No to Lisbon, says Anthony Coughlan

“How can it be in Ireland’s interest that the Irish Government should lose the right to  decide who would represent us on the EU Commission, the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws?”


Anthony Coughlan

Some recent articles and comments which the Irish Times has carried quite drip with hostility and contempt towards the No-side advocates, even though they are only seeking to uphold the majority judgement that was given by Irish voters last year on exactly the same Treaty as is being presented to them again in the October 2 referendum re-run.
The balance of feature articles and comment in The Irish Times is easily three or four times in favour of the Yes side.  The paper shows little attempt to examine what is actually in the treaty and the coverage is more often a case of attacking the messenger than the message.
Five points should determine any informed and rational person’s vote on the Lisbon Treaty.
Firstly, are people happy to be made real rather than symbolic citizens of a post-Lisbon Federal European Union which would for the first time be constitutionally separate from and superior to its Member States, with the new EU’s Constitution having primacy over the Irish Constitution?
How can it be in our interest to vote for a Treaty which would give Germany 20 times Ireland’s vote and France, Britain and Italy 15 times each? How can former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his Foreign Minister Brian Cowen have agreed to such an obvious bad deal when they signed up to the EU Constitution in 2004?
Thirdly, how can it be in Ireland’s interest that the Irish Government should lose the right to  decide who would represent us on the EU Commission, the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws?
Fourthly, Lisbon would abolish the national veto which we have at present in some 30 new policy areas by handing over to the EU the power to make laws binding on us with  regard to public services, policing, crime, justice, the harmonisation of legal procedures, immigration, transport, tourism, sport, culture, public health etc.
Fifthly, it will not be the end of the world if Irish voters reject Lisbon again.  If we vote No, the Czech Republic and Poland will not ratify the Treaty.  It may be that Germany itself will not have ratified it by the time we vote. And by next May there will be a new Government in Britain which will be pledged to withdraw the UK’s ratification of Lisbon on its first day in office, put the Treaty to a referendum and recommend a No vote to it - as long we do not clamp this undemocratic Constitution on the whole of the EU first.
In this way our fellow countrymen and women north of the Border would have the chance to vote on it.  Our membership of the eurozone and the State’s ability to borrow money would be unaffected.
The great advantage of such a second No is that it would open the way to a fundamental look at where the European Union is going, returning to the 2003 Laeken Declaration,  which envisaged a more democratic, transparent and accountable Union, with some powers being repatriated from Brussels to the Member States, before the subsequent Convention was hijacked by the Euro-Federalists who foisted on us the “Lisbon Constitution”. 
Personally, I will be unaffected by the referendum outcome. My involvement and that of my colleagues in the Lisbon Treaty debate entails though some personal costs - quite voluntarily undertaken -  in terms of energy, time, stress and financial expense. We have nothing individually to gain from opposing  the Treaty and are motivated solely by our view of what we believe to be the public good.” 


Anthony Coughlan, Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Social Policy at Trinity College, Dublin is a leading campaigner for a No vote in next month’s Lisbon Treaty Referendum.