Month: September 2003

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.

Lithuania, the third Baltic state, voted 91 per cent in favour of joining in May.

The pro-EU campaign had stressed the economic benefits of joining. About 75 per cent of exports are to EU countries and the EU accounts for 80 per cent of direct investment in the country. There is also a hope that the country’s infrastructure will be boosted by grants from the EU’s structural funds.

The decision is also a reflection of concerns over the country’s relationship with its giant eastern neighbour Russia. Estonia was forcibly incorporated in the Soviet Union in 1940 and regained its independence only in 1991.

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.

So Sweden has voted no the euro. I can’t help but admit that I am absolutely delighted.

Yes, your Irish blogger Gavin Sheridan is, for all intents and purposes, a euro-sceptic. Back in my younger days I was a euro enthusiast, loving the ideal of a great and unified Europe, intent on pursuing peace and justice and blah blah blah.

No more; am I not so naieve to believe that.

Europe is a dinosaur, it is an undemocratic shambles. It is an offence to the very idea of democracy. It is a travesty of global proportions. Thank you Sweden for giving a polite two fingers to Brussels.

Speaking as an Irish person, I have never, and probably will never forgive either the Irish government or Europe, for the debacle of two Nice referenda in Ireland.

Holding a second referendum on the Nice Treaty was the final nail in the coffin of my belief in Europe. It also demonstrates to me the very nature of the EU, an axe-wielding megalomaniac.

I am going to put together a coherent post on Europe soon – for now I am happy to gloat.