The Irish Times is very pro-Lisbon Treaty and puts this absurd
intervention out today!
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IRISH TIMES 17.4.09
'The only thing saving the Irish is European protection'
Daniel Cohn-Bendit says Ireland's recent wake-up call will ensure a
Yes vote to Lisbon, writes LARA MARLOWE in Paris
Lisbon Treaty last year. But the Franco-German Green MEP has
mellowed. "I had harsh words for the French and Dutch when they voted
No too," he said yesterday at a press conference to launch the Paris
Europe-Ecology list, which he heads, for the June European elections.
"You can understand the Irish position," Cohn-Bendit says. "They
thought, 'For us in Ireland, Europe is fine the way it is. We've
benefited enormously, so why would we want it to change'?"
Cohn-Bendit became famous as "Dany le Rouge" in the May 1968 student
riots. He derides European politicians with the same insolence he
used to taunt Gaullist ministers 41 years ago. Yesterday, the Irish
commissioner Charlie McCreevy was twice the object of Cohn-Bendit's
barbs.
The Irish campaign is becoming the stuff of European legend. "You
have to remember what happened," Cohn-Bendit recounts. "Monsieur
McGreevy [sic] lands in Lisbon and declares to the Irish media, 'You
know, the Lisbon Treaty, I haven't read it. It's too complicated. But
it's very good for Ireland'."
Laughter breaks out in the press conference. The result of McCreevy's
admission, Cohn-Bendit said, was the slogan, "If you don't know, vote
No."
"Well today, the Irish know," he continues. "They know how much they
depend on the European Central Bank; that their policy of low
corporate tax didn't save them; that the only thing saving them from
the mess they're in is European protection. That's why they'll say
Yes, because they have a strong sense of their national interest."
[This is an outrageous untruth! One only had to examine the
unemployment figures marching ever upwards, the cut in wages and
benefits and the rises in taxes in the recent budget to see what a
fairly-tale is Cohn-Bendit's non-existent "European protection" -cs]
[ I Omit the rest as it deals solely with Green policies and Cohn-
Bendit's soaring ambitions in Europe. Nothing more about Ireland -cs]
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