Questions and Answers Lisbon Treaty Heckle

cactus flower wrote:

Hard to picture that through the eyes of someone not already committed. I thought both Mary Lou and Declan Ganley were made to look rather silly. Ben Dunne and Sinead O'Connor did far better on the Joe Duffy show today.

I thought Mary Lou was very well prepared and handled Inda's usual rant in a manner long overdue. She drove me nuts last year with her repitition of failsafe phrases like " We've said time out of number..." or "with respect...with respect...with respect..." but there was very little flaff(in comparison to the yes side) and I was stunned by her improvement.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

ibis wrote:

Assuming he means CCCTB rather than Closed Circuit Television...no, every expert opinion (including some honest ones on the No side!) up to and including the Irish Institute of Taxation have agreed that it's a veto area.

Then how come Ray Kinsella of UCD thinks that this Treaty will lead to a CCCTB within the next few years?

Ray Kinsella said a No vote would send out a strong message and protect us for longer while our economy gets to a stage where we don't need the prop.

He effectively said this is coming eventually Lisbon Treaty or no Lisbon Treaty. He suggested a No vote to send a political message rather than rejecting any specific provision of Lisbon.

We have been resisting France, Germany et al for a long time on this and it is hard to see what Lisbon changes. I have not heard one coherent explanation of how Lisbon could work against us. Prime Time last night was particularly illuminating.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

ibis wrote:

Assuming he means CCCTB rather than Closed Circuit Television...no, every expert opinion (including some honest ones on the No side!) up to and including the Irish Institute of Taxation have agreed that it's a veto area.

Then how come Ray Kinsella of UCD thinks that this Treaty will lead to a CCCTB within the next few years?

Ray Kinsella said a No vote would send out a strong message and protect us for longer while our economy gets to a stage where we don't need the prop.

He effectively said this is coming eventually Lisbon Treaty or no Lisbon Treaty. He suggested a No vote to send a political message rather than rejecting any specific provision of Lisbon.

We have been resisting France, Germany et al for a long time on this and it is hard to see what Lisbon changes. I have not heard one coherent explanation of how Lisbon could work against us. Prime Time last night was particularly illuminating.

Ray Kinsella - that's the man. He was on PK or Drivetime last week I think I heard him on one of them out of the corner of the ear.

Did Ganley make the case on Q&A that the Corporation Tax could come in if several nations band together etc. David Wadell of the Referendum Commission was at pains to avoid that question too on radio the other day - he said he believed there was no threat of our sovereignty in tax In This Referendum but that he couldn't speak for interpretations of the Treaty thereafter but that the Ref Com legal professional were convinced that imposed adjustments on our tax would not be an upshot of interpretations of the Treaty.

Ganley didn't make that point but it is true that countries can band together to have a unified corporation tax rate. The reason he didn't make that point is because the answer is "so what?, let them".

Instead, he talked about CCTB which just sounds scary to people who don't understand it.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Ganley didn't make that point but it is true that countries can band together to have a unified corporation tax rate. The reason he didn't make that point is because the answer is "so what?, let them".

Instead, he talked about CCTB which just sounds scary to people who don't understand it.

And made it sound as if CCTB can be forced on us, whether we like it or not, which it most definitely cannot.

For all Ganley's concern about Irish competitiveness, can anybody tell me how many people Ganley(or, more accurately, Ganley's employers) actually employ in Ireland?

The point made by the IBEC guy that virtually all the Irish employers groups including the American Chamber of Commerce (Ireland branch I presume) had come out in favour of this made a big impression on me.

The organisations are one thing. The actual employers are something else Zhou.

IBEC is telling its members to email their employees to vote Yes. That smacks of the old Lord of the Manor days. Any employer foolish enough to do it could end up in trouble.

Most employers I know are voting No.

Some are actively campaigning in their own time.

The incoming Head of Chambers Ireland is voting No.

Again it is important to see beyond the so-called representatives to see what the people in the real world think.

Well, it is employers groups who do the research on these things and make representations to Government for their members. Individual employers may well vote no but I think the groups are likely to give you a more accurate read of what is good for Irish businesses and employment. Certainly, one would expect them to be the first to cry foul if they thought Ireland was to suffer because Lisbon was going to hurt their competitive advantage and weaken the Irish market place by removing the international corporations.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

For all Ganley's concern about Irish competitiveness, can anybody tell me how many people Ganley(or, more accurately, Ganley's employers) actually employ in Ireland?

The point made by the IBEC guy that virtually all the Irish employers groups including the American Chamber of Commerce (Ireland branch I presume) had come out in favour of this made a big impression on me.

Round about the 50-70 mark I have read, Zhou. The point with Ganley is not how many employees he has here. He is not big into employing and manufacturing. He packages stuff up and sells it on. The idea with people like Ganley - O'Brien etc. is the big money is made by securing licences to provide services like telecomms, cable tv etc. - it can be a license to print money, although some licence buyers have been burned for various reasons. Licenses are often obtained by consortia cobbled together to sound as important as possible. In some cases there is very little substance - remember our Bertie's swimming pool?

Ganley's version of the EU as far as I can work out is not dissimilar to the Rumsfeld version of Iraq. Licenses are handed out in unregulated circumstances with some very big winners. Public services are destroyed and everything is privatised, irrespective of the outcome and costs for customers. In my personal understanding, in Ganley's EU the CAP would go, the Commission and its employees would be replaced by a Temp Agency and the talking shops, and everthing would either be closed or go out to tender. EUFOR would be a version of Halliburton. Things like equal conditions for temp workers currently being put through by the EU would be out of the window.

This post should really be in one of the Libertas threads - I'll move it when I get a minute.

It would be of considerable help to us as a nation if the Yes campaigners could argue with the same intelligence and knowledge as that of the individuals on the No side.

It's always cause for suspicion when a large diverse group of individuals eg ..those who make up Government and opposition etc ..agree 100% on any issue!!!.I smell something rotten in The State of Ireland.....so who is pulling the strings?,and why?.

The No campaigners are far more convincing in their well considered individual arguments .Indeed they have always displayed grace and courtesy in any interviews I have heard or seen..unlike some of our politicians ....one in particular who came across as thuggish ..to say the least ...on Q and A on RTE .
I found some really good stuff online that has convinced me the only way to vote is No.
LIBERTAS is great,also Prof ray Kinsella on blogspot.com..comment on the Lisbon Treaty.....has a poll there too..worth a browse.

Hi yenoocati - you will find all sides of opinion here, including Yes and Noes who argue without spin or hectoring.

If you check out the Signing in thread, there is a cup of tea for you there.

Yenoocati, two points:

- "It's always cause for suspicion when a large diverse group of individuals eg ..those who make up Government and opposition etc ..agree 100% on any issue!!!.I smell something rotten in The State of Ireland.....so who is pulling the strings?,and why?." = conspiracy theory at its most irrational

- "Indeed they have always displayed grace and courtesy in any interviews I have heard or seen....LIBERTAS is great" - The No side have a lot of people with great grace and manners. Declan Ganley is not one of them. I have heard him three or four times now and he constantly interrupts and shouts down any good points that are made by the Yes side to him. He agrees with nothing - he calls for a protocol on coproration tax and then says a protocol on abortion is ineffective - disingenuous beyond belief.

Thanks for the tea..just as I like it ,no sugar and gently stirred.
Hope to partake of celebratory cup soon ...the clock is a ticking.

oh and re conspiracy theory...you flatter my intelligence.

There was a good show last night. The extent of the problem now facing Ireland was clear. Essentially the analysis was that Lisbon is the only game in town and that Ireland will be expected to either sign up or else to get out of the way of others.

The point was made that all the other Member States will be anxious to press ahead toute suite in circumstances where it looks like the Conservatives are going to regain power in Great Britain. If Ireland cannot pass another referendum, and it is likely the Government won't try, then we may be asked what we can sign up to or co-operate with without a referendum.

It is a terrible mess. The ironic thing is that we were constantly told during the campaign that the Government was scare mongering and that there was a better deal. The reality seems to be that the scare mongering is only just beginning and the dangers are real.

In circunstances where John Gormley has said that we have to make real progress on climate change in the next 10 years, I think it would be wrong after 7 years of negotiation for Ireland to stop the EU adopting QMV in relation to ENergy and Climate change. We have to let the EU move ahead in those areas and we have to participate if that is constitutioonally permissible.

imho all the sudden emphasis on the climate change aspect of Lisbon is an attempt tp green wash a Treaty that would be another significant step towards forming a militarised european state.

If that is what politicians want, fair enough, let them be honest about the project and ask people to vote for it, not foist it on us in the guise of a housekeeping exercise or a 'motherhood and apple pie' sustainable development initiative. The military aspects are fleshed out in considerable detail - finance - diplomacy - organisational and so on. What is there on climate change ?

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

It is a terrible mess. The ironic thing is that we were constantly told during the campaign that the Government was scare mongering and that there was a better deal. The reality seems to be that the scare mongering is only just beginning and the dangers are real.

Could it not have been RTE's slant last night on this? Boyd Barrett was one of the only ones there who took a particular angle on it different to the rest who were largely panicking. There was one guy in the audience alright who said it was a crisis for 27 politicians in Brussels and no one else.

As cactus says where is the detail on the climate change and energy policy? We are happy here in Europe to allow Indonesia cut down its native forests and plant palm in order to create oil for our cars...The UK is now going for Iranian banks - won't this drive the price of oil up yet further..?

They are having a good rant against Europe this morning in the Telegraph
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/business/ambrosevanspritchard/june2008/irelandeuvote.htm

Quote :

But the expulsion of Ireland is not legal. Any attempt to proceed without Irish compliance is a Putsch.

There are 8 countries left to ratify and the panic and crisis is on now because some of those may reconsider ...

Climate change is moved to being dealt with by QMV I believe. I understand a lot of areas were moved to QMV. If this is not one of them then perhaps somebody more knowledgeable would correct it.

One may oppose the miltary aspect vehemently, one might even say that we should not participate in some but not all aspects of the Treaty.

However, the question still remains as to whether we are willing to block the rest of the EU from going ahead when the Treaty matters so much to them and they are not willing to go back to the drawing board? Even if we are so willing, can we stop them going ahead through enhanced co-operation? If we try to block them and they forge ahead then where does that leave us?

I know John Bowman was sympathetic to the Treaty side but I don't think RTE is pushing an agenda. Those guests who outlined the real politik of what is happening in the EU were convincing.

cactus flower wrote:

What is there on climate change ?

Climate change in the Lisbon treaty is "soft law". That is, general principles that are not precise, not compelling and are used as a fashionable icing on the cake.

I would have preferred a strong industrial policy of independence from oil, even without a treaty.

The Q and A I thought was shambolic and inauthentic. There were hardly any women there even though today's Independent suggests that most women voted No.

There was a stacked panel and the whole exercise appeared geared to stampede us and beat us into line before the Contagion affects the people of other States.

The whole post referendum affair has been very enlightening for anyone in any doubt about the character of the Lisbon project up to the Referendum.

There is an issue of lack of democracy that for me overrides all other factors, because if the thing was democratic, policy and initiatives could be changed or developed by vote.

"Soft-Law" - good points arnaudherve esp. on energy.

Zhou :You can't deny there appears to be a divide there between the people and the politicians - a fact already acknowledged by Micheál Martin last Friday. I believe a groundswell of people voted with their gut and their gut said that this would remove the decision-making process further behind closed doors. That groundswell may subside or it may trigger a domino effect with other nations yet to ratify. Already Britain is divided but it should be ratifiied there tomorrow regardless.

How can a democracy try to deal with an obvious disgruntled strand of voters by using scaremongering and hope that it will subside in future? It has been seen that there is a disaffected population in Europe who won't now be listened to and that's dangerous territory for a bloc that could soon become a so-called democracy.

Well I agree generally with CF and A#9 about the disconnect. I also agree that the negotiation of the Treaty was carried out at Minsterial and Civil Servant levels and not in parliamentary debate. This is of itself untransparent and so it is undemocratic in character.

We can complain (justifiably) about all that all we want. However, the bottom line will not change. We were asked did we want to go ahead with Lisbon and we said no. The rest of Europe is now free to decide if it wants to try another solution where they respect our vote and go ahead with advanced co-operation without us.

No amount of Richard Boyd Barretts is going to change that. In fairness to Richard Boyd Barrett though, one suspects that he like Joe Higgins is committed to his cause and is willing to take the pain of losing out in Europe for his principles. I think that perhaps the rest of the 'No' voters are also willing to take this pain and aren't necessarily fumbling in the greasy till looking for a better deal as MLMD and Libertas suggest.

BTW, I think it was an excellent point that the Lisbon Treaty was the best start at bringing Europe back to the people that could be made and would have led onto greater democracy.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Well I agree generally with CF and A#9 about the disconnect. I also agree that the negotiation of the Treaty was carried out at Minsterial and Civil Servant levels and not in parliamentary debate. This is of itself untransparent and so it is undemocratic in character.

BTW, I think it was an excellent point that the Lisbon Treaty was the best start at bringing Europe back to the people that could be made and would have led onto greater democracy.

Well these are the thoughts that are going through the heads of many in Europe at present I'd say, prompted by the Referenda and their results. They may not survive indefinitely as thoughts and feelings and may subside into the general mainstream beliefs as happens in politics but I am left with the notion that the EU is a lot less democratic that it should or could be and even worse that it may be the start of enormous incompetency and even worse still, where we'll see the railroading of small nations.

One massive incompetency has been that they prepared this for seven years and hadn't seemed to consider that this might not be what the people of Europe wanted at all, nor had they built into it a second plan or flexibility (flexibility is good if you want to adapt and survive). Many of them, it turned out, didn't want it for whatever reasons in France, The Netherlands and here.

The juggernaut is now about to steamroll the next small voice too ... and possibly due to incompetency, lack of foresight or downright failure to include citizens widely from day 1 ?

What if the juggernaut decides that it won't steamroll us? What if it decides that it will respect our decision and so will go around us?

The Irish people have a right to reject the Lisbon Treaty. Do people think they have a right to stop the rest of the EU signing up to an EU-esque Treaty?

Ireland won't stop the EU going ahead with whatever it wants to do but isn't it at all worrying that there is a deep whiff of elitism and democratic neglect about how this has been managed all along ? The trouble for the EU is that it might start to be seen widely for what it seems to be shaping up to becoming: Authoritarian rather than Authoritative.

That whiff you get is technocracy not elitism. That whiff has been around for a long time and it's one of the reasons I was opposed to Maastricht and Nice. However I think Lisbon would have let some fresh air in.

I agree that Ireland won't hold up the others if the rest of them want to go ahead. Politically, such obstructionism would be suicidal. Given that we voted No I think we have to seriously consider entering the slow lane of a two speed EU. Whatever the politicians say, it seems to be what the people want.