Poll: Yes or No to the Lisbon Treaty Referendum?

cactus flower wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Apparently not. NotDevsSon tore the britches off FT today with two European Court judgements which clearly pointed out that tax affairs don't fall into the unfair competition bracket...

Oh balls. What did I do ?

Was that your thread CF ? I only go over there every second day now, and the Lisbon thingy has gone mad.

My apologies if I misrepresented.

No EVO - it was only the britches ripping caused my blushes.

I agree. No-one is to tear the britches off FT, please.

Was that a hard day out on the ranch?

cactus flower wrote:

Was that a hard day out on the ranch?

Well, the hard job is distinguishing the honestly confused from the deliberately confusing (FT is self-confusing, and has a category all to himself*). There's rather a lot of the latter, and a couple of posters resist classification. I felt a bit sorry for Kev Barr though - but I notice I didn't come in for the same level of stick over that as I did for moving Helium Three's thread.

Still, it is like shovelling water.

*Hmm. Actually, Noel O'Gara might be in the same category, now I think about it.

Did KevBarr come back after being severed for trolling? I pmd him with some tips and suggested he approached TheBear for advice on how not to make an ass of himself
(a lot of us have been there).

cactus flower wrote:

Did KevBarr come back after being severed for trolling? I pmd him with some tips and suggested he approached TheBear for advice on how not to make an ass of himself
(a lot of us have been there).

All I did was lock his threads - and TheBear quite correctly pointed out to me that I should have admonished him by PM. I don't know whether any further action was taken.

Can we use this thread for general Lisbon questions? Mine are two at the moment:

From listening to PK this morning it seems some people are convinced that the ECJ could rule against Ireland on the corpo tax i.e. Germany or France might deem our low tax in breach of EU competition laws. (if someone can put it better than that please do) However, someone else said that Article 13 (?) says that each country will have a veto over tax affairs in the Eurozone and the tax changes won't be passed unless it's a unanimous decision... The question is: Is the Yes side 100% certain that we will have autonomy over corpo tax if there is a Yes vote?

The next question: As it is a sort of a constitution, what mechanisms are there in it to change it if it needs to be changed? Shouldn't there be the provision of EU-wide referenda built into such a constitution in order to preserve democracy and have a people's Charter as the utmost legal authority in the Euro Zone?

I'm voting Yes for the very simple reason that we live in a globalised world, which means all of the challenges that we currently face (economic, environmental and social) are more effectively dealt with at supra-national rather than national level.

The institutions and decision making functions of the EU need to be updated so that an enlarged EU can act more effectively in dealing with those challenges.

Clinging to anachromisms like 'national sovereignty' while our planet goes up in smoke and our economy goes down the drain is border line lunacy as far as I am concerned.

So factories go East due to globalisation and you want more globalisation. You seem to believe that the decision makers have your best interests a heart. Good Luck.

youngdan wrote:

So factories go East due to globalisation and you want more globalisation. You seem to believe that the decision makers have your best interests a heart. Good Luck.

Globalisation isn't something you can want more or less of.

It exists and its here to stay. We have to deal with it, and the best way to deal with is as part of a trading block that has uniform economic and monetary policy.

As the jobs dissappear your optimism will be sorely needed.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Can we use this thread for general Lisbon questions? Mine are two at the moment:

From listening to PK this morning it seems some people are convinced that the ECJ could rule against Ireland on the corpo tax i.e. Germany or France might deem our low tax in breach of EU competition laws. (if someone can put it better than that please do) However, someone else said that Article 13 (?) says that each country will have a veto over tax affairs in the Eurozone and the tax changes won't be passed unless it's a unanimous decision... The question is: Is the Yes side 100% certain that we will have autonomy over corpo tax if there is a Yes vote?

Yes. The reasons are as follows:

1. the EU has no powers over direct taxation - it has not been granted any competence in that field
   
2. the 'distortion of competition' rules do not apply to 'fiscal' matters, which include both internal tax rates (harmonisation) and methods of computing taxation (CCCTB)
   
3. CCCTB could be brought in by unanimity on an EU-wide basis, but Ireland retains its veto there
   

To quote from the CCCTB Working Group (November 2007):

A proposal for a CCCTB would take the form of a proposal for a Directive under Art. 94 ECT, which requires unanimity in the Council. It will be impossible to lay down every detailed rule in the basic instrument.

The usual response to this is that CCCTB could be brought in by 'enhanced cooperation' - which, while true, is irrelevant to Lisbon. Enhanced cooperaiton was brought in at Nice, and the National Platform at the time immediately claimed it would lead to tax harmonisation, which it turned out not to.

Further, CCCTB is not tax harmonisation - it is an accounting scheme, which would apportion taxation based on sales, the size of assets (excluding financial assets) and the size of the labor force. If you think about that for a couple of minutes, you'll realise that the only reason a company would choose (CCCTB would be voluntary) to do that is in order to avail of lower corporation tax rates in a particular country.

So a company that chooses to use CCCTB will only do so if that means it can avail of a lower tax regime by doing so. For,say, US companies based in Ireland (in order to take advantage of the low tax here), but with the majority of their sales in Germany, it makes no sense to choose CCCTB, because that means that their profits in Germany would be taxed at the higher German corporation tax rate.

It's important to emphasis that CCCTB is voluntary. Again, this is from the Working Group paper:

Eligible companies resident in the EU may opt for the CCCTB. Eligible companies not resident in the EU may opt in respect of their EU PEs. Unless eligible companies are joining an existing consolidated group they may only opt with effect from the beginning of the tax year. The option would be valid for 5 years and be automatically renewed for successive periods of 3 years unless notice to the contrary was given by the company.

Auditor #9 wrote:

The next question: As it is a sort of a constitution, what mechanisms are there in it to change it if it needs to be changed? Shouldn't there be the provision of EU-wide referenda built into such a constitution in order to preserve democracy and have a people's Charter as the utmost legal authority in the Euro Zone?

Basically, that's what the famous "self-amending" article is about. It allows the Treaties to be changed subsequently by amendment (as per our Constitution) rather than requiring a full Treaty every time.

Personally, I'm in favour of this. While it probably* means that the Oireachtas can ratify some amendments without referendum, it has the enormous advantage that each amendment can be passed/rejected on its own merits. That means that an amendment to, say, change the basis of the Commission can simply be debated without a great stirring of FUD around a hundred other things.

*It is yet to be seen whether this is legally or politically possible.

I see the Yesses have pulled ahead after a slow start.

Quote :

Basically, that's what the famous "self-amending" article is about. It allows the Treaties to be changed subsequently by amendment (as per our Constitution) rather than requiring a full Treaty every time.

Is it the case ibis, that the wide-ranging scope of Lisbon means that once it is passed, there will be no need for a referendum in many areas, as per the Crotty situation?

In other words, we won't be entitled automatically to a referendum on issues which we could reasonably have come to expect as a result of signing up to the Lisbon treaty.

In which case, the necessary changes will be made by the Dail.

Could you clarify that, please?

Kate P wrote:

Quote :

Basically, that's what the famous "self-amending" article is about. It allows the Treaties to be changed subsequently by amendment (as per our Constitution) rather than requiring a full Treaty every time.

Is it the case ibis, that the wide-ranging scope of Lisbon means that once it is passed, there will be no need for a referendum in many areas, as per the Crotty situation?

In other words, we won't be entitled automatically to a referendum on issues which we could reasonably have come to expect as a result of signing up to the Lisbon treaty.

In which case, the necessary changes will be made by the Dail.

Could you clarify that, please?

We're not entitled automatically to a referendum now. We have them because the government prefers to err on the side of caution - if they ratified Lisbon through the Oireachtas, and it was overturned in a couple of years by a court case, that would be messy.

As far as I can see, the effects of Article 48 are straightforward - they allow the Treaty to be amended by amendments, rather than a full new Treaty every time. The Article itself doesn't change our ratification process at all.

However, the knock-on effects are more interesting, because amendments can come singly, and may or may not contain enough 'transfer of sovereignty' or 'change to the scope or nature of the EU' to make a referendum necessary.

Some amendments - new competences for the EU, for example - would definitely require a referendum.

Others - replacement of unanimity with QMV in an area, for example - may not require a referendum. Part of the Crotty judgment states that the QMV areas brought forward in the case would not have required a referendum - but that this might not always be the case.

The question is whether a government would choose to try to ratify such an amendment through the Oireachtas, when that ratification might be overturned by a constitutional legal challenge some time later.

Not black and white, eh?

Anyone hear Quinn versus Mary Lou this evening ? NT106.

I'm changing my vote to yes, subject to a few second opinions.

Quote :

Not black and white, eh?

Indeed. Quite unlike the attitudes of those who say Yay and those who say Nay on the subject...

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Anyone hear Quinn versus Mary Lou this evening ? NT106.

I'm changing my vote to yes, subject to a few second opinions.

Well, I won't presume to be better than MLMD in convincing NO voters to vote YES, but if you want my opinion, YES is the only way to vote.

Kate P wrote:

Quote :

Not black and white, eh?

Indeed. Quite unlike the attitudes of those who say Yay and those who say Nay on the subject...

Am I not one of the former?

Nah. You're special .

Dick Roche, on the other hand, is not special.

seinfeld wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Anyone hear Quinn versus Mary Lou this evening ? NT106.

I'm changing my vote to yes, subject to a few second opinions.

Well, I won't presume to be better than MLMD in convincing NO voters to vote YES, but if you want my opinion, YES is the only way to vote.

I lost a post there.



In summary, I was never a NO nor a YES, I was a DK. Mostly due to ignorance of the subject.

I like the Milion petition thing. Is that for real ?

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

seinfeld wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Anyone hear Quinn versus Mary Lou this evening ? NT106.

I'm changing my vote to yes, subject to a few second opinions.

Well, I won't presume to be better than MLMD in convincing NO voters to vote YES, but if you want my opinion, YES is the only way to vote.

I lost a post there.

In summary, I was never a NO nor a YES, I was a DK. Mostly due to ignorance of the subject.

I like the Milion petition thing. Is that for real ?

In the sense of "does what it says on the tin"? Yes. Interestingly, the Citizens' Initiative is the result of a petition called...the Citizens' Initiative, which proposed:

Quote :

Time has come for citizens to play a genuine and meaningful role in the European project. The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) is a democratic movement demanding the legal introduction of the right of initiative. Once introduced into European law, ECI will require EU institutions to respond to every new proposal signed by at least one million EU citizens, if it takes into account democratic and human rights values. This will enable us to directly influence the political agenda of the European
Union for the first time in history. Make your voice heard in Brussels!

"We, the undersigned, want the European Union to give legal force to the European Citizens' Initiative, where one million European citizens can call on the
European Commission to propose a change to European law."

The cached site can be seen www.citizens-initiative.eu/+www.citizens-initiative.eu&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ie" class="postlink" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here. About a million and a half people signed it, and the EU put it into the Lisbon Treaty exactly as requested.

It's tempting to put in a tear-jerker comment here, but I won't!

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

seinfeld wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Anyone hear Quinn versus Mary Lou this evening ? NT106.

I'm changing my vote to yes, subject to a few second opinions.

Well, I won't presume to be better than MLMD in convincing NO voters to vote YES, but if you want my opinion, YES is the only way to vote.

I lost a post there.



In summary, I was never a NO nor a YES, I was a DK. Mostly due to ignorance of the subject.

I like the Milion petition thing. Is that for real ?

Yes, but its not something that holds any particular appeal for me.

Its an interesting concept, but the changes to decision making at Council level are by far the most significant, and welcome, part of the Treaty.

Decision making at EU level has been severely hampered by perceived injustices in relation to current mechanisms. This needs to be put to bed.

Put it to bed so. I'm all ears.

Petition is a sop. Two are sitting in dusty office somewhere: one re Strasbourg and one re disability.

Kate P wrote:

Put it to bed so. I'm all ears.

The 27 members (bar 1) have agreed to a new Council voting mechanism with which they appear to be content. Hence, the Council can concentrate fully on decision making rather than decision making mechanisms.