Irish Will Be Forced To Vote Again

The Irish Republic will be forced to hold a second referendum on the Lisbon/EU constitutional Treaty, officials in Brussels have decided.

The Daily Telegraph reports that an internal EU briefing paper entitled “The Solution to the Irish Problem” says the Dublin government will give in to demands for a second vote to overturn the previous rejection of the treaty before an EU summit in October.

The briefing suggests that the second referendum would be held in the autumn of next year, leading to the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in 2010.

An influential group of French officials has written the document, the Telegraph says. They say Ireland will agree to a new vote because guarantees will be given on abortion, taxes, the country’s neutrality and the maintenance of the Irish Commissioner in Brussels.

However, the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, wants the Irish to vote again, and give the "right" answer, before next year’s European elections. He fears the poll will become a referendum on a treaty many people in Europe do not like.

The Telegraph's story about the Irish being pressed to submit to their would-be EU masters is here.

Ireland Sees Growing Opposition to European Constitution

From the Los Angeles Times

By Kim Murphy Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

CANVASSING: Maire Hoctor, right, Ireland’s minister of state for elder affairs, tries to convince a voter in Nenagh to vote “yes” in the June 12 referendum on the EU treaty.

The June 12 vote on the Lisbon Treaty now seems less certain, as opposition groups, some businessmen and farmers raise concerns about sovereignty.

NENAGH, IRELAND — The "Yes on the EU" bus rolled into town blaring a foot-stomping "Galway Girl" from its megaphone one afternoon last week, but what it got was a whole lot of no.

An Irishman has always been a hard sell, and never more so than when issues of sovereignty are at stake. "People died for your freedom," declares one of the signs that have popped up in this agricultural town as Ireland prepares to vote June 12 on the European Union's new constitution. "Don't throw it away."

Farmer Ida McLoughlin isn't sold on the other posters plastered around town: "Vote yes for jobs, the economy and Ireland's future."

"Since the EU, all you see are 4x4s going down the street and big buildings going up. The thatched cottages are gone," McLoughlin said. "You have all these Johnny-come-lately people who were poor and got rich, and they're dreadful people. We've lost our Irish values."

Adoption of the so-called Lisbon Treaty requires ratification by all 27 member states of the EU, which could take a much more prominent role on the world stage under the streamlined diplomacy and beefed-up military readiness the document envisions.

Fourteen nations have ratified the agreement through their parliaments, and the remainder are expected to do so by the end of the year. Only Ireland's constitution requires a referendum -- and that could make or break the long-awaited constitution.

The Irish government, most business leaders and political parties of nearly every stripe have come out overwhelmingly in favor of the Lisbon Treaty, pointing out how Ireland's membership in the EU over the last 35 years has helped transform the Emerald Isle of 4.1 million people from an impoverished backwater dependent on Britain to one of Europe's most robust economies.

But a newly vigorous opposition composed of farmers, a few wealthy businessmen with vague connections to the U.S. defense establishment and the leftist Irish republican party, Sinn Fein, have gained quickly in recent polls, and the outcome is suddenly no longer a sure thing.

It is not clear what happens if Ireland says no -- except that the union would surely be plunged, as it was when France and the Netherlands voted down an earlier EU constitution in 2005, into uncertainty and more tedious negotiations on what EU leaders say is a badly needed framework for decision-making among its suddenly more numerous member states.

"It would put us in the very tortured position of going back to the drawing board," said Marc Coleman, a Dublin-based economic analyst.

The treaty signed in Lisbon in December would help Europe project itself more forcefully on the international stage by creating a European Council president and foreign affairs representative while outlining a framework for EU troop deployments in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.

The treaty would broaden and establish a legal basis for the EU's lawmaking powers in some areas while making them subject much more directly to national parliaments and citizens initiatives. It would set out voting weights between large and small countries, improve cross-border cooperation in areas such as crime fighting and climate change and streamline the European Commission to a manageable decision-making body of 18.

Under the treaty, member nations still would retain their historic veto power in crucial areas such as defense, foreign policy, taxation and social security, but not on issues like immigration and energy policy.

Voters in overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland worry that the nation would be forced to expand abortion rights (no), forfeit its long tradition of military neutrality (no) or give up the holy grail of the Celtic Tiger economic miracle, Ireland's 12.5% corporate tax rate (probably not, though some in Europe would like to try).

Treaty opponents say the government is too smoothly dismissing what may be legitimate fears and is too quick to warn that Ireland would incur the wrath of the rest of Europe if it voted no.

"People always say Ireland is in very good standing at the European level. But why wouldn't we be? We haven't invaded one of the partner countries, we haven't partitioned them. But we're also a small member state, and in the power structure that is the EU, small states have to be very careful in how they protect their status and institutions," said Mary Lou McDonald, a member of the European Parliament with Sinn Fein.

Here in County Tipperary, the "Yes on the EU" bus was stopping in front of village cafes and bakeries; young activists from the majority Fianna Fail party trailed out in yellow T-shirts. They smiled and passed out leaflets touting EU membership as a bonanza for Ireland -- the country received 58 billion euros in European funds for agriculture, infrastructure and other programs from 1973 to 2003. Its exports to other EU states increased from 45 billion euros in 1997 to 87 billion in 2006.

Maire Hoctor, a Fianna Fail lawmaker and a minister of state from Nenagh, strolled the sidewalks, stopping for hugs, handshakes and an occasional tongue-lashing. She was joined by party colleague Jim Casey, mayor of North Tipperary.

"They're not going to give us anything. They're going to take it away, for sure," said Bernie O'Brien, an elderly woman who resisted their overtures.

"I remember when we had nothing in this county: We had a one-way ticket to Britain, and that was our lot," Hoctor told her.

Much of the opposition in rural Ireland involves an issue that has nothing to do with the EU treaty at all: agriculture proposals submitted last month to the World Trade Organization by the European trade commissioner, who is Britain's former envoy to the British province of Northern Ireland.

Irish farmers say the trade proposals could put 50,000 cattle farmers in Ireland out of business by easing importation of Brazilian and Argentine beef and driving down prices. The Irish Farmers Assn. says it will urge its members to vote "no" on the EU treaty if Ireland doesn't exercise its EU veto to block the trade proposals.

"It's just going to decimate farms," McLoughlin told Hoctor. "Sure, we've gotten subsidies from the EU. We got the check in the post, like everyone else. We were bought. We were humiliated. My husband has been told what to grow, when to grow it."

Casey said the issue shouldn't be used to block a treaty that will be good for Ireland.

"We've always negotiated good deals for the farmers in Ireland in Europe, and I'm convinced that will continue," he said. "The EU has provided well for farmers. Since we entered Europe, everything has gotten much, much better." T

he other main source of opposition has come from a group called Libertas, fronted by two wealthy businessmen who have had extensive contracts with the U.S. military. This has caused some in the Irish media to speculate that the group is advancing the agenda of U.S. conservatives, some of whom worry that a stronger, united Europe would undermine U.S. interests on the continent.

But Ulick McEvaddy, a former military intelligence officer whose company has contracts for aerial refueling with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps and who is one of Libertas' biggest supporters, said he was worried about threats to Ireland's independence.

"We're handing over direct responsibility and huge issues of sovereignty to the Brussels parliament," McEvaddy said. "If they believe in this great experiment, put it to all the people of Europe."

Even in County Tipperary, some are willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

"Europe hasn't let us down yet," said Mick Connell, a member of the local council in Templemore, not far from Nenagh. "That should be good enough."

New Film Exposes the EU Coup d'Etat

The United Kingdom Independence Party has made a film entitled "Remote Control," exposing the coup d'etat being carried out by European leaders against the peoples of Europe and their democratic institutions. The following is an excerpt; the entire film can be seen here.

France Dies, The Dauphin Speaks

Prince Jean d'Orleans, Duc de Vendome

From The Brussells Journal

Jean d'Orléans, Duke of Vendôme, is the son of Henri, Count of Paris, one of the two major pretenders to the French throne, the other being Louis de Bourbon. Jean d'Orléans is therefore the Dauphin, the heir apparent from the House of Orléans.

While some insist Louis is the true King of France, and others take the side of Henri, I think most will agree on the validity of this message from Jean d'Orléans, subsequent to the recent vote in Versailles:

Does the Europe they offer us correspond to the wishes of the French and European peoples? Does it respond, in its projected form, to the aspirations of young people in search of meaning? I have traveled a great deal, these past ten years, in France and in Europe. Not as a politician seeking a term of office, but as a citizen attentive to the everyday life of his compatriots, and concerned about the destiny of France and of this continent. I have taken the time to listen and I know - because we have discussed it together - that many Frenchmen do not understand where they are being led. This incomprehension creates anxiety throughout the land and confusion in the young. France is not bored, she is worried.

The French people tried to express it, when they were permitted to. In 2005, they rejected, through a referendum, the constitutional treaty that was submitted to them. This time, they will not be allowed to voice their opinion on a document that repeats the essential points that they had rejected. The Treaty of Lisbon provides for a president of the European Union and a vice-president in charge of foreign affairs. It extends the powers of the Union in numerous areas, to the detriment of the States. It assures the preeminence of European law over the laws of the nations. [...]

I am 42. I was 13 when John-Paul II became Pope. I belong to the generation of young persons who lived in step with this Pope of modern times. We saw him accelerate the fall of the Soviet Union, through the strength of his words and his actions. That empire, that was thought to be unshakable, was built on a Utopia. The bureaucracy that governed it disdained the human and spiritual exigencies. It promised men a material happiness that would never replace their profound aspirations. It forced them to worship idols, that they demolished as soon as they could. The Soviet Union was founded on a lie, at least by the omission of the cultural roots of the people whom they wanted to subjugate to their laws.

Because I am attached to Europe, like the majority of those of my generation, I want it to be spared from this dangerous presumption. The Union is too often ignorant of the culture and riches of the countries it wants to enfold. Even though it is responsible to no one, the Court of Justice imposes on the States its own jurisprudence. European law consecrates the power of a technocracy that desires to regulate people's lives in the smallest detail. Now the current Pope, Benedict XVI, sent a forceful reminder last year: "You cannot hope to construct a real common house if you neglect the very identity of the peoples of our continent." And this identity "consists of values that Christianity helped to forge."

This obvious fact did not convince the writers of the charter of fundamental rights, annexed to the Treaty. No reference, in the text, to the Christian roots of our Europe. Even though the Union says it is "conscious of its spiritual and moral heritage", the wording is vague enough to allow many interpretations. Anyway, it is enough to read it to understand: the inspiration of this charter is basically individualistic. It dissolves the natural solidarities and communities, just as the Treaty submitted to the French Parliament dissolves European nations. Can we really believe that this is what young Europeans want? If we want it to resist the storms, we must found Europe on something more solid. Not on a Utopia, but on Truth.

The New EU: Definitely a Superstate

From The Brussells Journal

By Michael Huntsman

Across Europe there are plenty of people who care not for the European Union’s appetite for unaccountable power. Some want to extract their countries from the Union in order to restore real power and independence to their country. Some simply want to halt the constant one-way cession of power to the Union. Others just want to have their say.

With the latest, and arguably the most far-reaching, power-grab, the new Union Constitution effected by the Treaty of Lisbon, the political élites of almost every member state have concluded that they know what the right answer to the question is and have determined that they are not, under any circumstances, going to allow their electorates to give the ‘wrong’ answer to that question.

Thus, without your say-so or mine, the EU is to be given all the institutions which, in customary international law, are recognized as those which identify a state as independent and sovereign. If the EU opts to exercise power in the manner of a sovereign independent state, that presages the subsuming into what is now to be called, simply, “The Union” the twenty-seven member states and their powers.

To those of you who doubt so bold a claim, I recommend that you look no further than the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, a treaty signed at Montevideo, Uruguay on December 26, 1933, at the Seventh International Conference of American States. Although signed by only nineteen Latin American and North American States, the criteria it laid down for the identification of what is and what is not a sovereign independent state are now accepted in customary international law as the criteria for identifying such states.

What are those criteria?:

ARTICLE 1

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications:

(a) a permanent population;
(b) a defined territory;
(c) government; and
(d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Importantly these criteria were considered by a commission set up by the European Union at the time of the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. This was the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the Former Yugoslavia, better known as “The Badinter Commission” which in its Opinion No. 1 laid out what must now be regarded as the EU’s opinion on the issue:

“The President of the Arbitration Committee received the following letter from Lord Carrington, President of the Conference on Yugoslavia, on 20 November 1991:

We find ourselves with a major legal question.

Serbia considers that those Republics which have declared or would declare themselves independent or sovereign have seceded or would secede from the SFRY which would otherwise continue to exist.

Other Republics on the contrary consider that there is no question of secession, but the question is one of a disintegration or breaking-up of the SFRY as the result of the concurring will of a number of Republics. They consider that the six Republics are to be considered equal successors to the SFRY, without any of them or group of them being able to claim to be the continuation thereof.

I should like the Arbitration Committee to consider the matter in order to formulate any opinion or recommendation which it might deem useful.

The Arbitration Committee has been apprised of the memoranda and documents communicated respectively by the Republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Serbia, and by the President of the collegiate Presidency of the SFRY.

1) The Committee considers:

a) that the answer to the question should be based on the principles of public international law which serve to define the conditions on which an entity constitutes a state; that in this respect, the existence or disappearance of the state is a question of fact; that the effects of recognition by other states are purely declaratory;

b) that the state is commonly defined as a community which consists of a territory and a population subject to an organized political authority; that such a state is characterized by sovereignty;

c) that, for the purpose of applying these criteria, the form of internal political organization and the constitutional provisions are mere facts, although it is necessary to take them into consideration in order to determine the Government’s way over the population and the territory;

d) that in the case of a federal-type state, which embraces communities that possess a degree of autonomy and, moreover, participate in the exercise of political power within the framework of institutions common to the Federation, the existence of the state implies that the federal organs represent the components of the Federation and wield effective power; […].”

Turning now to how these criteria are fulfilled by the new EU Constitution as embodied by the Treaty of Lisbon, there can be no dispute whatsoever concerning the EU’s possession of a permanent population and a well-defined territory.

Does the EU, then, fulfil criterion 3 of the Montevideo Convention (supra)?

Article 9 of the Treaty of Lisbon sets out the core Institutions of the Union: The European Parliament, The European Council, The Council, The European Commission, The Court of Justice of the European Union, The European Central Bank and the Court of Auditors.

Looking at the powers that each of these has, who can seriously argue but that these amount to the institutions of government, providing, as they do the over-arching institutions that make up the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary branches that all would say go to make up an independent nation?

Turning now to Criterion No. 4, one only has to look at three things.

Firstly the extent to which the Treaty of Lisbon is taken up with the issue of a common foreign and security policy (into which is subsumed, by Article 27 (1), the ‘common security and defence policy’ of the Union): Articles 10a to 31 are taken up entirely with the scope of the common foreign and security policy, which indicates the fundamental importance that this aspect has in the context of the whole Constitution.

Secondly, the fact that, by virtue of Article 22:

The Union may conclude agreements with one or more States or international organisations in areas covered by this Chapter.

Thirdly the fact that by Article 32 the Union arrogates to itself ‘legal personality’.

Given the criteria I have set out, can anyone set out a counter argument as to why, from the day the treaty comes into force, the European Union is not, at the very least, potentially, a Sovereign Independent State?

Can anyone argue seriously that the nature of the Union once this comes into force does not fall squarely within the description given by the Badinter Commission at (d) above? Not least as concerns the phrase concerning the wielding of effective power?

Lest anyone be disposed to rely on that old chestnut, the fact that there is no European Army, the possession of a military is no bar to Statehood: look at, say Costa Rica or Liechtenstein, amongst others, whose lack of military forces is no bar to their independent statehood.

I have set this out because the “Union” which it is proposed shall come into existence in 2009 indeed has all the hallmarks of a Sovereign Independent State with powers superior to all of its component member states.

It is the creation of such an entity that the political elites of twenty-six out of the twenty-seven member states have decided will not for one second be the subject of proper democratic discussion, debate and finally any sort of vote designed to secure the whole-hearted consent of the peoples of Europe to it.

Why? Because these arrogant people know we would never for one moment consent to such a thing if told the truth and given a vote on it.

What they should remember, however, is that they only rule by our consent and if they opt to rule without our consent, then they must be ready to accept the consequences of that decision which may be to face the just and righteous wrath of the people when they realize that a despotic tyranny, of which they are but impotent subjects, has been created by stealth.

As we embark on this crucial year of 2008, it is the creation of this tyranny which all free men must resist with all their might and political acumen this year and thereafter. Each of us may just be a still small voice: but together we can be a crescendo.


More on this topic:

These Boots Are Gonna Walk All Over You, 13 December 2007