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Media statement

Friday afternoon, 13 June 2008

Foreign Minister Michael Martin and other Irish Euro-federalists are already planning to subvert the Lisbon Treaty referendum result by urging the other EU States to continue with their ratification process instead of telling them that Ireland cannot ratify the Lisbon Treaty as it stands, and that further ratifications elsewhere are therefore pointless, and the Treaty must be reopened.

EU Treaties must be ratified unanimously. Each country ratifies a Treaty on the assumption that all other countries will do so too. If one country says that it cannot ratify a Treaty as it stands - in Ireland’s case because the Irish people have rejected it - there is no point in the other countries proceeding, and the Irish Government should request them to stop.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen now faces a momentous choice.

Will he align himself with his own people and respect the Irish people’s vote by telling his EU colleagues that Ireland cannot ratify Lisbon as it stands, and therefore there is no point in the remaining States continuing with their ratifications?

Or will be align himself with the other EU States against the Irish people, and urge the former to proceed with their ratifications on the assumption that Ireland will re-run the referendum when everyone else has ratified, as Bertie Ahern did with Nice. For that is the implication of other EU States now proceeding with ratifying the Treaty with the Irish Government’s encouragement.

Mr Bobby McDonagh and the top civil servants in Iveagh House will already be planning a joint response with France and Germany to insist on the ratification process continuing. Foreign Minister Martin’s comments on lunchtime radio today about other countries “of course” continuing with their ratifications, reflects the policy the Iveagh House people will be urging.

The Irish No vote is on a much more substantial turnout than the 35% of Nice One in 2001. The No majority is much stronger. It reflects much wider concern at the way the EU project is going. Representative members of the Irish political class have broken with the predominant uncritical consensus on the Euro-Federalist project - Shane Ross, Declan Ganley, Bruce Arnold, Ben Dunne, Gay Byrne, Ulick McEvaddy, Prof. Ray Kinsella, Gerard Hogan,

This provides Ireland and Europe with an opportunity to take a fundamental look at the EU integration process.

Neither the Irish people nor the peoples of the other EU countries want an EU that is given the constitutional form of a State, as the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Constitiution proposed, even though this issue was not highlighted in the referendum. The peoples of Europe will not tolerate such a fundamental subversion of their national democracy and independence. Even if this federalised EU were to be brought off, it would not be sustainable.

Instead of the “period of reflection” which was supposed to follow the French and Dutch No votes in 2005, and which turned out to be an excuse for repackaging the rejected Constitution in the form of the Lisbon Treaty, Europe now needs a period of consultation - with its own peoples, with citizens everywhere - and not just a matter of Brussels talking to Brussels.

The best course now is to return to the aspirations of the Laeken Declaration, which called for democracy, transparency and closeness to the people. The EU Member States should now go back to the drawing-board, for their own sakes, for Ireland’s sake and for Europe’s.

Fundamental to any new Treaty is Lisbon’s population-based voting system which is not acceoptable to Ireland or to other smaller States, for it represents a power-grab by the Big States. Each State must retain its national Commissioner, a demand that does not require the opening of the Treaty.

Each State must retain the right to decide who its national Commissioner is, instead of that right being altered to a right to make “suggestions” only. Any future new Treaty should contain special Protocols to safeguard Ireland’s position as regards company taxation, public services, fundamental rights or mutual defence commitments. Laws in Brussels should only be made by people who are directly elected to make them, eitherin the European Parliament or National Parliaments. These are fundamental principles of democracy.

Anthony Coughlan
Secretary

2. Losing permanent Commissioner, Halving voting strength;

3. The “Blank Cheque” Self-Ammending power;

4. Superiority of all EU law over Irish Constitution;

5. Lisbon origin in rejected EU Constitution.

* Where is this all going? Harmonisation of Corporate tax:

Article 2.79 of the Lisbon Treaty would insert a six-word amendment -”and to avoid distorton of competition” - into the Article of the existing European Treaties dealing with harmonising indirect taxes - Article 113.

This would enable the European Court of Justice, which adjudicates on competition matters, to decide that Ireland’s 12.5% rate of company tax, as against Germany’s 30%, is a distortion of competition which breaches the Treaty Articles dealing with the internal market (Art. 26 and Arts.101-9 TFEU) in relation to which qualified majority voting on the Council of Ministers applies.

The Irish Government’s veto under Article 113 would thus be irrelevant.

* Where is this all going? Loss of permanent Commissioner and reduction in voting strength:

- Lisbon removes any Irish voice from the EU Commission, the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws, for five years out of every 15 (Art.17.5 TEU).

- Lisbon abolishes our right to decide who the Irish Commissioner is when it comes to our turn to be on the Commission, replacing it by a right to make “suggestions” only for the Commission President to decide (Art.17.7 TEU).

- Lisbon Treaty would double Germany’s say on the EU Council of Ministers; Ireland’s voting weight would be more than halved to 1% (Art.16 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The self-amending Treaty:

- This could be Ireland’s last referendum on Europe - the EU can acquire new competences without another treaty, like signing a blank cheque.

- Lisbon would permit the EU Prime Ministers to shift most of the remaining EU policy areas where unanimity still exists, to majority voting, without need for new EU Treaties or referendums (Art.48 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The dilution of Bunreacht na hEireann and the superiority of EU law:

EU law is already superior to Irish law. Lisbon would further weaken Irish control by adding more competences and powers to the EU.

- It hands over to the EU the power to make laws binding on us in 32 new policy areas, such as crime, justice and policing, public services, immigration, energy, transport, tourism, sport, culture, public health, the EU budget etc.

- It removes a national veto in 68 areas

- Lisbon will give the EU Court of Justice the power to decide our rights as EU citizens - Ireland’s Supreme Court would no longer have the final say (Art.6 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The Treaty’s origin in the EU Constitution:

- The Lisbon treaty is a repackaged version of the EU Constitution (96% the same). France and the Netherlands both rejected it, people across Europe have felt increasing unease about the EU project.

“Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly … All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”
- Former French President V.Giscard D’Estaing, Le Monde, 14 June 2007

“The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact.”
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speech to the European Parliament, 27 June 2007

“The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal State”
- Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian Prime Minister, Financial Times, 21 June 2004

What we will actually be voting on in the Lisbon referendum.

As is clear from the first of the two key sentences above from the proposed amendment to the Irish Constitution which we shall be voting on in the referendum, the Treaty of Lisbon would create a quite new Federal EU which politically and constitutionally would be fundamentally different from the EU which was established by the 1993 Maastricht Treaty and which we are members of today. The same name, “The European Union”, would be used pre-Lisbon and post-Lisbon for two quite different Unions. Why is this deception necessary? Lisbon is a revamped version of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe which gave the EU its own State Constitution superior to the constitutions of its Member States, but which the peoples of France and Holland rejected in referendums in 2005. Instead of accepting that decision, the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents decided to give the EU a Constitution indirectly rather than directly, but not to call it a Constitution, and on no account to hold referendums on it, for fear people would reject it again.

Why an Irish referendum?:

Because the Supreme Court laid down in the 1987 Crotty case that sovereignty in Ireland rests with the Irish people and that only they can surrender sovereignty to the EU by referendum, or refuse to surrender it, as the case might be. The purpose of the Lisbon referendum would be to change the Irish Constitution so as to enable the State to accede to the new European Union which Lisbon would establish and to make the Constitution and laws of this new EU superior to the Irish Constitution and laws in all areas covered by the Treaty. This is clear from the two key sentences quoted above.

Below are the most important changes which the Lisbon Treaty would make in the two constituent Treaties of the new European Union they would establish…

One can only be a citizen of a State and all States must have citizens. Instead of European Union citizenship being “complementary” to national citizenship as at present(Art.17 TEC), Lisbon would make citizenship of the new Union “additional to” national citizenship (Arts.9 TEU and 20 TFEU). This would give everyone a real dual citizenship for the first time – citizenship of one’s own National State, in our case Ireland, and citizenship of the post-Lisbon European Union. As citizens of this constitutionally new Union, we would owe it the normal citizens’ duty of obedience to its laws and loyalty to its authority. We would still retain our Irish citizenship, but the rights and duties attached to that would be subordinate to those of our EU citizenship in any case of conflict between the two. Post-Lisbon, we would be like citizens of Virginia vis-a-vis the Federal USA, or like citizens of Bavaria vis-a-vis Federal Germany. Dual citizenship of this kind - not of two separate States but of the federal and regional/provincial levels of one State – is normal in all classical Federations which have been formed by lower States agreeing to subordinate themselves to a higher federal authority. The USA, 19th century Germany, Switzerland, Canada and Australia are the best-known examples.

From the inside this post-Lisbon Federal EU would seem to be based on treaties between States. From the outside it would look like a State itself. This new European Union would sign Treaties with other States in all areas of its powers. It would have its own political President, Foreign Minister and foreign and security policy, its own diplomatic service and voice at the UN, and its own Public Prosecutor. It would make most of our laws and would decide what our basic rights are as EU citizens in all areas of EU law. It would have all the main features of a sovereign State in the international community of States, apart from the ability to make its Member States go to war against their will, although they can go to war voluntarily for the EU.

As the EU’s politicians are creating an EU Federation, all democrats will wish that Federation to be run along normal democratic lines, with its laws being proposed and made by people who are directly elected to make them, either in the European Parliament or in National Parliaments. Instead, in the post-Lisbon Union European laws would continue to be made quite undemocratically. A democratic EU is not on offer in the Lisbon Treaty. The European Parliament, which is the only EU body directly elected by citizens, cannot propose any law. The Commission, which consists of nominated public servants, has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws. These laws are then made primarily by the Council of Ministers, a body which is irremoveable as a group, mostly on the basis of qualified majority voting. The EU Parliament can propose amendments to these laws, but cannot impose them unless the Commission and Council of Ministers agree. The Court of Justice interprets the Treaties in specific court cases in a manner which tends to extend EU powers ever further, sometimes into areas that were never imagined by those drafting the treaties. Lisbon adds to the democratic deficit inherent in this institutional structure, while it further erodes democracy at the national level. The Lisbon Treaty would shift power from voters in all EU countries and from small and middle-sized countries to the largest ones.

Lisbon sets out the powers or “competences” of the new Union in five main categories. Between them all it is hard to think of any area of life that would not be touched by the new Union:-
(a) Areas of exclusive EU competence, where the EU alone can make laws or decide policy and where Member States have completely surrendered this right. These are the customs union, competition rules for the internal market, monetary policy for Member States using the euro, trade and commercial agreements and rules for fisheries conservation (Art.3 TFEU);
(b) Areas of shared competence, where the EU decides some area of policy and the Member States decide others. These cover most areas of government apart from the principal social services, viz., the internal market, social and regional transfers, agriculture and fisheries policy, environment, consumer protection, transport, trans-European networks, energy, crime and justice, cross-national public health matters. In these shared areas however, Lisbon makes clear that EU intervention has priority: “The Member States shall exercise their competence to the extent that the Union has not exercised its competence. The Member States shall again exercise their competence to the extent that the Union has decided to cease exercising its competence” (Arts.2.2 TFEU). The Union may also conduct programmes of research, technological development and space exploration and have common policies on development cooperation and foreign aid without preventing Member States from having their own policies in these areas (Art.4.3-4 TFEU);
(c) Coordinating powers, where the EU is required to take measures to ensure the coordination of Member State economic policies, employment policies and social policies within the Union (Art.5 TFEU);
(d) Areas of supporting, coordinating or supplementary EU action in relation to the protection and improvement of human health; industry; culture; tourism; education,vocational training, youth and sport; civil protection; and administrative cooperation(Art.6 TFEU);
(e) The Common EU Foreign and Security Policy: Lisbon provides that “The Union’s competence in matters of common foreign and security policy shall cover all areas of foreign policy and all questions relating to the Union’s security, including the progressive framing of a common defence policy that might lead to a common defence.”(Art.24.1 TEU). The last phrase here, a “common defence”, means a common EU army and military forces, with joint EU officers. It needs to be distinguished from a “common defence policy”(Art.42.1 TEU) and a “mutual defence” obligation (Art.42.7 TEU), to both of which the Lisbon Treaty would commit Ireland.