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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 1:33 pm Post subject: Irish voters reject EU treaty |
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| Quote: | Irish voters reject EU treaty
An election offical opens a ballot bag during the count for the Lisbon treaty referendum in Dublin on June 13 2008. Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images
Irish voters have rejected the Lisbon treaty, the country's justice minister conceded today, in a move which throws the entire project of reshaping the EU into turmoil.
Monitors from the Fianna Fáil party at the main count in Dublin told the Guardian that so far the breakdown in votes showed a 52% to 48% majority for the no camp.
"It looks like this will be a no vote," the justice minister, Dermot Ahern, said. "At the end of the day, for a myriad of reasons, the people have spoken.
"We will have to wait and see what happens in the rest of the countries. Obviously if we are the only one to reject the treaty that will raise questions. We are in uncharted territories."
Unofficial early polls suggested voters in most constituencies voted against the Lisbon treaty, the state broadcaster RTE reported. Official results are expected later today.
The no vote was strong in many rural areas and in working-class urban areas, while middle-class areas appeared to be less supportive of the treaty than had been anticipated, RTE said.
Reuters reported that in Dublin, the no camp was ahead in five constituencies and behind in one, while three were evenly split.
Dublin accounts for about a quarter of the country's electorate.
Joan Burton, an Irish Labour MP, said there had been a no majority in her Dublin West constituency.
Speaking at the count, Burton said: "Although there was a lot of misinformation by the no camp in this campaign the message from this result is that whenever the EU draws up a treaty they should make it intelligible to ordinary people.
"That was one of the biggest problems of this campaign – thousands and thousands of people couldn't even understand what the treaty was about."
Antonio Missiroli, director of studies at the European Policy Centre thinktank, said: "This triggers a political crisis in Europe that requires strong leadership in Ireland, in Brussels and elsewhere in Europe.
If the no vote is confirmed later today, the EU is likely to face two options. Either give Ireland an opt out to the treaty or shelve it completely.
Irish government sources said they were "disappointed" at tally predictions of a lower-than-expected yes vote in some constituencies, particularly in rural areas.
The bitter divisions caused by the treaty were visible at the count during ugly scenes involving Ireland's finance minister, Brian Lenihan, and members of Coir, a radical anti-abortion campaign group. Coir opposed the treaty on the grounds that European law could supplant Irish legal bans on abortion – a scenario the Irish government consistently said was impossible.
As the minister attempted to speak to a television news crew he was surrounded by Coir activists who screamed at him and sang: "No, no, there's no no, there's no Lisbon" to the tune of 2Unlimited's No limits.
When Burton attempted to intervene and point out that the minister had a right to speak she was spat at.
Analysts earlier said the turnout of around 40% could tip the balance towards a no vote, bringing about the demise of the controversial and poorly understood pact.
All 27 EU countries have to ratify the Lisbon treaty for it to be passed meaning voters in Ireland – the only country to hold a referendum on the issue – can veto the negotiations. Detractors suggest the treaty is an EU constitution in all but name.
When polls closed last night, RTE reported that voter turnout had failed to exceed 45%.
The Lisbon treaty seeks to reshape EU institutions and powers in line with the bloc's rapid growth in recent years to 27 nations and 495 million people. It proposes many of the same reforms as the EU's previous master plan - a constitution that French and Dutch voters rejected in 2005.
Only Ireland's 3 million registered voters pose a serious threat to ratification, because the other 26 members require approval through their national parliaments.
So far, more than a dozen EU members have ratified it, including the parliaments of Estonia, Finland and Greece on Wednesday, but others have held back while awaiting the Irish referendum result.
The Irish government, major opposition parties and business leaders all campaigned for a yes vote during a month-long campaign that emphasised Ireland's strong benefits from 35 years of EU membership.
The prime minister, Brian Cowen, said he had led the campaign for Irish ratification "as best as I possibly could", and accused anti-treaty voters of spreading lies and distortions.
Pressure groups from the far left and right claimed that the treaty would result in Ireland losing control of everything from its business tax rates to its ban on abortion. Cowen and most of the political establishment branded such claims as nonsense.
Many voters said they did not understand the treaty's implications well enough, and were essentially voting on whether they felt happy with Ireland's place in Europe.
"Ireland would still be the economic basket case of Europe without the EU. We should be doing everything we can to help EU institutions function better, because all the evidence shows they function in our interest," said a pro-treaty voter, accountant Padraig Walsh.
But others complained that the EU's near-doubling in size since 2004 had brought unwelcome change to Ireland, particularly more than 200,000 jobseekers from Poland and the Baltic states who now snap up a majority of available jobs.
"I feel like a foreigner in my own land. There's been too much change, too quick," said anti-treaty voter Eugene Leary, a laid-off construction worker who has turned to part-time taxi work to make ends meet.
"You don't mean to be a bigot or a racist. But you would like to see your country keep control of its identity, and make sure your own people are being looked after first. That's just not happening."
Many no voters said they were annoyed that the Lisbon treaty contains largely the same reform goals as the rejected constitution, and expressed solidarity with the voters of France and the Netherlands who dumped that document. |
from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/13/ireland
go on the irish!  |
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faceless
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm surprised to hear it - hopefully the EU machine will be slowed down... |
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faceless
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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Irish Protest As Sarkozy Flies In
July 21, 2008
French president Nicholas Sarkozy faced hundreds of protesters as he arrived in Ireland to seek a way to reverse the country's rejection of the EU reform treaty. Opponents of the Lisbon Treaty plastered posters to lampposts in Dublin reading: "Sarkozy, respect the Lisbon vote! No means no!"
Mr Sarkozy, who holds the EU rotating presidency, said last week that Ireland should vote again. However, some Irish politicians believe that French comments ahead of the June 12 vote helped lay the ground for the 53% no vote. Sarkozy was also met by fishermen who gave away free fish to highlight their anger over high fuel prices and EU quotas.
Ireland is the only EU member constitutionally required to subject treaties to a national vote, and an EU treaty cannot become law unless every member ratifies it. Patricia McKenna, a former European Parliament member who leads an anti-treaty pressure group called People's Movement, said: "One of the core underlying reasons for voting 'no' was the fact that people sense a lack of democratic accountability and control of power slipping away."
Mr Sarkozy has invited her and more than a dozen other pressure group leaders to a closed-doors discussion inside the French embassy in Dublin. However, Ms McKenna says she fears the French president does not respect anti-treaty voices and instead wants just to say "that he met with all sides of Irish opinion". "I accepted the invitation out of respect for the people of France, who also voted 'no' to virtually the same proposals," she said, referring to the 2005 referendum rejection of the treaty's abandoned predecessor, the EU constitution.
Outside Government Building in Dublin, hundreds of protesters gathered, many bearing signs urging Mr Sarkozy to respect the Irish vote. Demonstrator Conor Payne said he was "outraged" by Sarkozy's reaction to the Irish vote. "Sarkozy has made his complete contempt of the Irish people perfectly clear," said the 20-year-old student. "We're here to demand our result be respected."
Farmers and fishermen also turned out, calling on the French leader to protect their industries at this week's World Trade Talks in Geneva. Half a dozen tractors decked with Irish, French and European flags marked the protest by the Irish Farmers' Association.
Eamon Gilmore of the Labour Party said he would warn Mr Sarkozy to stop speaking in public about Ireland voting again on the treaty. "I have no doubt that that people of Ireland would be rightly incensed at such arrogance and would reject the treaty by an even greater margin," Mr Gilmore said.
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | CIA ‘backed’ Irish battle against Brussels treaty
FIRST it was the sheer ingratitude of the Irish, then it was the failure of the Dublin government to mount a successful yes campaign. Now Brussels has found a new explanation as to why Ireland voted down the European Union treaty in June - a CIA and Pentagon-backed plot, devised by American neoconservatives to weaken the EU.
The European parliament wants an inquiry into whether Declan Ganley, the multi-millionaire chairman of the Libertas group that campaigned against the treaty, could be in the pockets of US defence and intelligence services.
The calls have been led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the firebrand 1968 student leader turned Green MEP, who pointed to Irish press reports that “revealed there possibly exists a link between the financiers of the no campaign in Ireland and the Pentagon as well as the CIA.
“If proved true, this would clearly show there are forces in the US willing to pay people to destabilise a strong and autonomous Europe”, he said.
Cohn-Bendit’s suspicions were backed by Hans-Gert Pöttering, president of the European parliament: “The facts must be put on the table. We cannot allow Europe to be harmed by people who demand transparency but do not provide it themselves.”
Last week the parliament’s most senior MEPs discussed the issue and urged the Irish Standards in Public Office Commission to investigate Ganley’s finances.
“The suggestion is not only wrong but ludicrous,” said a CIA spokesman.
Speculation by MEPs appears to rest on the fact that Ganley’s company Rivada Networks has telecoms contracts with the US military worth more than €200m (£159m).
He disclosed last week that he loaned €200,000 of his own money to fund the Libertas campaign against the treaty. It is not clear on what terms the loan was given or if it breached rules on political donations.
Ganley said he considered Pöttering’s remarks to be “absolutely outrageous” and insisted that neither he nor Libertas had done anything wrong.
Cohn-Bendit pointed to the right-wing Heritage Foundation in Washington as the intellectual source for the CIA’s plans to derail European unity.
His claims were dismissed by Sally McNamara, a senior EU policy analyst at the foundation. “This administration is one of the most pro-European we have seen in a long time. There is no sinister antiEU conspiracy,” she said. |
from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4837672.ece
theres a good article in the galloway section by chomsky on us/eu relations |
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faceless
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Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:53 am Post subject: |
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| worth a read, but what a load of nonsense - the Irish don't need a reason to be against domination by another greater power... |
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