• Download here a shorter version of the Poster Round 1 explanations on a A4 sheet
• Download here a shorter version of the Poster Round 2 (hearts) explanations on an A4 sheet

POSTERS IN THE VOTE NO TO LISBON CAMPAIGN 2009 Round 1

95% OF EUROPEANS WOULD VOTE NO

Everyone knows that the people of Europe – with the exception of the Irish – have been denied a vote on the Lisbon Treaty. Cóir has argued that the elite in Brussels don’t want to give the people of Europe a vote on the treaty because they know what the result would be: a massive rejection.

Irish EU Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy agrees. Here’s what he said “On the other hand, all of the [political leaders] know quite well that if the similar question was put to their electorate by a referendum the answer in 95 per cent of the countries would probably have been No as well”.
 
See more from that Irish Times article here

That’s why we agree with Charlie, and say: Stand Up for Europe and Vote NO.

MILKED DRY!

Did you know that we’ve lost more than €200 BILLION in fish extracted from Irish territorial waters to the EU? While Yes campaigners suggest we should vote in favour of the bad deal that is the Lisbon Treaty in gratitude for funds received from the EU, they are careful to gloss over what we’ve lost.

€200 BILLION. It’s an enormous sum – and that figure comes from the EU’s own statistical agency, Eurostat. The amount we’re losing continues to grow as our right to fish our own waters was given away by a foolish and short-sighted government.

Journalist Tom Prendiville wrote that: “Every year, roughly two million tonnes are fished in Irish coastal waters. However, Ireland's share of the catch is miniscule and therein lie the current difficulties. While Ireland produces 40 per cent of the edible fish, the country's fishermen are only entitled to catch less than ten percent of that. The rest is fished by foreign trawlers.”

We’re an island nation, with a huge natural resource yet our fishing industry has been utterly destroyed. It should also be noted that the Treaty of Rome didn’t expressly allow the EU to share our fishing waters – they just took that implied right after the Irish people had agreed to sign up to the treaty.

Now it is the turn of our farmers.  Last year there were mass protests when EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, conducted negotiations which farmers said would slash farm incomes and lead to mass rural unemployment.
 
The problem is that Mandelson no more gives a fig for Irish farmers than the EU does for our fishing industry, And we’re losing jobs and incomes as a result. 

THEY WON YOUR FREEDOM

Our freedom and our sovereignty were won by the tremendous sacrifices of a few. But 90 years later, the same politicians who crashed our economy to keep bankers, crooks and developers happy, want us to give our basic freedoms away to Brussels.
 
Does this matter? Yes it does. We’re a nation of free people, but Yes campaigners want us to abandon our nationhood to create a EU super-state where the elite in Brussels simply don’t have to consult the people anymore.
 
The Lisbon Treaty in Art 9 makes us citizens of a federal European Union to whom we owe our loyalty over and above our loyalty to Ireland.
 
The heroes of 1916 fought to free the Irish people. They won for you the freedom to decide, to be masters of our nation, and our destiny. Don’t throw that away. 

NEW VOTING RIGHTS

Under Lisbon, EU laws would be made by a majority of States as long as they have 65% of the total EU population between them (Article16 TEU). This change would double Germany's voting power in making EU laws from its present 8% to 17%, increase Britain's, France's and Italy's from 8% each to 12% each, while halving Ireland's vote to 0.8%.
 
Lisbon would put EU law-making on a pure population size basis. That’s why for the EU, Lisbon is an important step in moving from an economic union of equals, to a federal super-state.
 
At present the Big EU member States have 29 votes each in making EU laws and Ireland has 7 - a ratio of 4 to 1. Under Lisbon, instead of the Big States having 4 times Ireland's voting weight, as now, this change to a pure population basis would give Germany 20 times Ireland's weight and France, Britain and Italy 15 times each. Ireland's present voting weight of 2% would be cut to 0.8% post-Lisbon.
 
This cannot be in Ireland’s best interests. Having 0.8% of the voting power hardly makes us at the heart of Europe. This government has negotiated away whatever power we have in Europe.  

The poster asks a crucially important question: how can we protect the right to earn a living wage when the EU Court is repeatedly undermining that right? Protocol 27 of the Lisbon Treaty copperfastens EU Court rulings - such as Laval, Rüffert, Viking and Luxembourg - that have repeatedly found against workers and for big business. Now even the right to earn the minimum wage of the country in which you are employed is under attack; while in Ireland our own Government is leading the charge to lower the Irish minimum wage.

€1.84 is the average of the hourly minimum wage rates set by the EU's Accession countries - mostly from Eastern Europe. Their wage rates were obtained from Eurostat.

Sub-contractors, employing workers from such countries, have got the EU Courts to agree that wage agreements set by wealthier EU countries (of which Ireland is one) may be set aside.
 
Protocol No.27 of the Lisbon Treaty copperfastens Laval and related judgments by stating that in the EU "the internal market...includes a system ensuring that competition is not distorted ... To this end the Union shall take action under the provisions of the Treaties." It ensures that the right to freely provide services (and make profit) always trumps the right to earn a decent wage.

The EU is supporting European transnational Big Business in a race to the bottom regarding wages. Who knows where this is going to end? In these difficult times Irish workers need the protection of the legal right to earn a living wage. But the EU Court has found against that right repeatedly. The poster begs the question - will the right to earn even the minimum wage come under attack post-Lisbon? While the minimum wage is supposed to be exempt from EU competency, the ECJ, in this matter as in many others, is seizing competency by virtue of the EU's objective of free competition in the internal EU market, and finding against workers.

The European Court of Justice, ruling in Laval, Rüffert, and Viking, found in all three cases that the right to a living wage was superseded by the right to provide unrestricted services on the EU's internal market. . In other words, if a company wants to enforce the EU right to freely trade for profit, workers' rights are set aside.

In the 2008 Rüffert case the Court found that a Polish subcontractor operating  in Germany was entitled to pay his workers less than half the agreed German minimum wage for the construction sector, because the right to provide unrestricted services took priority over collective wage agreements.

In the Laval/Vaxholm case, the Latvian company Laval wanted to use Latvian workers in Sweden but would not agree to Swedish pay and conditions. So the Swedish trade unions blockaded Laval sites. The ECJ ruled in December 2007 that the union could only act to ensure the Swedish minimum wage (lower than the national agreed rate of pay) was paid and no more; and that other Swedish employment agreements could not be imposed.

In the Viking Ferry case the Court found against the Finnish seafarers' union for attempting to prevent a shipping company from using Estonian sailors at Estonian wages on its ferries.

The Laval case may have applied the minimum wage of Sweden, but the Rüffert case effectively overruled that.

The mindset of the EU was made clear in the Bolkestein Directive - an EU directive whose first draft envisaged that labour could be imported from abroad and the minimum wage of that country applied. After huge controversy, the EU dropped that from the final version of the directive, but it shows the thinking of the EU elite pushing an agenda of "a single market for services".The backtracking on the directive effectively leavs it to the EU Court of Justice to decide these matters.

The Irish minimum wage is currently €8.65 - not a princely sum. Rüffert, Laval and other rulings are part of a very worrying trend, supported by the EU Court,  of smashing the right to a living wage. It is clear that post-Rüffert, the ECJ is perfectly open to finding that labour may be imported into Ireland from Latvia by a Latvian sub-contactor, for example, and the minimum wage of that country could apply, if Irish workers do not want to accept that the jobs go to the Latvians. This is grossly unfair to both Irish and migrant workers who should both expect, and should be entitled to, a living wage.

Workers in Ireland are already hugely concerned that, at a time when jobs are fast disappearing, the Government is opening up discussions on lowering the minimum wage here. (Irish Times, July 22nd: Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said at the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal last night that if the minimum wage was shown to be an obstacle to job creation in any particular sector of the economy, then the Government would have to address the issue.).

Workers should be seriously concerned. The Charter of Fundamental Rights attached to Lisbon is being sold, in a most dishonest fashion, by Labour and others as a protection of workers' rights. Since the Charter was referenced by the EU Court in both the Laval and Rüffert judgments, that is clearly not true.

Dipping below the Irish minimum wage to cheat unfortunate migrant workers has already happened: remember ESB Moneypoint, Gama and other cases.

POSTERS : AT THE "HEART OF EUROPE" : Round 2

• It makes the people sovereign in Article 6.
• We don’t want it replaced with the EU Constitution – 95% of the EU Constitution is in the Lisbon Treaty according to Bertie Aherne.
• People died for our freedom, and our right to live in a democracy. Don’t give that away to faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who have no interest in putting the Irish people first.

There is a widely recognised democratic deficit in the EU, and it is most often expressed in the shrinking numbers of people across the EU member states turning out to vote at EU elections. The numbers were down again this year – as low as 20% in some countries.

The EU interferes in how ordinary people live their lives in many ways:

• They took control of Irish fishing waters – and destroyed our industry
• They forced the Irish government to introduce water charges for schools – saying it was uncompetitive to do otherwise
• And now the EU court will have power to overrule our laws and the wishes of the Irish people by using the Charter of Rights attached to the treaty.

It’s a fact that the EU Court is driving a race to the bottom in terms of wages. The EU Court has found in the Ruffert, Laval and Viking judgments that workers can be imported into Ireland and not even have the right to earn the minimum wage.

In the Ruffert case, the EU Court ruled on a case involving a Polish company which had brought Polish workers to Germany and paid them less than half of the German minimum wage. The EU Court found against the workers. If Lisbon is passed, Protocol 27 attached to the treaty will come into effect. This copperfastens Ruffert and other judgments by insisting that nothing can distort competition, leaving even the right to earn the minimum wage open to attack. That’s because, in reality, if big business can import workers here and pay them country of origin minimum wage (which could be even lower than €1.84).

Irish workers can accept those rates or see their jobs go elsewhere. The Irish government could have done something to protect workers but they were too busy bailing out bankers and developers. Protect your right to earn a living wage by voting No to Lisbon.

Irish politicians have negotiated badly with the EU for years. They gave away our fishing rights, they’re selling the right to earn a living wage down the swanny, and they are supporting this bad treaty because, let’s face it, politicians love the gravy train.

We’ve heard a lot about the huge expenses claimed by TDs and Ministers if the past few months but in the EU MEPs really take the biscuit.

Because of the lax financial checks in the European Parliament, they can claim generous staff, accommodation, travel and office allowances, even if they do not actually incur any cost.
Just this year the Galvin report, exposed the abuses of MEPs expenses fund. It was leaked to a newspaper after MEPs voted to keep it secret.
The report detailed ways in which MEPs could claim up to a MILLION euros or more in expenses over a five year term.
On top of a salary there’s

• A daily allowance just for showing up
• Almost €50,000 a year handout for office expenses, no questions asked, no receipts needed.
• €180,000 a year to hire staff which the Galvin report found was used to pay relatives – many of whom were unqualified for the job
• An allowance which pays the top rate for travel expenses while MEPs travel on budget and pocketed the difference.

The results of the investigation would remained secret except that the British Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies refused to abide by a gagging clause and blew the whistle.Why did no Irish MEP blow the whistle? Instead most of them voted in favour of amending another report – the Cashman report giving greater public accessibility to EU documents – to keep MEP expenses secret.

They are on the gravy train while ordinary people have lost their jobs and their homes.

 POSTERS : TRUST THE EU? : Round 3

MORE WAGES FOR THE ELITE

• More wages for the elite because the Lisbon Treaty allows big business to exploit workers to make profits.  
• Less for you because Protocol 27 of the treaty undermines your right to earn even the minimum wage.
• Less jobs for you also since Article 113 could allow the EU to attack our low tax rates, driving multinationals out of the country – taking up to 150,000 jobs with them.

TRUST EU ASSURANCES

Firstly, it’s important to notice that this is exactly the same treaty rejected by the Irish people in 2008 – and it contains exactly the same threat to our right to decide on abortion and other social issues. The assurances given by the EU Council are not legally binding in EU law, because they are not part of any treaty. As High Court Judge and Chairman of the Referendum Commission, Frank Clarke has confirmed, they won’t change the Lisbon Treaty.

• So the problem remains and the threat is very clear. The Lisbon Treaty takes the right to decide on abortion and other social issues from the Irish people and hands it to EU Court.
• That’s because Article 1 and 47 of the treaty creates a legally new type of European Union and Article 9 makes us all citizens of that EU super-state. Article 6 of the Treaty then makes the EU Charter of Rights binding on member states for all EU citizens. That significant change gives the EU Court simply enormously enhanced powers to decide on issues such as abortion. It means that the Charter, not our constitution, is what the EU Court will consider in deciding on whether abortion should be legal, how marriage should be defined, and on other important social issues.
• Even if we obtain a protocol on abortion in the future, it will come into conflict with the Charter, and the European Court of Justice can use the Charter to overrule a conflicting protocol and impose abortion on the Irish people.

For more got to http://www.coircampaign.org/index.php/info-euguide/lisbon-and-abortion

POSTERS IN THE VOTE NO TO LISBON CAMPAIGN 2008

Poster : It Will Cost You

Poster : The New EU won't see, hear or speak to you (Monkeys)

Poster : People Died for Your Freedom

Diamond Poster : Don't Be Bullied

Diamond Poster : Keep Taxes Low

Diamond Poster : No 2 Foreign Rule

Diamond Poster : Protect Ireland

Poster : Freedom		Poster : Monkeys		Poster : It'll Cost You