Gavin's Blog

Dick has responded, in depth, as ever…

Just what is so undemocratic about the EU is beyond me. Sure, we all hear about the bureaucrats in Brussels, but all the decisions are made by our elected representatives. The Council of Ministers comprises of our governments while the European Parliament is directly elected. European Commissioners are appointed by our governments who, once again, answer to the people of each state. If people don’t like what their government is doing in Europe, they should start voting for someone else. In Ireland that hasn’t been the case to date.

Of course you could always make it more democratic by increasing the influence of direct representation. But this would move us further towards federalism, something the euro-sceptics don’t want. You can’t have it both ways.

If the EU were democratic, it would be accountable and transparent. I do not think it is. Is that fair?

As a voter, I never felt bullied, but I did feel that the government dropped the ball in terms of not explaining what was involved the first time around. As to alleging that the government in some way bought the election, its impossible to uphold. The upshot of the McKenna judgement is that the government can’t use state funds to simply promote one side of the argument. Indeed, at the time of the first referendum, it was felt that the government was far too cautious in the light of the McKenna judgement and backed off too far from promoting its point of view. The result was the only voices being heard were those of the naysayers. You can also read the Nice debate another way. From being enthusiastic supporters of all things European, we suddenly rejected Nice. We were asked were we sure about this and we changed our minds. Another way of looking at it is voter turnout, which jumped dramatically with the second referendum. Those who didn’t bother to express an opinion on the issue came out the second time around and said they wanted Nice.

As for Prodi’s remarks, there’s nothing exceptional about them. It’s not about forcing people into something, but rather emphasising that you can’t cherry pick too much. The EU has been built on compromise. Sooner or later you have to decide whether your in or your out. Each has its own sacrifices.

If you did not feel bullied Dick, that’s fair enough, but I know I did. In a roundabout kind of way I was referring to the government decision to send a heavily slanted white paper to every household, at the taxpayers expense, which in my view directly broke the law, as seen in the McKenna judgement. The cost of this white paper did go into hundreds of thousands – but the government had no qualms about pushing the McKenna judgment to its limits. That went hand in hand with dumbing down the powers of the Referendum Commission – I would call that a concerted attempt to move the goalposts prior to the second referendum.

Furthermore that we did have a second referendum could also nullify the idea of having any future referenda at all. What’s the point? The only answer Europe wants to hear is yes, and be damned with us fogies who vote no. It has been pointed out that a referendum will be held on the Convention, but I can ask now…why? Even if we vote no, surely such a result will not be accepted, and we will have to do the whole thing again. It makes the whole idea of referenda farcical.

Yes the EU is built on compromise, but where is the compromise when Romano Prodi makes veiled threats against those who fail to follow the France/Germany line? Deciding whether your in out of the EU is not the issue, its how much you want to be a part of it. And that is every country’s right.

I would argue that I voted No because I want to stop exactly what is happening in Europe, deeper integration. Integration has gone far enough – and someone needs to say it.

It seems that I have created a bit of a stir with my comments yesterday on the European Union. Blog Irish picked up on my post and noted:

Gavin’s line is a little too close to the Shinners’ for out taste, but it is the witless enforcement of “consensus” masking real problems that gives the Adamses and Le Pens their entree.

There are diverse ideas floating around in the Irish blogosphere. Please don’t anyone tell Andrew Sullivan.

Interesting that my line appears close to that of Sinn Fein and the Greens while at the same time sounding pointedly Tory. Hm. I am inclined to agree on the consensus issue, it is being enforced, debate is being stifled and the majority of parliaments in the EU dont put important European issues to the people, they just put the treaties through regardless.

Dick O’Brien then notes:

As to how he can say that the EU is undemocratic, I’m not sure. If anything it’s too democratic, given the painfully slow pace that things move at. The Nice Treaty is a separate issue from Sweden and the Euro and the Irish double referendum was a bizarre, but not undemocratic exercise. If Irish people didn’t really want Nice they would have voted No the second time.

Its true it was a shambles. Used to an electorate that usually voted for anything EU related served up to them, the Government didn’t bother explaining much about Nice. Ironically, the debate that should have happened before the referendum, took place afterwards. Holding more than one referendum on an issue isn’t unprecedented. We seem addicted to having referendums on abortion and on two occasions, 1959 and 1968 Fianna Fail tried to abolish proportional representation. In this light, the Nice Treaty wasn’t much of a travesty.

I had a letter in the Irish Times covering this very topic – the spin from the Irish media was that us xenophobic Irish had made a horrible mistake and we better but things right.

The EU I would strain to call a democracy, simply because of the nature of the hierarchy of power in Brussels. For Nice, a referendum was only held in Ireland due to our consitution, and I am certain were it nor for that the government would have decided for us with no debate whatsoever. No other country in Europe voted on it.

If the EU was democratic would it not either accept the decision of the Irish people in the first instance, or at least adopt the Treaty to satisfy concerns? The reaction of Prodi to the Swede result almost equates to his reaction to Nice – countries who vote no will be penalised – ‘you can’t be half in and half out’ noted Prodi yesterday.

It is really very simple to me, if a referendum is held and the people decide, their decision should be respected. If politicians in Fianna Fail or the PDs had any balls, they would have accepted the decision, rather than a week later saying that the same vote would take place the following year, with the text unchanged.

Dick argues that if we didnt want it we would have voted no the second time. But did he not see the campaign mounted, using large sums of taxpayers money, to shame and bully Irish people to vote yes. And it was that blatant, to me at least. Brussels could not have been clearer – vote no and pay the consequences for dissent. That is not democracy.

With regard to precedents, I dont believe it is fair to compare referenda on abortion – up to a decade apart, each time using different language, to a referendum put to the people, rejected, and then put again unchanged a year later. Entirely different.

I am not a Sinn Feiner, or Green party sympathiser, I have no serious leanings left or right – I do have a thing about respecting democracy. Something the unelected officials in the EU seem not to comprehend.

Of course off the back of a No in Sweden, we have a firm yes in Estonia. I hope the Estonians know what they are letting themselves in for.

With all the votes counted, the Yes side had 66.9 per cent, compared with the No side’s 33.1 per cent.

Some 63 per cent of 850,000 eligible voters cast ballots. There was no minimum requirement for the vote to be valid.

The results are being carefully monitored in Latvia, which will hold its own vote on the issue next Saturday. A strong Yes vote in Estonia was expected to boost the arguments for joining in its Baltic neighbour.

During the campaign, opponents of EU membership said Estonia had had too brief a period of independence and would be handing over a large amount of its newly won sovereignty to Brussels. Moreover, they argued, its fast-growing economy – GDP growth has averaged almost 5 per cent a year since 1995 – would be stifled by EU regulations.