more in the spirit of I scratch your back I will scratch your back. They would be able to do so as the governments usually have parliamentary majority and with whip they could make their parliamentary groups to vote as told so.
I fear that with out EU parliament, it will become more easier for governments to propose new legislation and get what they want to. For example a few years ago, the EU commission proposed legislation concerning software patents, the council of ministers gladly accepted it, but it was rejected completely in the EU parliament.
Now is this model on decision making completely flawed? Well not completely. What I would do is to preserve EU parliament. With new legislation, the national parliaments would vote first, and the EU parliament would vote last. What this would effectively achieve is to put pressure for the EU commission and member state governments to find workable compromises with as little back room deals as possible. Of course the speed of decision making would decrease, but then again the process would be more democratic.
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The CAP. What you will always have is a CAP or the agriculture is not a part of the common market. Now if the agriculture is not part of the common market then we will return to good old import tariffs and over production due to governments spending more and more to subsidies. In the process as competition would decrease the price of food would probably go up. So we need CAP. So what are the alternatives?
1. Nobody gets subsidies at all. This will be a no go.
2. Countries decide and pay their own subsidies. No go.
3. The current system. Works somehow.
4. Counties decide and pay their own subsidies in limits set by the EU.
In practice, what is the difference with number 3 and 4? More or less nothing. I can accept option 4 easily as it would allow countries that want food security to secure their farming, but limit the harm caused to the common market.
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The money. Of course you can stop routing the money via Brussels. The thing however is that the money that is directed via EU is directed to either add co-operation and integration amongst member countries or that its directed to achieve common goals. In my opinion routing money via EU is worth it as it encourages member countries to interlink and network more. Now is this a question of life and death... Well no of course not. What I'm afraid is that without the EU directing at least some money we will miss many important inter-country projects and decrease the connectedness of different actors in EU countries.
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The currency. True not all countries have to be part of the single currency, but those countries who are part of it must start in time to pool more power regarding their finances and budgets to the EU to maintain the stability and growth pact. Also if the being in the Euro is not anymore mandatory to member states then the member states that are out shouldn't be helped by the ECB. In that situation ECB would guard only the interest of eurozone countries, and if needed to protect eurozone interest act against the interest of members that are outside the Eurozone.
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The common defense. Well... common defense is more or less needed to make sure that all countries pay equal amount for the collective security. For example now Finnish have to maintain large conscription army because we are next to Russia while Sweden that is behind us has decreased its spending and its ability to defend its area. Common defense is not obligatory, but it will be in the interests of member countries.
Of course for Eurozone membership it could be handy to make it obligatory to be in military alliance with the Eurozone countries. This would have the benefit that the next time non-Eurozone country decides to invade a major oil producing country that happens to trade with Euros, the French can retaliate and launch few nuclear missiles against that particular country.
Now we probably disagree with the French having right to send few of their nuclear missiles against the enemies of the Eurozone. I can understand that.
---
Now, you do know that the EU pictured in here would be more or less the two speed Europe with reformed decision making and reformed budget? I have no problem with this kind of Europe and I would surely welcome reforming the decision making with the Europarliament staying in the picture. Now would this be some kind of third way, no, it would be again be just a step into direction of Federation as I believe that common interests will eventually turn all countries to join the Euro and the common defense and in that point what we have is a full blown federation.
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Oldnat (204): I am afraid then that your definition of confederal really is "a little bit of federalism", but you have no way to stop the federal ratchet.
When you say that you want countries to have "exclusive competence in all areas in which sovereignty has not been specifically pooled", you should be aware that would mean (under the Lisbon treaty) no competence in the long-term except in a few select fields such as foreign and defence policy.
If this is not apparent now it is only because of the time lag between the EU first assuming competence in a policy area and using that competence to create superior European legislation. Once EU legislation is first created (which can be years after it assumes the power to do so) then conflicting national legislation must be removed. Since the EU legislative machine will never stop turning out new law, the body of EU law will build up without end over years and decades to come. The consequence of this will be that the room within which national parliaments will retain an ability to legislate will shrink towards nothing EVEN WITH NO FURTHER TREATY CHANGES. This applies not just to areas where qualified majority is used, but also (at a slower pace) to those areas requiring decision by unanimity. The UK for example already cannot reduce VAT below 15% even though taxation is one of those so-called red-line areas where QMV is not yet used.
So if all that you require is "countries to have exclusive competence in all areas in which sovereignty has not been specifically pooled" then you will find that an independent Scotland would not remain independent for more than a matter of decades. The Edinburgh parliament would become less and less a legislative body and eventually Scottish elections would be reduced to deciding which party sends delegates to meeting in Brussels to wield 1% share of the voting weight and return home to tell Scots they have been outvoted and must in future live under EU law and policy they never asked for and can have no realistic hope of changing no matter which party they elect in future elections.
That is the reality of a several decades worth of countries having "exclusive competence in all areas in which sovereignty has not been specifically pooled". So be careful when playing words games with Confederal and Federal or you could easily find yourself like Quebec; part of a federal state that its originators called the Confederation of Canada.
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Now we have discussed too much about stately matters, and I fear that we are forgetting what this all is about...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q
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It's nearly 2009 so, just a thought.
How is it that we have not yet legislated every damned thing that can be legislated?
Just how more can there be that needs to be legislated - by anybody's parliament, congress, etc.?
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The irish will be asked again to vote come on its the EU and this time round they will rig the polls. Gordon and his cronies trying to sell the British the Euro behind our backs no thanks we have not forgive you for the lisbon treaty wait until this year euro elections pay back time ..........
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210. At 8:34pm on 05 Dec 2008, greypolyglot wrote:
207. MaxSceptic:
"The EU is flaccid and flabby: militarily about as effective as a eunuch in a whorehouse."
Ouch!
But doesn't that statement imply that we ought to be doing something about it then? ;-)
-- If Gordon Brown's new Labour rhetoric is to be followed that means the EU going on a strict diet as the excess flab is costing the EU states at the expense of more socially responsible. What can be done? cut the flabby overfed gravy train politicians infecting the EU and ensure value for money. Maybe if they were subjected to performance reviews as often as ordinary workers they might be a bit more nervous. Lots of Laughs and here's hoping.
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215. At 10:31pm on 05 Dec 2008, jaws1912 wrote:
" ...The irish will be asked again to vote come on its the EU and this time round they will rig the polls. Gordon and his cronies trying to sell the British the Euro behind our backs no thanks we have not forgive you for the lisbon treaty wait until this year euro elections pay back time .........."
Yes,but who are you going to vote for? I am not totally happy with UKIP but my current intention is to vote for them. However, I find that a lot of people have not even heard of UKIP.
Vote for the Conservatives? Looking at the Conservative MPs/candidates for the next General Election around here I find: Michael Lord - voted for Maastricht. John Gummer: voted against a referendum on the Lisbon Treachery. Ben Gummer has told somebody off for calling the "EU" a dictatorship and comes up with the usual "EU"-lovers crumble about the "EU" being partly responsible for peace in Europe since WW2. The "EU" did not exist until the early nineties so it was bringing peace before it even existed so it is capable of time travel - truly a wondrous organisation!
Looking at the Conservative M"EP"s I find that Dan Hannan has been chucked out of some pro-"EU" conservative grouping, but that he is, as far as I am aware, THE ONLY CONSERVATIVE M"EP" TO BE CHUCKED OUT. So the Conservatives are flip of beans use.
I can't vote for the BNP.
Others can. I consider the Austrian far-right parties that increased their share of the vote recently to have something in common with the BNP. So the "EU" appears to be unintentionally giving the same sort of boost to such people as the Austrian Empire gave to people like Hitler.
Please share your thoughts on the matter with me if you feel so inclined.
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214. At 10:04pm on 05 Dec 2008, greypolyglot wrote:
"It's nearly 2009 ..."
So it is! Does not the French presidency of the "EU" rubbish end on the 31st of December?
I hope all my fellow "EU"-phobes will take the opportunity to complain about the "EU" to the French presidency using the following link, if it still works (and if it doesn't you can find it!):
http://www.ue2008.fr/PFUE/cache/offonce/lang/en/accueil/Contact;jsessionid=8802616D055FB2FB5330F78315EE0DBD
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P.S. when I said complain about the French presidency using their website, I did mean within the law!
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218. SuffolkBoy2:
"I hope all my fellow "EU"-phobes will take the opportunity to complain about the "EU" to the French presidency using the following link, if it still works (and if it doesn't you can find it!): "
You know I won't agree with you but I do hope that all those who whinge about "BBC pro-EU bias" will take note of the fact you got to express your wish for all the world to see.
Free speech lives. Hurrah! And would you believe it? It even lives at the heart of the hated EU.
Go to
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/index_en.htm
select a European Commissioner and have your say on their blog.
Or maybe you really are all paranoid enough to believe that men in dark glasses and long black leather coats will turn up at your door?
Exit greypolyglot with a Karolinian mad cackle, haha, haha, haha!
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#195 Greypolyglot
"...Something solid - like a respected economist perhaps?"
GaveKal: 'Certain countries
have huge unfunded pension liabilities (Greece, Italy, Spain, France?)'
I do not understand all the issues but the pension liabilities seem like a mine we should not step on.
I accept there are many views pro and con this issue.
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221. Toldyouitwould:
"I accept there are many views pro and con this issue."
I thank you for that. You did spot my #208 I hope?
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#220, greypolyglot,
Strange you should say that, my nuclear technician friend claims that he was spoken to by 'men in black' who gave him the impression they were not of this world, personally I am more inclined to believe that they were security services so who knows maybe Sarkozy will create a personal stasi to match his 'little man syndrome', lol.
Just to follow on from our gravity discussions it's partly from somewhat odd conversations with my friend that reopened my curiosity, although he specialises these days in ancient civilisations, especially from South America as he believes they had knowledge of power sources that have been lost and has been there many times researching whilst writing a book on it. All probably fantasy but still interesting to listen to.
#203., Jukka_Rohila,
As always you assume a perfect world approach as if controlling public spending was the only aspect. There is only one realistic scenario where your approach could fully work and that is in a totally nationalised totalitarian state that can control both public and commercial economics. The interest rates and taxes are the primary means of control of an economy, public spending projects etc are a part of corrective measures but subservient to rates and taxes as they depend on public finance being available at a realistic cost and a ready and willing workforce. Commercial company's in the EU are outside that control as they are independent and can move with their feet if a government becomes too dictatorial or labour costs too high, and you harmonisation desire to prevent that is simply naive.
You also say "The Euro is so big and ECB has so big reserves that speculators can hardly no anything against it.", I gave up reading fairy tales a long time ago, maybe you haven't noticed it but the reserves are not so big these days so the Euro is most certainly at risk of predatory speculation.
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#222 grey polyglot
Yes. Saw your #208. I have no objection to Police or Armed Services retirement ages ( or train drivers from anywhere).
I was trying to make the point that the Euro negotiators (' the people that matter' -qv Barroso) do not miss any obscure problems and the UK picking up the tab.
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To: Jukka_Rohila (86)
You said (in response to someone else):
"Insulting to who? Maybe to other European countries and leaders that
have to make amendments to one member country that is keeping
all down."
I have to agree 100%. How dare us Irish force the Euro chiefs to actually consider the opinions of some of their citizens.
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ha ha the economy is so good that the EUphiles have the time to relax and blog.. who does beleives this?..ha ha
it is intresting, but the decay of every Empire does come. EU economy is in a mess, the whole system is in trouble.
Why EU is so corrupt? Because those EUphiles politicans who want the EU to exist is for the only purpose to steal and missuse tax payers money whithout being blamed themselves or risiking credibility at home.
Instead of stealing at home they just shifted the practice to a more far and out of reach of people were it may be easier to missuse the positon
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the Santa Klaus *big bag* with persents for corrupt politicans now is in EU. so EUphiles can get their shares.
(ps: i mean the budget, and EU funds are shares)
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223. Buzet23:
"..... my nuclear technician friend claims that he was spoken to by 'men in black' who gave him the impression they were not of this world.....
..... to follow on from our gravity discussions it's partly from somewhat odd conversations with my friend that reopened my curiosity, although he specialises these days in ancient civilisations, especially from South America as he believes they had knowledge of power sources that have been lost and has been there many times researching ....."
Please believe me when I say that I mean no offence, but your friend scares me sh**less. I do hope that he's not still working as such or that, if he is, I'm a long way from ground zero.
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226. karolina001:
You are as entitled to your beliefs as any of us but the cackling in almost every post is beginning to concern me.
Seriously. Please seek help for yourself. Forget about the EU for a few days, go and relax somewhere.
We'll still be here when you get back. And that's meant as reassurance not a threat.
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224. Toldyouitwould wrote:
"Saw your #208. I have no objection to Police or Armed Services retirement ages ( or train drivers from anywhere).
I was trying to make the point that the Euro negotiators (' the people that matter' -qv Barroso) do not miss any obscure problems and the UK picking up the tab."
OK. Thanks.
But where does this idea come from that the UK would have to pick up the tab? Are you seriously suggesting that there's some huge pan-European conspiracy to make the UK pay for everything? That maybe it's payback time for all the wars that we've won against our neighbours over the last few hundred years?
I've heard of paranoia but that would take the biscuit! I'm trying not to give offence but really! When did we British turn into such a whining bunch of self-proclaimed victims?
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#230 - greypolyglot
#224 - Toldyouitwould
This is getting too much. So far we have been told (and this is only in this thread) that the UK will be picking up the tab for all or Europe's pension fund black holes, that the sole function of the EU is to steal our money, and that Santa Clause is in league with the devil and lives not in Lapland but Brussels.
I am with GP on this one. Get a life will you people? Or visit a good shrink.
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#231 threnodio
"So far we have been told (and this is only in this thread) that the UK will be picking up the tab for all or Europe's pension fund black holes"
This is from David Shaw MP. Yes, I know, it is old:-
The effect of a single currency is that the United Kingdom would have to take on its share of Europe's Unfunded Pension Liabilities - equivalent to about 100% of our GDP which is currently some £700 Billion. One currency must ultimately mean one balance sheet with common assets and liabilities. Therefore, if the United Kingdom enters a single currency every man, woman and child would take on a European liability of some £11,864 each - more than doubling the debt per head.
This was the case in 1996.
Do you say it is all OK in 2008 then?
I have not stated anything personally. I have given some quotations.
I would merely like to know if there are any liabilities or not.
There are 171,000 results on Googling UK only including articles from the Guardian.
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#228, greypolyglot,
Don't worry he's not worked in the nuclear industry for a while now, I thought at first he was an escapee from the local asylum but he is actually pretty bright albeit often going off on weird tangents. Still what would life be without these people and he does have some interesting ideas that are often rational. I think I'd rather listen and talk to him than people like Brown or Sarkozy, now they really are fruit cakes, lol.
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#232, Toldyouitwould,
I don't know anything about your source but I've never come across any liability for another EU member state to pay the pensions of a state. Much the opposite, a friend of mine whose worked in Belgium, France and Germany has recently researched almost everything it is possible to find on pensions in order to establish his pension rights in France now that he is unemployed. I can assure you that the current system is that each member state is responsible for the payment of a pension covering the time a person was earning pension rights in that member state. There are a lot of qualifying rules etc but what I've said is current fact. Thus in my case I will be paid part by the UK and part by Belgium, but no other country is liable for my pension.
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#232 - Toldyouitwould
Perhaps I was a bit hasty in suggesting a shrink. Maybe for some of the sources though. I can only reiterate the point I made earlier. It is not a question of suddenly deciding that you want to tear up the pound and enter the Euro. There a a hundred and one issues that would have to be placed on the negotiating agenda. I have no doubt that any residual liability for pensions not incurred before union would be very high on the list.
I am sure that David Shaw is stating a worst case scenario and certainly it would not be an automatic liability. Moreover, you rightly point out, this observation is based on 1996 figures. Since then we have had the Nu-Labour reign of terror. It seems to me that, given the apparent size of the UK pensions black hole as of now, we might be only too pleased to pool it with the rest of the Ezone.
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No. 194, Menedemus, asked if any polls have been taken on the possible result of a second referendum.
The "Irish Times' had one in November which can be summarised as follows:
'In the poll, people were asked how they would vote if the treaty was modified to allow Ireland to retain an EU commissioner and other Irish concerns on neutrality, abortion and taxation were clarified in special declarations.
When the "don't knows" were excluded, the Yes side had 52.5 per cent, with the No side on 47.5 per cent. It compared with the June result of 53.4 per cent No and 46.6 per cent Yes.'
See:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1118/1226961466847.html
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Grumpy-Fogey @ #236
Thank you kindly for the feedback.
That is a bit close for comfort I would have thought for Brian Cowan to take to the other Eu Leaders to suggest that he puts the Treaty of Lisbon to another referendum.
Of course, Mark may only be surmising that Brian Cowan intends to suggest the Irish have a second referendum in 2009 but, as 52.5% to 47.5& is a very close margin of difference, I would have thought it was a very close call for Brian Cowan - even though that is only one opinion poll.
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#235 threnodio
Thank you very much for not sending me to the shrink after all.
I thought I had only put my head a little bit over the parapet and had taken one between the eyes.
It was put to me on another blog that UK plc was in no way fit (because of debt) to consider entering the (please insert correct term here), ermm Eurozone?. EMU.
-EMU? They stick their head in the sand, right?
May I suggest a scenario?
Irish Republic have Big Time financial crisis due to sub-prime buildng bubble collapse.
Look for lifeboat,, find empty lifeboat from Titanic.. vote yes on Lisbon Treaty.
Lifeboat gets sucked down with Titanic.
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#238 - Toldyouitwould
My pleasure:-)
It's a valid argument but I have two thoughts. Firstly, the damage you refer to would have been done by the mere fact of being in the Eurozone. There have been two phases when Irish sceptics have had a field day with this one. First there was the big boom of the late nineties (I think) when there was real danger of rampant inflation and the Irish certainly had limited control without control of interest rates. This time around, they have the opposite problem because you will recall that they were one of the first economies which had to guarantee bank deposits. Again, control of interest rates might have softened the blow. On the other hand, if they had not been in the Eurozone, there would have been almost certainly a run on the currency (look at the hammering sterling is taking).
Were the Brits looking at the Euro as an option, you might be able to make that case. I am not persuaded that Lisbon has any implications for monetary policy. However, let me put to you the opposite case. The Irish either do not vote again or say no twice. The rest of the EU throw up their hands in exasperation but eventually opt for a two speed solution. Somewhere down the line something happens which the Irish are particularly unhappy about and want to veto. They are looking around for four other commissioners to side with them (don't forget they don't have one at this stage). Only then does it dawn on them that being outside the mainstream process, far from giving them more flexibility has actually left them powerless to influence the EU.
If I were an Irish voter, I would be looking to see what the sweeteners are. An opt-out on abortion, neutrality and European defence force? A permanent commissioner? If so, I would bite their hand of this time.
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Some here are desperately worried about the possibility of the UK adopting the euro.
May I invite them to read the following and decide for themselves whether or not the UK even qualifies for admission to the eurozone.
http://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2008/html/sp080213.en.html
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Its fascinating that the European political elite gets to keep asking the same question until they get the answer they want. Reminds me of the old "no means no" sexual harassment debates. I am surprised that their apparent disregard for the opinions of their constituents is not rewarded by the sack at election time. Of course, you can't sack the Commission- it does what it wants without regard to European or national opinion. That is, until any particular Commissioner nearing the end of his or her post needs to return to the national fold. Maybe that accounts for Charlie's recent statements.
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232. Toldyouitwould:
"So far we have been told (and this is only in this thread) that the UK will be picking up the tab for all or Europe's pension fund black holes
This is from David Shaw MP. Yes, I know, it is old:- "
David Shaw's website gives his cv. Apparently he was a merchant banker. Now didn't I read something recently about such people making a bit of a mess of things?
Are you really sure that you want to take this man's word on anything to do with money? Personally I'd hesitate a bit.
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241. Tomskykit:
" the European political elite ... Of course, you can't sack the Commission- "
Rubbish. Of course you can. It's been done. OK technically the Commissioners "resigned" but there's no doubt they would have been dismissed by the European Parliament if they hadn't.
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-032.pdf
Do you want to put up any more myths for me to shoot out of the sky? This is fun and so easy because hardly anyone in the UK seems to know anything about EU that's actually true instead of being Daily Mail propaganda.
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232. Toldyouitwould:
"There are 171,000 results on Googling UK only including articles from the Guardian."
And your point is?
If you google "elvis seen alive" you get 366,000 hits.
So which of these results should we have the greatest confidence in?
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Curious, isn't it?
On the one hand we have a democratic country making 1 choice.
And on the other, we have an undemocratic bunch of crooks who _demand_ they make another.
What a fine way to run a 'government'.
Good job we're an island or else we'd be stuck with them permanently. Isn't it about time we had another vote to depart from this absolute shower?
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Some people do not seem to realise that the EU budget has to be agreed between the Commission and the Parliament. No agreement, no budget. The parliament is elected by those people who can be bothered to go out and vote in the election so it really is a fallacy to say that the Parliament is toothless or the Commission an unaccountable oligarchy. Unless of course you can figure out a way of running the EU without any money.
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greypolyglot & threnodio
You people really must stop this bad habit of trying to quote actuality, in response to prejudice.
You're just trying to give ignorance a bad name - shame on you!
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86. At 2:40pm on 04 Dec 2008, Jukka_Rohila wrote:
" ... If you think that UK or any other country outside the new union would have any free trade you might want to look on to the border of Finland and Russia... trade maybe free, but you have to wait at least few days to cross the border and fill out endless amounts of forms, pay varying fees that change from time to time. ... "
This is a standard "EU"-lovers argument or maybe two standard arguments presented in this case with Jukka's inimitable charm and style.
Over twenty five years ago I read in a German newspaper that if the UK were to leave the "EU" or whatever it was called then, that they should not be gentle with us. A German has since repeated it to my face. The argument that we would not be able to get our goods into the "EU" seems to me to be just a variation on a theme. Again a German has told me this.
I believe that once we are outside the "EU" we will be able to trade with the "EU" under WTO rules. The idea that it is incredibly difficult to get your goods into the "EU" is absurd. You just have to look at where stuff is made. A fantastic amount of it comes from China. China is, I believe, not in the "EU".
If that turns out not to be possible then I can live with that. I believe that a change in the tax system would compensate for other difficulties.
If the continental "EU" refuses to allow our goods in then we could retaliate. A good number of years ago (20?) I took an interest in trade figures. I concluded that the trade deficit that the UK had with Germany would on its own fund about one million jobs in Germany. It is not in the interests of the continental "EU" to try to mess us about once we have left. The Germans, the French and the Italians make nice cars. So do other people.
Even if we did not retaliate damaging our trade would mean we had less money to spend on continental goods.
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86. At 2:40pm on 04 Dec 2008, Jukka_Rohila wrote:
" ...
When reading comments like your I just am inclined to think that the EU should be dissolved, all the free-loaders to be let hanging on cold and those willing to go ahead to form a new union to go on. ... "
I think you mean that the UK would be left out of this brave new "EU2".
Please, please, please go for it! Please throw us out! I cannot wait to have "EU"-passport burning parties up and down the land
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Jukka!
Please remember that the moderators and the law would prevent us from giving you the full glory of our hatred of the "EU".
I hate the "EU". I don't hate you.
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threnodio @ #246
That is an interesting obeservation about the EU Parliament and the EU Budget.
Under the present scheme the Executive (The Commission) submit their spending plans for the year ahead, spend it anyway, and the spend then gets audited and the audit seen by the MEPs who can take little or no action.
The Treaty of Lisbon (I believe) improves budget process dramatically as the Commission have to submit and get the Spend forcast authorised by MEPs BEFORE it is spent and this restricts the Commission budget to the will of the EU MEP's.
That has the potential for a huge improvement in reducing the democratic deficit of the EU and provides a very good reason why people should think hard and use their precious vote to determine who their MEP should be.
But, of course , that all depends upon the Treaty of Lisbon being ratified and implemented. WIth no Treay of Lisbon the Commission can continue to spend the EU Budget as THEY, the Commission, wish.
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248. SuffolkBoy2:
"The idea that it is incredibly difficult to get your goods into the "EU" is absurd. You just have to look at where stuff is made. A fantastic amount of it comes from China. China is, I believe, not in the "EU".
You're absolutely right. The things is though that if you're outside you still have to play by the EU rules without getting a say in what the rules are.
And would you believe it, the same sort of thing goes for exporting into the USA. Take a look at the problems China has faced recently with unsafe toys and contaminated animal foodstuff.
Did you see my #155 ?
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247. oldnat:
"greypolyglot & threnodio
You people really must stop this bad habit of trying to quote actuality, in response to prejudice."
I'm sorry. I come from a really poor working class background and my mum and dad brought me up to tell the truth and to be polite to people.
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248.SuffolkBoy2:
"The idea that it is incredibly difficult to get your goods into the "EU" is absurd. You just have to look at where stuff is made. A fantastic amount of it comes from China. China is, I believe, not in the "EU".
Sorry, I forgot to give you a reference about Chinese goods imported into the EU.
Please see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6569797.stm
Oh, that damnable EU really is a wicked waste of time and money.
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#251 - Menedemus
Yes but the current year's expenditure has to survive the scrutiny of the Court of Auditors while the following year's requires parliamentary agreement. Lisbon will make the process much more transparent but even now Parliament does have the scation of just saying no.
#248 - SuffolkBoy2
And how many retail shops will go out of business or businesses become unsustainable without affordable durables, computers and peripherals and so on from the developing world?
#247 - oldnat
Oh Nat, you have spoiled it now. They all thought we were winding them up with Orwellian propaganda.
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248. SuffolkBoy2:
"The idea that it is incredibly difficult to get your goods into the "EU" is absurd. You just have to look at where stuff is made."
Again, very true. But do you want your cheap goods provided by exploited labour in poor countries?
Here comes that wicked EU again actually seeking to require Fair Trade! Damnable busybodies - if we want to exploit starving yellow, brown and black people who are they to tell us it's not right. We've been doing it for centuries and it's our birthright!
And our own government sells us out by agreeing with them!
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Please try to force yourself to read past the line that mentions Peter Mandelson. ;-)
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Erratum at #255
". . . Parliament does have the scation . . . "
should read
". . . Parliament does have the sanction . . . "
Sorry - all that damned EU wine last night.
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# 256. At 11:07am on 07 Dec 2008, greypolyglot
"This comment has been referred to the moderators. "
Moderators: I was being heavily sarcastic not actually advocating.
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To all fair minded participants in this blog
First the news
Vaclav Klaus the President of the Czech Republic has resigned this morning from his party at the party's conference!
His man, Pavel Bem, who mounted a challenge this morning to replace the Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek as Party Chairman, lost very heavily the vote.
(We know him, Bem, and his associates very well and indeed their connections. They are massively antidemocratic to put it mildly)
Now to matters Irish.
Should Mark Mardell have reported on the controversy over the financing of LIBERTAS by this fellow Ganley?
For those that are interested may I suggest that they at least look up the Irish Times on the Internet?
Comments would be very much appreciated.
Regards
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re 'unfunded pension liabilities euro',
Following on from my post of #234, I did google or rather yahoo those words and as has been said almost everything seems to be from the middle 90's and was not a fact but more a fear and 'what if'. There are various claims in those articles that the UK is better placed, low public debt, has a high private pension funded system etc etc, but since 1997 we have had Gordon Brown is charge and all of that has changed to the point we are technically worse off that many EU states, our private pension funds are in tatters, public debt is astronomical etc.
The fear seems to have been that if a member state was in financial collapse then membership of the eurozone meant the others would need to bail it out. Unfortunately we already have this scenario with the collapse of the banking sector so whilst the pension black hole is there for the near future, the financial system is more pressing for our attention.
As for the UK may not meet entry requirements, please tell me which countries actually met the requirement when the Euro was first launched, certainly several of the main supporters did not although maybe many of the smaller states did. One needs simply to remember France and Germany flouting the rules of Euro membership with impunity, so if technically the UK does not meet the criteria it would be crass hypocrisy for certain other states to object to UK entry.
#235, threnodio, you're quite right about the effort needed to convert to a new currency, I've twice been part of the IT side of this, with decimalisation and the Euro, and it's a hugely expensive exercise which complicates accounting systems everywhere. In the case of the Euro we ran with dual books for some while as it was too risky to switch over on a d-day or e-day, after all was working you simply closed the old currency books and continued on with the new currency books. Thankfully most accounting systems can handle multiple currency books these days. What is more concerning is the cost to already struggling businesses with having to reprint anything showing prices etc.
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#259 - joehoch
There is no mention of the upheavals in the Czech Republic in any of my usual sources. I will see if CNN or World Service are covering it but if you could post a link please?
There was a report by Mark Mardell on Libertas and Ganley about a month ago and quite an extended exchange of posts. You can find it HERE.
My view about funding political parties and movements has generally been that, providing the source is legal, the funding is legitimate. At the same time voters are entitled to drawn inferences concerning the real objectives of an organisation based on where it gets its money from. Certainly, as I said at the time, Ganley's American connections would have no interest in undermining the European project though they might very well have an interest in having an insider in a position of power. Some of the concern which surrounds this issue is, I believe, based on the fact that the nature of some of Ganley's business dealings are by their nature secret given the security and defence considerations and that might give rise to unfounded anxieties. One would hardly expect the Irish Times to be sympathetic at a time when Mr. Cowan may be embarking on a further attempt to persuade the Irish to follow a course of action Libertas vehemently opposes, but I am no expert on Irish affairs.
I will need to know a lot more about the Czech business before commenting.
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#260 - Buzet23
I image that on E-day, you would go to fixed parity so that accounting systems could switch but the old currency would continue in circulation for three to four months after which you could exchange substantial sums through your bank but trivial amounts would be lost.
They got rid of the 1 and 2 forint coins here last year. Technically, they ceased to be legal tender in January but you could cash in multiples of 1,000 at your bank till April. Loose change was collected at supermarkets and turned into real cash in May for charitable use.
However, there is an attitude difference as well. Although, thanks to the bail out, Hungary will probably not be able to join for a while, there is still very little you cannot buy for Euros and commercial property transactions are usually done in Euros.
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260. Buzet23:
"As for the UK may not meet entry requirements, please tell me which countries actually met the requirement when the Euro was first launched, certainly several of the main supporters did not although maybe many of the smaller states did. One needs simply to remember France and Germany flouting the rules of Euro membership with impunity, so if technically the UK does not meet the criteria it would be crass hypocrisy for certain other states to object to UK entry."
At the moment I'm too tired and too preoccupied to do the research needed to prove or disprove the above.
If the rules were indeed interpreted or applied in an over generous way I can only suppose that it was a pragmatic decision taken in the interest of getting the euro up and running. The situation has changed. The euro is up and running and doing well. I've seen somewhere that even some Hollywood stars want to be paid in euros not dollars because the former is more stable.
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#260 - Buzet23
Now that you mention it, I am not at all sure there are any rules for joining. Of course you would have to bring interest rates into line before doing so and accept the authority of the ECB from then on but, apart from agreeing a fixed exchange rate at the time of entry, what are these rules?
Yes there are certainly rules and tests which individual states apply to ensure the circumstances are right (Brown's five tests for example), but these are set down by the applicant nation.
Obviously the ECB has to take a view regarding the suitability of the entrant - proportion of debt to GDP, national liquidity levels, degrees of indebtedness to outside organisations such as the IMF - but I think these are negotiated rather than set as pre-conditions.
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Greypolyglot took me to task in an earlier post for saying that the Commission could not be sacked. He is correct- it can be sacked but only in toto by the European Parliament. The Santer Commission resigned en masse in 1999 after the venality of Edith Cresson was exposed. Polish plumbers and French dentists.
So a better statement would have been "It is not practical to sack the Commission" A European voter has no right of recall nor any means of pressure other than indirect to achieve the change of a Commissioner.
And since the Commission has the right of initiative with respect to most aspects of European law there is little chance of this ever changing.
So they will do as they please without reference to the vox populi- there is almost no risk to their behavior.
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264. threnodio:
"I am not at all sure there are any rules for joining. "
See #240
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265. Tomskykit:
"Greypolyglot took me to task in an earlier post for saying that the Commission could not be sacked. He is correct- it can be sacked but only in toto by the European Parliament ....... they will do as they please without reference to the vox populi- there is almost no risk to their behavior."
Thank you for acknowledging the correction. That's very gracious of you.
As to behaviour - I would have thought that each one of the new bunch would now be looking very carefully at what the others were up to to make sure that history didn't repeat itself. I certainly wouldn't want to be forced from office because the guy or gal in the next office was up to no good.
Maybe it's a model we should copy for the British parliament. One bad egg and you're all out on your ears!
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threnodio and greypolyglot,
There are certain rules I recall and they can be seen at europa see here, as the convergence criteria is well described. As far as the fixed conversion rate goes that was declared on 31st December 1998 by an EU council regulation 2866/98, and we ran with the Euro as book money for several years until the cash changeover occurred. Therefore in the case of any of the non Euro countries wishing to join the Euro it is not a quick process, the site I've pointed to has a number of topics as to who can join, how it's done etc.
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268 - Buzet23
So basically nothing that a half awake Minister of Finance would not be doing anyway.
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268. At 2:10pm on 07 Dec 2008, Buzet23 wrote:
"""""threnodio and greypolyglot,
There are certain rules I recall and they can be seen at europa see here, as the convergence criteria is well described. As far as the fixed conversion rate goes that was declared on 31st December 1998 by an EU council regulation 2866/98, and we ran with the Euro as book money for several years until the cash changeover occurred. Therefore in the case of any of the non Euro countries wishing to join the Euro it is not a quick process, the site I've pointed to has a number of topics as to who can join, how it's done etc.""""
to the greypolygot and all EUPHILES: once you get in the Euro zone and apply Euro as YOUR currency, are the criterias or rules valid anymore? of course yes as an answer is common, but in reality is it true?
many members like Greece, contafit/faslified the data regarding the fulfillment of the critereas for joing euro, as well as many other members like France and Italy who once adopting euro, then have broken the rules, since there is no such option of being punished by rejection from euro zone.
you can show us a lot of rules and how they are supposed to work and how life is so good with EU, but in reality things are in a mess, and there is no standard rules inside EU.
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269. threnodio:
"268 - Buzet23
So basically nothing that a half awake Minister of Finance would not be doing anyway."
See why I'm doubtful that UK COULD adopt the euro? ;-)
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270. karolina001:
"once you get in the Euro zone and apply Euro as YOUR currency, are the criterias or rules valid anymore? of course yes as an answer is common, but in reality is it true?
many members like Greece, contafit/faslified the data regarding the fulfillment of the critereas for joing euro, as well as many other members like France and Italy who once adopting euro, then have broken the rules, since there is no such option of being punished by rejection from euro zone."
Karolina, please read the following, in particular 1.2.4.8.
http://www.aede.eu/index.php?id=124_convergence_crit
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What I don't get is that, the authors of this treaty know that the way it has been written alone, is a great source of suspiciousness and restraint towards a closer europe. the people are very weary indeed, and not just in ireland. So why don't they just write it out again? I mean they should be advertising this much more. They have the capacity to start a mayor PR campaign and win the people over. Not just in Ireland, but in the entire EU.
This treaty needs the democratic legitimation of a direct vote, since every constitution is only as strong as the peoples faith in it. We should know this by now, and stop trying to sneak this whole issue past the people.
We need this treaty in the long run!
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I read it, so what?
greece got in EU euro...
bulgaria got in EU..
this are the facts and reality..
rules and writen things dont matter, or matter as long as a country out..
your rules are ineffective inefficient and corrupt
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#271 - greypolyglot
Oh yes!
Mind you, if Gordon's five tests are ever met, he will just go on investing more anyway.
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As regards joining the Euro.
The Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequor for the Conservatives has ruled out any possibility of a Conservative Government pursuing the UK adopting the Euro.
This was couple of days ago in a speech that was not reported by the BBC but I did read it in the Daily Telegraph - I believe.
The so-called Brown 5 acid tests for the UK to adopt the Euro are simply the same criteria as the ECB require of any country and any country would require of themselves before adopting the Euro but, of course, Brown simply used "smoke and mirrors" to make it look like it is the UK calling the shots.
The bottom line is that there are only two reasons why the UK has not adopted the Euro before now and that is (a) a political reluctance to pass political control of the UK Pound as a Reserve Currency to the the ECB and (b) a political concern that having the Euro as a common currency would immediately highlight that the UK, in comparison to the rest of Europe, is an excessively highly taxed nation state.
The UK is highly taxed through "hidden" taxation on commodities and services means the UK citizens pay exhorbitant prices for their purchased goods even before the minimum 15% VAT is added to the goods sold.
The use of the Euro would immediately highlight the price disparity with the rest of the EU and throw the UK governmemt and its historic reliance on high taxation to pay for public services and local authority employment into grievous disrepute. I don't think any UK government, be it Conservative or Labour, could take the flak and this would thro govenrment income in the UK into dissarray.