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Q. Has the Lisbon Treaty changed?
A. Not at all. Not a word or a comma. If it had all EU member states would need to ratify it again and that’s not happening.
Q. Does that mean we will vote on the same treaty in October as we previously rejected in June 2008?
A. Absolutely.
Q. Who says so?
A. The EU Council; Judge Frank Clarke of the Referendum Commission; The British Foreign Secretary David Miliband; The office of the EU Presidency. Everyone but the Irish government and other Yes campaigners.
Q. So what are the government saying?
A. They are insisting that because the EU Council have issued what the government is referring to as “guarantees” that the concerns of the Irish people in relation to the Treaty have been met.
Q. So what are these guarantees?
A. Well that’s the nub of the matter. They are actually not guarantees at all. As pointed out above, the EU and the Referendum Commission agree they don’t change the treaty at all. Judge Frank Clarke was careful not to describe them as “guarantees” – he called them statements.
Q. What do these statements refer to then?
A. They refer to issues which concerned the government’s research found concerned voters in relation to the treaty, such as abortion, taxation and defence. (For more on this go to http://www.coircampaign.org/index.php/info-euguide/lisbon-and-abortion).
Q. Are they legally binding?
A. Not in EU law. And that’s what matters. Because these statements are not part of any treaty they can’t actually be enforced. The EU Courts don’t even have to consider them.
The government has made a huge fuss about lodging the statements with the United Nations but the UN can’t enforce EU law, or make EU member states accept that such statements have any legal value.
Lodging the statements with the UN is really just a stunt – as journalist Vincent Browne remarked, they may as well have been lodged with Leitrim County Council. Not that Leitrim CoCo isn’t a worthy body – just that, like the UN, they can’t make the EU enforce something that isn’t EU law.
The fact remains: they are not legally binding and not legally enforceable.
Q. So they are about as useful as a politician’s promise?
A. Yes, and just as easily broken!
Q. Sort of like the government’s and the opposition’s statements saying they would respect the wishes of the people on Lisbon last year?
A. Exactly!
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Comments
I´m from Germany and like 500 Millions Europeans I can`t vote about the Lisbon treaty. You are only 3 million people who can vote about freedom and souvereignity of the European countries and only you have the chance to say NO.
2)
Boykott to Intel and Ryanair
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/93837
3)
French said NO - Dutch said NO - you said NO
Is this democratic?