What does the government hide by hiding the Lisbon Treaty?

national | eu | opinion/analysis

Saturday May 17, 2008 11:56

by Howard Holby

The referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is in effect new government elections in Ireland

The propaganda recently launched by the government in support of the new federal EU constitution nicknamed as “Lisbon Treaty”, has failed to actually attach the text of the Treaty to their claims on the treaty. The voters of Ireland will be called to submit their votes on an international treaty that is not available for them as of today, less than a month before the referendum. By not providing information on this fact, the current government campaigns to promote a yes vote on the referendum, amounts to the deprivation of the Irish voters of their most fundamental constitutional-democratic right to fair and free elections.

The article includes a web address from where the consolidated version (the actual text) of the Lisbon Treaty can be downloaded.

The propaganda recently launched by the government in support of the new federal EU constitution nicknamed as “Lisbon Treaty”, has failed to actually attach the text of the Treaty to their claims on the treaty. The voters of Ireland will be called to submit their votes on an international treaty that is not available for them as of today, less than a month before the referendum.

The 272 pages on the widely advertised website www.lisbontreaty2008.ie include only the amendments to be applied to the existing EU treaties; however the website does not offer the text-base to be modified by these amendments, nor does it offer a consolidated presentation of these texts. How can the voters of Ireland be expected to make a decision on a treaty that they will never even see in full, only scattered fragments of it? Or every citizen of Ireland is expected to know all the existing EU treaties by heart, then to perform the necessary puzzle-game of insertions, deletions and modifications of these scattered texts?

What the government and all pro-Lisbon groups hide by hiding the Lisbon Treaty is:

- The inability of the “yes” side to justify their statements on the very basis of the text itself.

- The contradictions between the actual content/implications of the Lisbon Treaty and the official statements of the EU and the Irish government on the treaty.
Actual truth by the text of the treaty : abolishment of democracy and transparency by elevating non-elected bureaucrats to the top of the decision hierarchy over all Europe, abolishment of the current voting and other citizens' rights of ca 500 million citizens, loss of national sovereignty of the member states by the primacy of the Union law over the legislative decisions of the national parliaments, exclusion of the voters of 26 EU-states from the most essential decision of establishing the federal EU state itself, etc.
False statements held as the official ‘truth’ : “improved democracy”, “more transparency”, “increased role of the national parliaments in the EU’s decisions”, “increased involvement of the people in the EU’s decisions”, etc.

- The direct consequences of ratifying the constitutional Lisbon Treaty, such as the loss of national sovereignty in economical, political, economical, social, military and other perspectives, and the countless further negative consequences, such as the loss of military neutrality and loss of an independent tax regime, etc.

- The fact that as soon as the Lisbon Treaty would be ratified in all member states and the treaty would come into effect, the actual government and parliament functions currently performed by the national state officials will be transferred to the respective EU-institutions. In this regard the decision on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty means no less than an equivalent of parliamentary elections on an essential level: the voters’ decision on whether Ireland would keep its current government and parliament or accept the government and parliament and other state offices in Brussels. By not providing information on this fact, the current government campaigns to promote a 'yes' vote on the referendum, amounts to the deprivation of the Irish voters of their constitutional-democratic right to fair and free elections.

On the other hand, a consolidated version has been offered for the voters to download on a website of a "NO to Lisbon campaign"-group, "Libertas: http://www.libertas.org/content/view/233/128/

The obvious reason for the openness of the "NO-groups" is that they have nothing to hide. They have provided objective information on the Lisbon Treaty, therefore the text itself only proves their justified stance against the treaty.