Lisbon? Non, C’est Mal!

For a couple of weeks now we’ve been inundated with posters urging us to vote yes to the Lisbon treaty. Beaming politicians stare down at us telling us they are proud to be Irish so Yes to Europe, that Europe is good and we should be “at the heart of it” etc. etc. Since when has this treaty been about being in or out of Europe? The Lisbon treaty is about a certain version of Europe from those with an aristocratic vision of themselves at the helm. After all it was former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing who said in an interview with Le Monde

“Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly . . . All the earlier proposals will be in the new text but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”

So why the secrecy? What are they trying to achieve that they don’t want us to see until its too late? Maybe José Manuel Barosa can shed some light on the subject;

“Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire”

So how exactly do they expect to forge this Empire? The first thing to do is make sure that people don’t have direct control of the people making the decisions that effect their lives (even less than they do now!). Well for one thing it will take power from national parliaments in 105 policy areas and 68 of these will be dealt with by Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) instead on unanimous decision. QMV will favour countries with larger populations I.E. France and Germany. From here on in, the European Commission, an unaccountable body will propose all new laws in important policy areas based on the content of successive treaties. Doubt this? Just ask Jean-Claude Junker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg;

“Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would it be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?”

So just what is it that these prospective Empire builders want to do? Are they benevolent technocrats who just want to make the world a better place? Well some say that the Charter of Fundamental Rights will protect workers’ rights. However they miss the point that these are conditional rights subservient to protocol 6 which states that

“The internal market as set out in article (1-3)…includes a system ensuring that competition is not distorted.”

So workers rights are protected as long as they don’t “distort competition”. Translated this means workers rights are never protected because wage rises can be deemed a hindrance to competition. So who decides between workers and employers if there is a dispute? The European Court of Justice (ECJ)!

The ECJ has demonstrated in the last year that it is on the side of big business. It ruled that a Latvian company operating in Sweden could pay the Latvian industry rates rather than the Swedish ones to its workers and made a similar judgment regarding a Polish company in Germany.

But what about the good old fashioned Empire building tool of brute force? Won’t the EU Empire need to arm itself to the teeth to compete with the US, China and Russia? Article 27.3 states that “members states shall undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities”. Therefore the Treaty requires member states to increase their arms budgets. Meanwhile articles 104.9 and 104.11 give the EU powers to make national governments reduce their budget deficits. Put two and two together and you get a U.S. style spending programme that makes cuts in essential services such as health and education to increase military spending.

Wait a minute? If they are reducing expenditure on essential services then who will provide them? Well ardent supporters of the Yes campaign the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) have this to say

“The Lisbon Reform Treaty creates the legal basis for the liberalisation of services of general economic interest. A yes vote for the Lisbon Treaty creates the potential for increased opportunities for Irish business particularly in areas subject to increasing liberalisation such as Health, Education, Transport, Energy and the Environment.”

And who does IBEC represent? Michael O’Leary, Dennis O’Brien, Tony O’Reilly and their ilk. Imagine those guys along with the greedy land speculators who made a mint out of working and middle class people in the last ten years getting their hands on our Health and Education. “Dialysis machine? Oh that will be extra. Did you book online?” “Can’t afford full school fees? Well we may just have a place for your child on our special market research programme!”

So think you can live without the vision of Europe as mapped out by d’Estaing, Barosso, Merkel, Sarkozy and Junker? Theres only one thing to do: VOTE NO!

~ by Marcas MacCaoimhín on June 10, 2008.