SLIGO MEETING CALLS FOR REJECTION OF RE-NAMED EU CONSTITUTION - LISBON TREATY

Speaking at a public meeting in the Glasshouse Hotel in Sligo  organised by The People’s Movement,  former Green Party MEP, Patricia McKenna strongly criticised what she called the “sheer arrogance and disregard shown by political leaders throughout the EU for the wishes of the voters.  Ms. McKenna, who is Chairperson of the Peoples Movement, an organization campaigning against the Lisbon Treaty in the forthcoming referendum, said, “Regardless of the fact that voters in France and the Netherlands have rejected the EU Constitution, it has been renamed, repackaged and put back on the table as if nothing had happened.”

Ms. McKenna said, “There is almost unanimous agreement among EU leaders, including Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, that the substance of the rejected Constitution hasn’t changed. "The difference between the original Constitution and the present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach, rather than content ... The proposals in the original constitutional treaty are practically unchanged. They have simply been dispersed through the old treaties in the form of amendments.” Says Giscard D’Estaing the former French President and Chairman of the Convention which drew up the original text.”

Ms. McKenna went on to say, “The blatant conspiracy by EU governments to deny their electorates the right to vote on this treaty is an affront to democracy. To quote French president Nicolas Sarkozy: "France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting No.  "It would happen in all member states if they have a referendum. There is a cleavage between people and governments...A referendum now would bring Europe into danger. There will be no treaty if we had a referendum in France, which would again be followed by a referendum in the UK." So basically what we have is fundamental change without the consent of the citizens.

“EU leaders openly admit that they have taken the rejected EU constitution and renamed and repackaged it in an unreadable format.  Giscard D'Estaing said: "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 a new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way...What was [already] difficult to understand will become utterly incomprehensible, but the substance has been retained."  “The conspiracy to push this through against the wishes of the majority of citizens of EU member states in undeniable”, she said.

Also speaking at the meeting was the Secretary of the People’s Movement, Frank Keoghan who said that, The People’s Movement would be playing a major role in the forthcoming referendum and would be striving to ensure that Irish people are not bullied into submission by the powerful and well-resourced political establishments of Dublin and Brussels.

Mr. Keoghan said, “This treaty is unacceptable for many reasons not least because it is a fundamental shift of power from the small to the big EU States, from National Parliaments to non-elected EU committees – the Commission, Council of Ministers and Court of Justice.”

“What we are going to vote on will have profound ramifications not just for Ireland but for the future of the EU as a whole.”  The military aspects alone should be reason enough to reject it, he said.  “It obliges Ireland to build up its military capacities while consolidating the European Defense Agency, whose purpose is to promote the arms industries.  It allows for EU military operations without a UN mandate and includes a mutual defense clause, things that peace activists have always opposed.”

He pointed out that “The Renamed Constitution states unambiguously in Section 2, Article 27 (2) that: "The common security and defence policy" it proposes "shall include the progressive framing of a common Union defence policy. This will lead to a common defence.

Member States must "make civilian and military capabilities available to the Union for the implementation of the common security and defence policy …" and  "undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities."

This means there would be an EU constitutional obligation on Ireland to provide military resources to the EU for its security and defence policies and to increase military spending through the European Defence Agency in order to ensure compatibility. There is also a ‘solidarity clause’ that proposes a mutual defence pact – similar to that of NATO. This “solidarity clause” has even been extended by Lisbon to cover the supply of energy and other issue.”

Councillor Declan Bree, who presided at the meeting said, “the Lisbon Treaty is a bad deal for Ireland.  It gives the EU too much power and reduces our ability to stop decisions that are not in Ireland’s interests.

“It is very clear to me that the Treaty has failed absolutely to address the democratic deficit within Europe; despite promises made by European leaders over the last two years. 

“The fact is that the Lisbon Treaty will involve the most substantial transfer of powers from member states to the European Council and Commission to date.  The influence of smaller states will be reduced as the dominance of the larger states is consolidated.

“The militarization of the EU will be accelerated and an economic agenda based on a race to the bottom for wages and workers rights will be greatly advanced.  At EU level we see the incremental development of an EU Army, in all but name, at home the use of Shannon airport by US troops on their way to wage war in Iraq.

“The Lisbon Treaty is the most serious challenge facing anyone who cares about social justice. It will lock Europe into a straight jacket of privatisation and makes little provision for a social Europe.  The Services Directives and other directives coming out of the EU are part of a sustained attacked on the social gains, struggled for and secured by Irish and European workers over many decades. 

“It is very clear that the Lisbon Treaty will further consolidate the power of capital and concentrate power in the hands of an unelected bureaucracy in Brussels.

“The fact that Ireland will lose its right to a permanent EU Commissioner is an issue of real concern.   As a small nation we will be affected by the particularly insidious loss of influence of the small nations in favour of the large nations.  We will be outside the Commission, the body with the monopoly on proposing all EU laws, for five years at a time.  This plus the change in the council voting system, whereby population size with be deciding factor, will significantly reduce our influence.

“This treaty provides for a massive shift of power from the nation states of the EU to Brussels and will effectively make us revert to being a province of mainland Europe...the northwest corner.” Cllr Bree concluded.