Lisbon vote October 2nd - How do you intend to vote?

PopeBuckfastXVI

alan4cult wrote: »

Well put it this way. We give the "wrong" answer to Lisbon we must vote again. IMO, we should get to vote in the General Election again because with the current government we clearly got that wrong as well.

I agree, I only wish they'd had a GE before the Lisbon vote, to give a new government a mandate, and also to remove the anti FF/Cowen 'protest' vote.

I can only hope people vote on the merits of the treaty itself, but if past performance is an indicator I'll be hoping in vain.

Hitman Actual

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

Does the simplified procedure allow some sort of enhanced cooperation like the Euro, whereby some member states wouldn't be involved?

Pure guess on my part...

Sort of correct, I think. If leaving out the word does have any significance, then it's simply because the Simplified Revision Procedure only applies to Part 3 of the TFEU, of which some states have some opt-outs. For example, Title V of Part 3 covers "Freedom, Security and Justice", of which ourselves and the UK have opt-outs, so we wouldn't be involved in the Decision referred to in the Simplified Revision Procedure. But nor would we be obliged to implement any parts of the Decision.

When the Ordinary Revision Procedure is used, then every state must be involved regardless, or so it appears from the wording.

FutureTaoiseach

Hitman Actual wrote: »

Sort of correct, I think. If leaving out the word does have any significance, then it's simply because the Simplified Revision Procedure only applies to Part 3 of the TFEU, of which some states have some opt-outs. For example, Title V of Part 3 covers "Freedom, Security and Justice", of which ourselves and the UK have opt-outs, so we wouldn't be involved in the Decision referred to in the Simplified Revision Procedure. But nor would we be obliged to implement any parts of the Decision.

When the Ordinary Revision Procedure is used, then every state must be involved regardless, or so it appears from the wording.

But if we vote yes, what value does the Part IV optout have when the govt have included a provision in Paragraph 7(iii) of the 28th amendment to the Constitution Bill 2009 allowing them with the support of the Oireachtas to surrender that optout without a referendum?

Daftendirekt

alan4cult wrote: »

None in particular, just conecerned over the very fact we are losing some.

What?

You mean you you're concerned about losing vetoes, even though none of the vetoes we'd lose concern you?



Care to explain this?

Hitman Actual

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

But if we vote yes, what value does the Part IV optout have when the govt have included a provision in Paragraph 7(iii) of the 28th amendment to the Constitution Bill 2009 allowing them with the support of the Oireachtas to surrender that optout without a referendum?

You mean Title V, right? I've no problem with that, it's still under the control of the Oireachtas. Unlike you I don't believe we need to bring every single issue back to the people for referendum. The situation is similar in the UK in regards to the Passarelle Clause, and some other area's, where Parliament support is needed to approve a change. I'm fine with it.

Also, the Simplified Revision Procedure cannot be used to increase the competences of the EU. Seeing as you feel so strongly about this, can you give me some examples of what problems the Simplified Revision Procedure can give us in the area of FSJ, considering that competences of the EU cannot be increased? If there's a serious issue here, I'd like to know it.

BlitzKrieg

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

But if we vote yes, what value does the Part IV optout have when the govt have included a provision in Paragraph 7(iii) of the 28th amendment to the Constitution Bill 2009 allowing them with the support of the Oireachtas to surrender that optout without a referendum?

Simplified revision procedures
6. The Government of any Member State, the European Parliament or the Commission may submit to the European Council proposals for revising all or par t of the provisions of Par t Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union relating to the internal policies and action of the Union.
The European Council may adopt a decision amending all or par t of the provisions of Par t Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The European Council shall act by unanimity after consulting the European Parliament and the Commission, and the European Central Bank in the case of institutional changes in the monetary area. That decision shall not enter into force until it is approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.

It will still require to go through constitutional requirement regardless if the government decides not to opt out, so if it can be shown that the issue at hand can fall under Crotty then we will be required to have a referendum.

Red Sleeping Beauty

I've already voted on this Treaty.

alan4cult

Hitman Actual wrote: »

You mean Title V, right? I've no problem with that, it's still under the control of the Oireachtas. Unlike you I don't believe we need to bring every single issue back to the people for referendum. The situation is similar in the UK in regards to the Passarelle Clause, and some other area's, where Parliament support is needed to approve a change. I'm fine with it.

Also, the Simplified Revision Procedure cannot be used to increase the competences of the EU. Seeing as you feel so strongly about this, can you give me some examples of what problems the Simplified Revision Procedure can give us in the area of FSJ, considering that competences of the EU cannot be increased? If there's a serious issue here, I'd like to know it.

Well perhaps this suttle difference means he/she chooses to vote no?

Martin 2

O'Morris wrote: »

What's your source for this?

Really sorry for the delay, unfortunately I was busy at work, well here is a list of some multinational representatives clearly supporting a YES vote, further below are organisations which represent a lot more multinationals

Jim O Hara, General Manager of Intel Ireland
http://www.businessandleadership.com/leadership/news/article/13843/leadership/a-call-for-action

Paul Duffy, Senior Executive, Pfizer Ireland. (Viagra & anti-Alzheimers treatments)
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2009/02/22/story39739.asp

Paul Rellis, Managing Director of Microsoft Ireland & President of AMCHAM
http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=10157&&CatID=36

Kieran McGowan Company chairman of CRH, (IRISH multinational - construction materials)
http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0507/crh.html (for Lisbon 1)


Here are some business organizations which represent more multinationals and which are calling for a YES.


American Chamber of Commerce of Ireland, which represents virtually all American multinationals in Ireland
http://www.amcham.ie/article.cfm?idarticle=642

Irish Exporters Association
http://www.irishexporters.ie/Lisbon.shtml

Other business organizations such as
-Irish Software Association
-Pharmaceutical Ireland (Pharmaceutical manufacturers)
-Food and Drink Industry Association
are effectively calling for a yes through their membership of the Business Alliance for Europe.

The multinational sector accounts for over 80% of our exports and employs over a 100,000 people directly and probably a similar number indirectly and pays billions of Euros in taxes from exports and indirectly through their employees. That’s a lot of hospital beds, teachers, gardai, and social welfare, etc.


Now your turn, provide a source for just one multinational based here and one Irish business organisation representing multinationals calling for a NO to Lisbon


Martin

alan4cult

Daftendirekt wrote: »

What?

You mean you you're concerned about losing vetoes, even though none of the vetoes we'd lose concern you?



Care to explain this?

I didn't say that none of the vetos concern me, I said none in particular concern me.

FutureTaoiseach

List of the 50 vetoes surrendered under Lisbon. NB: The 14 Justice and Home Affairs vetoes are theoretically retained by Ireland for now under Protocol 21. However, Paragraph 7(iii) of the Lisbon II legislation (28th amendment to the Constitution Bill 2009) allows the govt to surrender the optout with the consent of the Oireachtas and without a referendum.

Daftendirekt

On the Ordinary vs. Special Legislative Procedures:

My understanding is (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that the decision making process presently know as Codecision (in which the Council of Ministers and the Parliament are jointly responsible for decision making) is simply being renamed the "Ordinary Legislative Procedure."

The alternative to this is the Consultation process, in which the Council is responsible for decision making and will sometimes have to consult the Parliament. This will be renamed the Special Legislative Procedure.

As far as I'm aware, Lisbon will increase the Parliaments power by placing more areas under The Ordinary Legislative Procedure (Codecision)

The Referendum Commission wrote:

Proposed changes - Decision Making Process


The Treaty proposes to rename the co-decision procedure, calling it the "Ordinary Legislative Procedure". It also proposes to rename the specific decision making procedures and call them the "Special Legislative Procedures". It also proposes to extend the Ordinary Legislative Procedure to a number of new areas.

What is the Ordinary Legislative Procedure?


This is the term used in the Treaty of Lisbon to describe the process whereby proposals for policies and laws are made by the Commission and decisions on those proposals are made jointly by the Council and the European Parliament. It replaces the term "co-decision".

What are the Special Legislative Procedures?


This is the term used in the Treaty to describe the procedures where the ordinary legislative procedure is not used. They apply mainly in the area of Common Foreign and Security Policy. These decisions are made by the Council and the European Parliament may have to be consulted in some cases.

Daftendirekt

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

List of the 50 vetoes surrendered under Lisbon. NB: The 14 Justice and Home Affairs vetoes are theoretically retained by Ireland for now under Protocol 21. However, Paragraph 7(iii) of the Lisbon II legislation (28th amendment to the Constitution Bill 2009) allows the govt to surrender the optout with the consent of the Oireachtas and without a referendum.

Thanks for the link. I've been looking for that.

FutureTaoiseach

The problem with co-decision is that it is a twosided coin. On the one hand, the European Parliament gets to veto/amend more EU legislation in more policy-areas/competences during its passage. On the other hand, the corresponding national vetoes on the Council of Ministers are abolished. The first is good - the latter not.

Hitman Actual

alan4cult wrote: »

Well perhaps this suttle difference means he/she chooses to vote no?

I'm not sure I get your point. Do you expect that every issue that goes to the Oireachtas would be approved, whereas if it had gone to referendum it would not have passed? The Oireachtas can vote No as well, you know.

You seem to be saying that I only want the Oireachtas to have control as it would approve something that would not be approved in a referendum. Is that it?

K-9

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

The problem with co-decision is that it is a twosided coin. On the one hand, the European Parliament gets to veto/amend more EU legislation in more policy-areas/competences during its passage. On the other hand, the corresponding national vetoes on the Council of Ministers are abolished. The first is good - the latter not.

Getting back to a point you made yesterday, how will enhanced cooperation bring CCTB to Ireland?

alan4cult

Hitman Actual wrote: »

I'm not sure I get your point. Do you expect that every issue that goes to the Oireachtas would be approved, whereas if it had gone to referendum it would not have passed? The Oireachtas can vote No as well, you know.

You seem to be saying that I only want the Oireachtas to have control as it would approve something that would not be approved in a referendum. Is that it?

I wasn't referring to that particular case/clause. I was simply stating that the phrase "Unlike you..." may mean that you have a certain outlook on democratic decisions and that the person you were quoting has a different outlook than that. And that may be the reason you vote YES and he/she votes NO in the Lisbon Treaty Referendum.

Hitman Actual

Daftendirekt wrote: »

On the Ordinary vs. Special Legislative Procedures:

My understanding is (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that the decision making process presently know as Codecision (in which the Council of Ministers and the Parliament are jointly responsible for decision making) is simply being renamed the "Ordinary Legislative Procedure."

The alternative to this is the Consultation process, in which the Council is responsible for decision making and will sometimes have to consult the Parliament. This will be renamed the Special Legislative Procedure.

As far as I'm aware, Lisbon will increase the Parliaments power by placing more areas under The Ordinary Legislative Procedure (Codecision)

That's more or less it, yes. The Special Legislative Procedure is slightly more complicated to what you've said, in that its mechanism depends on what part of the Treaty is being used as the legal base. So it's not just simple a case of the consultation procedure being renamed the SLP.

As regards what FT says regarding veto's, we retain all the major veto's that we've always had (i.e. defence, taxation, etc). The new areas of QMV don't have any of the significance of what FT is saying (apart perhaps from FSJ where we have an opt-in arrangement, although FT is also spinning the theory that future Governments are itching to get rid of this).

FutureTaoiseach

K-9 wrote: »

Getting back to a point you made yesterday, how will enhanced cooperation bring CCTB to Ireland?

The problem is that it would levy the tax in the country of sales-destination rather than where the company is headquartered. So Irish/multinationals companies exporting to the EU would have to pay their corporate-taxes there rather than here. Because 90% of what we produce is exported, the govt would lose billions in revenue. It seems likely that countries using E.C. to engage in CCCTB would try to force Irish companies doing business in the participating countries to comply.

Iwasfrozen

alan4cult wrote: »

I agree completely that the voting should be in proportion to the population. I'm just not happy with the system they use at the moment.

What do you think is wrong with the system ?

Hitman Actual

alan4cult wrote: »

I wasn't referring to that particular case/clause. I was simply stating that the phrase "Unlike you..." may mean that you have a certain outlook on democratic decisions and that the person you were quoting has a different outlook that that. And that may be the reason you vote YES and he votes NO in the Lisbon Treaty Referendum.

Okay, apologies if I was a bit blunt in my post so, I wasn't sure what you were accusing me of! And yes, I prefer representative democracy, and I'm not particularly a fan of referendums on complex multilateral treaties (as it's just too hard to ensure that people both understand the issues and vote on those issues. But that's completely off-topic).

alan4cult

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

What do you think is wrong with the system ?

Well the main thing is that it is not a very efficient system when it comes to expansion of the EU. It may have worked earlier but I think the Penrose system is much fairer. And people/countries who say they are against the system seems in my opinion to be a vested interest in not sharing the vote.

For example,

Under Nice Germany and Italy - 82 million and 59 million population respectively get a weighting of 29

whereas e.g. Spain Poland with 44million and 38 million population respectively get a weighting of 27.

I think there needs to be narrower margins at the top and bottom of the scale which is what the Penrose System tries to do.

alan4cult

Hitman Actual wrote: »

Okay, apologies if I was a bit blunt in my post so, I wasn't sure what you were accusing me of! And yes, I prefer representative democracy, and I'm not particularly a fan of referendums on complex multilateral treaties (as it's just too hard to ensure that people both understand the issues and vote on those issues. But that's completely off-topic).

No problem my post was a bit misleading I admit.

Hitman Actual

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

The problem is that it would levy the tax in the country of sales-destination rather than where the company is headquartered. So Irish/multinationals companies exporting to the EU would have to pay their corporate-taxes there rather than here. Because 90% of what we produce is exported, the govt would lose billions in revenue.

Hang on now a minute, the proposals for CCCTB only apply to companies that have operations in more than one state. So for example, if say Ireland and Poland were involved, CCCTB would only apply to Dell in both countries. It's not an all-out levy on all Irish companies exporting to other countries, and to say it is is just wrong. [Edit: And also, the rules for the proportion of tax to pay aren't even close to being decided, as CCCTB is still very much just a series of reports at the moment. To say all our tax would be paid in another country is completely baseless and definitely scaremongering].

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

It seems likely that countries using E.C. to engage in CCCTB would try to force Irish companies doing business in the participating countries to comply.

You can't just throw that out there, you have to back up a statement like that, or else it's just scaremongering. I haven't time to look back on this now, but I believe you are completely wrong on this.

K-9

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

The problem is that it would levy the tax in the country of sales-destination rather than where the company is headquartered. So Irish/multinationals companies exporting to the EU would have to pay their corporate-taxes there rather than here. Because 90% of what we produce is exported, the govt would lose billions in revenue. It seems likely that countries using E.C. to engage in CCCTB would try to force Irish companies doing business in the participating countries to comply.

I'd need to have a good look at it again as its last year since I did. I thought they couldn't use enhanced cooperation to change Corporation tax rules though, as it isn't an EU competence.

Hitman Actual

K-9 wrote: »

I'd need to have a good look at it again as its last year since I did. I thought they couldn't use enhanced cooperation to change Corporation tax rules though, as it isn't an EU competence.

No, Enhanced Cooperation can definitely be used, as all the CCCTB reports point to it (the Commission knows they'd never get unanimity in CCCTB). But I take issue with FT saying that other countries involved in an EC CCCTB can affect Ireland's rates. It's a statement that really needs to be backed up.

bookerboy

Brian Cowen would like a yes vote.
Brian Cowen recently described Mary Harney as one of his best people.
We don't have a third world health service yet but hopefully we can work our way up to one.
Another NO vote should mean bye bye Brian Cowen.
It's a big NO NO from me as it was the last time.
Perhaps we should think about Ireland before Europe and sort out a decent government first,then let them steer us in the right direction.
Another NO vote will surely mean a new Government for us.

turgon

bookerboy wrote: »

Brian Cowen would like a yes vote.
Brian Cowen recently described Mary Harney as one of his best people.
We don't have a third world health service yet but hopefully we can work our way up to one.
Another NO vote should mean bye bye Brian Cowen.
It's a big NO NO from me as it was the last time.
Perhaps we should think about Ireland before Europe and sort out a decent government first,then let them steer us in the right direction.
Another NO vote will surely mean a new Government for us.

"The best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter."

FutureTaoiseach

Hitman Actual wrote: »

No, Enhanced Cooperation can definitely be used, as all the CCCTB reports point to it (the Commission knows they'd never get unanimity in CCCTB). But I take issue with FT saying that other countries involved in an EC CCCTB can affect Ireland's rates. It's a statement that really needs to be backed up.

The point is that it wouldn't matter what the Irish rates were because the corporation-tax would be paid in the CCCTB countries according to their respective rates. In that way, the Irish rates could remain untouched but the Irish Exchequer would lose billions because companies would have to pay the taxes to the countries of sales-destination rather than the Irish govt. See?

Hitman Actual

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

The point is that it wouldn't matter what the Irish rates were because the corporation-tax would be paid in the CCCTB countries according to their respective rates. In that way, the Irish rates could remain untouched but the Irish Exchequer would lose billions because companies would have to pay the taxes to the countries of sales-destination rather than the Irish govt. See?

First of all, there is nothing concrete at all about CCCTB, especially the way the %base would work out, so you're just making a baseless claim there. Secondly, the idea of CCCTB being implemented through Enhanced Cooperation should mean that countries that are not participating should not be affected i.e. Ireland would still see the same tax revenue that it would have anyway. The tax base only applies to companies who have multiple operations in the countries involved in EC CCCTB. Give me a reputable source that agrees with your claim, and I might give your argument some consideration.

Anyway, as you know the Lisbon Treaty changes nothing on the CCCTB issue, apart from increasing EC from 8 member states to 9, so it has nothing to do with the referendum.