This from Anthony Coughlan the leading anti-EU campaigner in ---
IRELAND
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The National Platform EU Research and Information Centre
24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9
Web-site: nationalplatform.
Monday17 November 2008
Misleading nature of the question asked in Irish Times opinion poll
on Lisbon ... The planned deception envisaged for a Lisbon Two
referendum becomes clearer
Any Lisbon referendum re-run must be on exactly the same Lisbon
Treaty as the Irish people voted No to last June.
This crucial fact is concealed or glossed over in today's Irish Times
poll and in Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin's comments on it.
[SEE my "Irish poll suggest voters may change their minds and vote
Yes to Treaty" this morning 17/11/08]
Not a jot or tittle - not a comma - of the text of Lisbon can be
changed, for otherwise it would be legally a new Treaty which would
have to go around all 27 EU States for ratification again.
The Declarations referred to in the Opinon Poll question are
different from Protocols in that they are not legally part of a
Treaty. Declarations are political statements made by one State or
several. They are not international agreements between States which
are legally binding on them(See Irish White Paper definitions below).
Protocols are legally part of a Treaty. There will be no Protocols
for Ireland over Lisbon, for that would be to reopen the Lisbon
Treaty and would require all 27 EU States to ratify the new
Protocol, which would in effect be a new Treaty
A Declaration or political commitment that every Member State would
keep a national Commissioner under Lisbon does not require any change
in the Lisbon Treaty, for the existing Lisbon text(Art.17.
TEU) allows the 27 Member States to agree to such a step unanimously
in 2014, if they decide at that time not to reduce the Commission by
one-third, which Lisbon otherwise envisages.
Contrary to what the Irish Times poll misleadingly asked its
interview sample, Lisbon does not need to be "modified" or changed in
the slightest for these Declarations to be made or for a political
commitment to be given that each EU State will keep one of its
nationals on the EU Commission indefinitely.
What a less misleading Irish Times poll question would have been:
Today's Irish Times opinion poll question was this: "If the Lisbon
Treaty is modified to allow Ireland to retain an EU Commissioner and
other Irish concerns on neutrality, abortion and taxation are
clarified in special declarations, would you vote Yes or No in
another referendum?"
A Treaty modification is a Treaty change. Contrary to what the Irish
Times question implies, Lisbon cannot be "modified" in any way, for
any modification of the Treaty text would make it legally a new
Treaty and different from the Lisbon Treaty which most EU States have
already ratified, so that the whole ratification process would have
to start again from scratch.
A more accurate and less misleading way of putting the opinion poll
question would have been: "If the Lisbon Treaty is left legally
unchanged but is accompanied by a promise that Ireland could retain
an EU Commissioner and other Irish concerns on neutrality, abortion
and taxation are clarified in non-legally binding Declarations, would
you vote Yes or No?"
That question very likely would have given a rather different result.
The Irish Times opinion poll asked a leading question therefore,
which was designed to give respondents the impression that Lisbon
would be changed to take Ireland's concerns into account, when that
would not and cannot be done, short of abandoning the Treaty
altogether and working out a better one.
Not modifying the Lisbon Treaty,but modifying its presentation for a
Lisbon Two:
Talk of "modifying" the Lisbon Treaty in the context of this opinion
poll question is therefore to use a weasel-word. What Messrs Cowen
and Martin envisage for Lisbon Two is not that the Lisbon Treaty
would be modified, but that the presentation of it would be!
Lisbon Two would be presented differently from Lisbon One by means of
these non-binding political Declarations and an accompanying
political promise from the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents that
every EU State can keep a Commissioner under Lisbon when in
practical terms the same can happen under the Nice Treaty which
currently rules in the EU.
This Irish Times opinion poll, like the profoundly flawed
"research" on why people voted as they did in last June's referendum
which the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs commissioned over a
month after the result, will contribute to the elaborate scheme of
deception of the Irish people that is currently being planned by
Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Foreign Minister Micheal Martin and Iveagh House.
For they have not "respected" the Lisbon referendum result by acting
upon the people's democratic vote, despite their endlessly reiterated
claims that they do respect it. If they respected the people's
decision they would have told the other EU States last June that
Ireland could not and would not be ratifying the Treaty, in which
case it could not come into force for anyone and the other States
would have ceased their ratifications after a while, for there would
have been no point in their continuing.
Instead Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said on RTE while the votes
were still being counted on 13 June last that "of course" the
ratifications by other States would continue. Taoiseach Brian Cowen
said the same thing to Commission President Barroso on the phone even
before the referendum result was officially announced. Iveagh House
has been planning a referendum re-run from the moment the tallies
showed how the vote was going on the very morning of the count.
The Declarations envisaged as accompanying Lisbon Two will naturally
be "solemn" and the political promise about everyone keeping a member
on the European Commission will be clear - even though that can
effectively be done under the present Nice Treaty also.
The hope is however that decorating the Lisbon Treaty with political
cap and bells in this way will be sufficient to deceive the Irish
public and media into thinking that the Lisbon Treaty of next October
- the most likely date for a re-run - will be different from the
Lisbon Treaty of last June, when not a comma of the Treaty will be
changed.
It will be exactly the same bad Treaty, which is not in Ireland's
interest or Europe's interest and which the peoples of Europe do not
want. The Lisbon Treaty and the Constitution of a profoundly
undemocratic supranational European Federation which it embodies has
now effectively been rejected in three national referendums - in
France, the Netherlands and Ireland.
And so a year of mendacity and deception, of waste of time and energy
by key elements of Ireland's political class, and abuse and
misrepresentation of No-side campaigners, is being prepared by
Messrs Cowen and Martin and Iveagh House and those who agree with
the course of folly they seem bent on.
[for more detail go to website]
Monday, 17 November 2008
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