do they wish to be members of Europe, the Euro and the Eurozone or not?

galway2007

Enda you are being brave if you put this question on the ballot paper

Do they wish to be members of Europe, the Euro and the Eurozone from now on, or do they wish not to be?"
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0302/treaty.html

Liam Byrne

galway2007 wrote: »

Enda you are being brave if you put this question on the ballot paper

Do they wish to be members of Europe, the Euro and the Eurozone from now on, or do they wish not to be?"
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0302/treaty.html

He's being stupid. Voting on whether we want to be part of a particular direction that "Europe" has decided it is going in, instead of actually being part of the decision-making as to where it should go.

As I've said elsewhere, the issue isn't the pact per-se, it's that the pact doesn't have any safeguards in terms of how countries can and should achieve their targets fairly (e.g. cut down waste and unnecessary costs instead of introducing more taxes to make up a shortfall that should never exist in the first place).

Scofflaw

Liam Byrne wrote: »

He's being stupid. Voting on whether we want to be part of a particular direction that "Europe" has decided it is going in, instead of actually being part of the decision-making as to where it should go.

As I've said elsewhere, the issue isn't the pact per-se, it's that the pact doesn't have any safeguards in terms of how countries can and should achieve their targets fairly (e.g. cut down waste and unnecessary costs instead of introducing more taxes to make up a shortfall that should never exist in the first place).

Such terms and conditions would be a gross violation of sovereignty. It won't happen.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Liam Byrne

Scofflaw wrote: »

Such terms and conditions would be a gross violation of sovereignty. It won't happen.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I understand that. And there is an issue in the fact that the majority of this country don't hold politicians properly to account, meaning that the rest of us get the politicians that they deserve.

The fact remains, however, that Europe's focus has been to "praise" Ireland for putting bank and private debts onto the backs of people who had nothing to do with it.

I don't want any part of that type of Europe, if that's their priority.

later12

galway2007 wrote: »

Enda you are being brave if you put this question on the ballot paper

Do they wish to be members of Europe, the Euro and the Eurozone from now on, or do they wish not to be?"
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0302/treaty.html

I'd be fairly confident that the Yes campaign could screw that campaign up twice as badly as Lisbon 1 & Nice 1, and still win.

It would, in one way, be worth asking merely to hammer home the point that the No vote is not in itself a No to Europe, but a No to the way in which the Fiscal Compact would have Europe and the EA be economically governed.

Dirk Gently

was Enda impling that the question would be about european membership while still being a technical black and white question on the actual ballot paper, or was he saying the actual black and white question on the paper would be "do they wish to be members of Europe, the euro and the eurozone from now on, or do they wish not to be?"

It's bad enough impling it but I doubt enda would seriously consider putting an emotive question in place of a technical one on a referendum paper.

Has this been spun out of proportion and gotten linford christies legs? Are people actually saying enda was intending to put an emotive question on the paper? I haven't seen or heard any interviews today, just what I'm reading here. I do find it far fetched that the question would be anything other than technical. If enda was trying to create confusion on the issue then thats grossly bad form to say the least.