People of Ireland stick it to the EU

[D1st0rt]

I think this is awesome, want to know how the Euros here feel about it.

Background for 'murcans:
One of the biggest complaints about the European Union is that for a long time the leadership has been out of touch with the people. In 2005 they tried to push the "EU Constitution" that was a step towards forming The United States of Europe, with provisions for a permanent president having 2.5 year terms (instead of the 6 month rotation they have now), a foreign minister position and bolstered military. It also would have changed voting procedures so that instead of unanimous decisions, only a weighted majority would be needed. They put it to vote and the French and Dutch rejected it.

So the sneaky bastards in charge (primarily French President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Merkel at this point) made some superficial changes and came up with the "Treaty of Lisbon", a horribly obfuscated document that essentially accomplishes what they couldn't get passed as the EU Constitution. This time though, they decided not to put it to popular vote amongst the general populace and just have the leaders of respective countries ratify it.

But wait, Ireland's Constitution requires any policy changes of this magnitude to be put to referendum (Opposite of Germany's that prevents referendums as a result of Hitler's abuse of the system), and the measure was subsequently defeated on Friday, 54%-46%. By rule, all of the 27 nations in the EU have to agree on the Treaty for it to take effect so this has created quite a commotion.

Now Sarkozy and Merkel are pushing for the remaining 8-9 countries to proceed with their own ratification processes to put pressure on Ireland to vote again until they approve. The German foreign minister suggested it was "conceivable" that Ireland be excluded from future policy decisions at the EU Commision, and last I checked Luxembourg was preparing to issue an ultimatum to that effect.

Drawing parallels of this to my own views on our federal government, I can only hope the Irish don't get bullied into sacrificing any part of their sovereignty they don't want to.

edit: Here's a link to the Ireland Referendum Commission's website, which attempts to objectively explain what the treaty means and what the vote was on

[Jerome Scuggs]

God bless.

Ireland was the one European country that, back in the 1980's, decided to solve its economic problems with free markets instead of more socialism - whoops, "government regulation". They called it the 'Irish Miracle' (because people obviously can't fathom how a market works) and now Ireland has one of the strongest economies.

Nice to see that once again, they're making the right decisions. Ironic, for a country stereotyped as being a bunch of drunks. But hey, I suppose even drunks have more of a grip on reality than politicians do.

[Noah]

That's why I'm happy I'm a Norwegian.

We haven't joined EU, we probably never will, so we can be a country on our own. There's something we call EØS which is a branch of EU involving trading that we are a part of, and this makes it practically like being in the EU except we aren't under their politics.

I'm all for opening borders and everything, and that we should cooperate as much as possible with other countries. I just want Norway to be Norway, not EUNorway.

Edit:
Btw Jerome, Ireland actually is one of the countries in Europe topping the poverty list. I went to Dublin last summer and saw it myself. They are making progress, but they are still poor (I did some google searching to confirm this).

[Galleleo]

The shittiest thing is, I was one of the Dutch who voted no that first time. But the second time, they decided: Fuck the people, we as a government will just say yes, so we wont have the people saying no again, Harry Potter might come off as bad towards all the big European Leaders.

I am glad Ireland voted against and I hope they keep doing it. I would do it again if they would let me. European is fine where it is, open borders and stuff. No need to create one big country.

[Fluffz]

Ireland created a taxe heaven for companies working with future technologies. They invested heavily into education and tourism. Free markets had nothing to do with its economic boost at all, if anything ireland is the proof how goverment interventions can solve a countries problems.

That being said, the problem with an EU constitution is that it limits the rights of the individual nations. For example Austria would loose its right to forbid genetical modified food, anonymous bank accounts, road fines or military neutrality. What we would gain is economic mainstream, which equals power. Something that Swiss or even Britain starts to lack.

It is no surprise to me how wealthy countries like Ireland refuse to participate in something that gives other countries a lot of power over their laws. These laws might damage this countries economy (for example austrias anonymous bank accounts earn them a lot of investment money) at the benefit of the EUs economy as a whole. But in theory a stong EU economy results in a stront economy of each country and should be worth it. Being left out results in a drawback for that coutry. Swiss for example accepts these drawbacks but pays a LOT of money to buy itself into the eastern EU expansion. So it is a dangerous bargain to reject this contract or the EU as a whole.

However communicating that to the "dumb" people seems dangerous, thats why in most countries (like Austria) the politicans try to avoid the voting. The Problem is how capitalism relies on a "poor" part to create the "rich". The EU tries to create an equal level of wealth inside the EU so the richer EU countries have nothing to win (theoretically, but since the EU only accepts EU investments - thus is no free market at all - as a country you might want to participate).

Basically it means to lose individual competence for the gain of mainstreamed power. Seeing how the current energy and currency crisis evolves i understand how important this mainstreamed power can be. I dont think we have a chance to refuse participating in the long run, even tho i am not happy about the consequences.

Speaking of consequences, maybe we need to accept them. For countries like austria this seems to be a big deal because our vote counts lesser than germanys for example. This means if we accept a compromise we might loose a lot of individuality BUT at the benefit of gaining a world wide voice. What is our ban on genetically modified food worth if 99% of the world would seed it.

[Jerome Scuggs]

noah- yes, but look at where they were a decade ago. i'm not saying "boom, free markets, problem solved" - it's a long term thing

also, what do you define as 'poverty'? a recent study in America that analyzed what we consider 'poverty' found an interesting result - 70% of those considered 'poor' owned a home, had air conditioning/heating, owned at least one car, owned at least one tv/microwave/etc, and had no problem making ends meet. hell, by the government's definition, my family is one vehicle away from being considered impoverished.

[Mantra-Slider]

Here is what I think of EU D1st:

God bless.

Ireland was the one European country that, back in the 1980's, decided to solve its economic problems with free markets instead of more socialism - whoops, "government regulation". They called it the 'Irish Miracle' (because people obviously can't fathom how a market works) and now Ireland has one of the strongest economies.

yeah, the years of free aid from EU has nothing to do with it, not at all..

[Jerome Scuggs]

mantra click the link in the quote ok

[Mantra-Slider]

mantra click the link in the quote ok

.. @moderat.se :fear:

[Izor]

rofl...so ireland wants to go against the grain and the people of tw forums are all for it....go figure. While I dont like the fact that a group of nations like that are grouping together and therefore will make them a power comparable to the USA it is clearly in their best interest. I mean..I dont know how well it will work and it will be interesting to see considering the past between a lot of these countries. I guess on the plus side for me being an American, at least we know that no matter what Europe calls themselves, they'll always be a bunch of pussies

[Noah]

Let this be the last reply to trolls in this thread, and just carry on. We all saw it coming.

[Vatican Assassin]

it is clearly in their best interest. I mean..I dont know how well it will work

clearly

[Burzum]

This Irish debacle is just what the Treaty on a whole aims to prevent; that is, a single nation going against the flow and blocking any given process or Act as long as all integral parts of the EU processes require an unanimous decision as opposed to a qualified majority. Irony at it's best.

[Nycle]

I'm very disappointed in the Irish!

After years of EU subsidies flowing into Ireland making them one of the biggest net receivers of 'EU aid' and turning them from a relatively poor country into one of the wealthiest countries in Europe, I would have thought they owed something to the EU.

It seems that 3 years ago people in France and the Netherlands, and now in Ireland, voted no to the constitution for reasons that weren't even about the treaty itself. Their arguments against the treaty (ie. "I am against the government, and the government is in favour, so I vote no" - "The euro robbed me of my identity and made life much more expensive" - "I don't want to lose my sovereignty to become part of a 'super state'") were sophisms and not properly substantiated at all. If you would ask any person to name two 'significant' changes that the treaty would have led to I will guarantee you 90% will not be able to answer that question.

So the question remains whether it's a good thing that such important things like these should be left to the politicians, elected by their own people, who are knowledgeable of the contents and probably more fit than anyone to make a proper decision, or to the people themselves, who don't know squat when it comes to complicated things like these and will always vote popularly, but not necessarily for the greater good.

[RednaZ]

Or.... we could all get dictators who know what's best for us