Britannist

Tony Bennett

Some hopeful news from Eire:

EUobserver.com

EU court judgements affecting Irish treaty campaign

06.05.2008 - 09:09 CET | By Honor Mahony

The Irish government's official campaign in favour of the EU's Lisbon Treaty has been dealt a blow following the decision by a major union to speak out against the document.

The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union on Monday (5 May) urged its 45,000 members to vote against the treaty in the referendum next month.

General Secretary of the TEEU Eamon Devoy took the stance on the back of recent judgements by the EU's highest court which he said had shown that the pendulum had "swung against workers' rights and in favour of big business.

"In the circumstances, it would be foolish to provide the institutions of the European Union with more power," he added, according to the Irish Independent.

Mr Davoy cited three judgements with major implications for workers. The Laval case found against Swedish workers who had been blockading a building site to prevent Latvian workers, with lower wages, from accessing the site.

The Viking judgement concerned a Finnish company that used cheaper Estonian workers on its boats while the latest case, known as the Ruffert judgement, found that the EU's internal market principle of freedom of services takes precedence over collective bargaining deals.

Mr Davoy cited incidents concerning workers in Ireland that he suggested would be undermined by the court's findings.

"Twice in recent times we have found Polish workers...being grossly exploited by German contractors and paid as little as ¤5 an hour. In another instance, we discovered Serbian electricians being paid as little as $3.81 an hour.

We were only able to ensure proper rates were paid to these workers after strong pressure, including the prospect of industrial action, was exerted on the companies concerned," he said, according to the Irish Times.

He noted that the Ruffert judgement would make it "all but impossible" for Irish workers and companies to compete for tenders.

The Irish government is now likely to be nervously looking ahead to 18 May when the Irish Congress of Trade Unions takes its stance on the treaty.

Dublin's pro-treaty stance has already been thrown out of kilter by Irish farmers, who have warned of a No stance if current world talks on liberalising trade result in damage to their livelihoods. The talks are being conducted for the bloc by EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson.

Ireland is the only country to hold a referendum on the EU treaty, which has to be approved by all member states if it is to come into force.

****Irish foreign minister Dermot Ahern has reportedly tried to play down the significance of a possible No vote****.

****"'There would be no dire consequence should the referendum go amiss,' Ahern insisted. 'Life will go on as it did after the French and Dutch rejected the European constitutional treaty in 2005,'****" said a report in the Irish Times of an interview he gave to the Buenos Aires Herald last month.

However, analysts widely suggest it will be politically hugely damaging to the EU if Ireland votes no on 12 June.

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Tony Bennett

RECENT IRISH OPINION POLL - ONLY 35% WILL VOTE YES

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DUBLIN:

The Irish government's campaign for a "Yes" vote in a referendum on the EU's key Lisbon Reform Treaty has suffered a sharp reversal according to a poll in the Sunday Business Post newspaper.

The survey results show a significant shift in public opinion against the treaty, ahead of the June 12 vote.

The Red C tracking poll shows the number of Irish citizens who are planning to vote "Yes" ****has dropped to 35 per cent, down eight points**** on the company's previous poll two months ago.

Some 31 percent of Irish citizens said they would vote "No", an increase of seven points. The number of undecided’s had increased by one point to 34 per cent.

The poll findings could send shockwaves through European Union capitals. Ireland is the only one of the 27 EU nations to vote on it, and could scupper the treaty altogether.

In 2001, Ireland shocked the EU when it rejected the bloc's previous Nice Treaty on institutional reform and enlargement. That decision was reversed in another referendum.

The Lisbon Treaty - replacing the bloc's doomed constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005 - was agreed last December amid much fanfare.

It aims to prevent decision-making gridlock in the expanding bloc. The poll results will be a headache for incoming prime minister Brian Cowen as the Irish government would have hoped for a more favourable outcome following visits to the country earlier this month by high-profile EU figures aimed at boosting the "Yes" vote campaign.

European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have all made trips to Dublin and, while stressing they would not presume to tell the Irish people how to vote, have strongly endorsed the treaty.

European Affairs Minister Dick Roche said that the poll findings "while disappointing, are not entirely surprising".

"But it is still very early days in the campaign and it is very much all to play for."

Roche said that as soon as a law to facilitate the plebiscite has been passed by both houses of parliament, "the political campaign proper will get under way and that, undoubtedly, will have a positive impact."

David Cochrane, campaign director for one of the main Irish opposing groups Libertas, welcomed the poll results.

"We believe our concerns over taxation, democracy and accountability are resonating.

"We are focusing on discussing facts, whilst the yes side can only talk about how great Europe has been for Ireland. We agree that Europe's been great for Ireland, and that's why we feel this should be preserved by a no vote," Cochrane said.

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Source: Times of India, 28 Apr 2008

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eublues

"However, analysts widely suggest it will be politically hugely damaging to the EU if Ireland votes no on 12 June."

Excellent.

Tony Bennett

Apparently the Irish Prime Minister thinks only the certifiably insane would reject the Lisbon treaty:

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**** Taoiseach warns of 'greatest act of lunacy' if treaty rejected ****


[Picture: Bertie Ahern poses under a portrait of John F Kennedy with former US Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith (left), Caroline Kennedy and US Senator Edward Kennedy at the JFK Library in Boston yesterday]

By Senan Molony in Boston

Saturday May 03 2008

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FOR voters to reject the Lisbon treaty would be "the greatest act of lunacy and insanity", Taoiseach Bertie Ahern warned yesterday.

But at the same time Mr Ahern told an audience at Harvard university that there was little difference between next month's referendum proposal here and a constitutional treaty already rejected by big majorities in France and Holland.

**** Departing from his script, Mr Ahern suggested the treaty differences were largely cosmetic **** - comments that could aid anti-Lisbon campaigners.

At the John F Kennedy Junior forum in Harvard, Mr Ahern answered one student's question by saying: "After the votes in the Netherlands and France we had to go into a period of reflection.

[Laughed]

**** "We changed the name, and as with all great agreements, took a few sections out of it, turned it around a bit, and called it the reform treaty," at which point his audience laughed. ****

Returning to the subject at a later question from the floor, Mr Ahern repeated that the Lisbon treaty was largely based on the constitutional treaty, but said drafters had taken "some of the trappings out of it, and some of the substance out of it".

"It hasn't changed much from the agreement that I concluded back in 2004, so obviously I'm in favour of it," he said. Voters had to decide "whether to be whistling out in the dark, or at the centre of things".

Such binding deals meant nations pooled their sovereignty, but didn't lose their sovereignty [a bit like the old Soviet Union, then - T.B.], he said. He said the No side had been saying since 1973, when there was 23pc unemployment, that Ireland would go backwards in Europe, but instead the economy was a success story that exported 90pc of what we produce.

"When I go to the table I can get around with the German chancellor and the French president" each representing one country, Mr Ahern noted. "To pull yourself out of that would be the greatest act of lunacy and insanity."

The Taoiseach also commented on a range of other questions, from students including the role of peacekeeping troops in Chad. He said Irish troops will be in the African country "for the long haul".

He went to warn that the war on terror would continue as people who were ideologically driven could not be beaten by conventional military means. Militants making trouble in the world to cloak their criminality could be taken on and "you have to defeat them". But the situation was different for terrorism driven by ideas.

"You are not going to beat them," he said. "They could be subdued in the short term, but would always come back.

"We have experience of that in Ireland. Someone tried to beat us for 800 years."

He added: "In any conflict, other than maybe an offbeat regime, I would prefer dialogue." However he pointed to a special section set up in the Department of Foreign Affairs to export Irish expertise in solving age-old quarrels to other trouble spots.

However he said that one area of conflict that he doesn't want to comment on is the race for the White House.

"I'm totally apolitical about your election," he said. "Hillary is a big friend of Ireland. Barack Obama is from Offaly. And John McCain is Ulster-Scots, so we can't go wrong."

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