"Stability" Treaty instead of Fiscal Treaty

Psychedelic

I noticed the official website for the upcoming Treaty referendum is www.stabilitytreaty.ie and everything there referring to Stability Treaty, instead of Fiscal Treaty which is what I've heard it being referred to all along until now.

Was this the original name for the Treaty as agreed by the EU member states? Or have the Irish Government re-branded it?

Isn't that totally biased in favour of a Yes vote? In a psychological way I mean. If it was called a Fiscal Treaty or Economic Treaty or <insert EU City> Treaty there's no bias.

Using "Stability" is implying the Treaty will bring stability. It's a subversive way of trying to manipulate voters to vote Yes. They wouldn't call it the "Instability Treaty" or the "More Austerity Treaty".

Scofflaw

Its official name is "TREATY ON STABILITY, COORDINATION AND GOVERNANCE IN THE ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION". It's at the top of the Treaty text.

It has never officially been called the "Fiscal Treaty". However, if you type in www.fiscaltreaty.ie, you'll be directed to the same website.

And, no, it wouldn't be called the "Instability Treaty" because it's not intended to produce instability. It is intended to produce stability - whether the Irish voter believes it will do so is left to the Irish voter and their many vagaries.

cordially,
Scofflaw

blowtorch

.........and would you trust a Fine Gael Taoiseach's office about the content of the site when they have in their disclaimer

'While every effort is made in preparing material for publication no responsibility is accepted by or on behalf of the State for any errors, omissions or misleading statements on these pages or any site to which these pages connect


and actually while I'm at it.... 'While every effort is made' - to do what? While every effort is made to

a) verify that all information container on the site is factual
or
b) To try fool the nation once again?

meglome

blowtorch wrote: »

b) To try fool the nation once again?

Did they fool the nation previously on a treaty?

Permabear

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Scofflaw

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I can't help but feel that this is one of the sillier bits of an already quite silly debate. The Treaty is called the Stability Treaty - the word "Fiscal" does not appear in its formal title at all - which harks back to the "Stability & Growth Pact" it supplements (outrageously named, of course - I mean "growth", right? Clearly a subliminal attempt to influence people!). Neither Treaty is, or ever was, intended to fix the architecture of the euro - neither treaty has any direct impact on the structure of the euro at all, which could be taken as something of an indication about the intention of the treaties.

The aspirations of the treaty are to help increase stability in the eurozone, not by fixing the euro's architecture (which would require a very much longer treaty, as well as several serious amendments to the EU treaties), but by trying to limit the damage that can be done in a particular area, which is government deficits and debt. It doesn't mean much to us, because we managed to get ourselves into trouble while running surpluses (admittedly entirely cyclical ones), but there are some other countries in the eurozone too.

Treaties are named for their aspirations, not by what their detractors say about them. Kyoto is not named the "Strangling Industry Treaty", the Charter of Fundamental Rights is not named the "Charter to Reintroduce the Death Penalty", the UN is not called the "Bunch of Squabbling Countries", the WHO is not called the "Totalitarian Interference Organisation", free trade agreements are not called "Neo-Liberal Capitalist Bastard Exploitation Pacts".

Honestly.

simultaneously amused and depressed,
Scofflaw

Psychedelic

Scofflaw wrote: »

Treaties are named for their aspirations, not by what their detractors say about them. Kyoto is not named the "Strangling Industry Treaty", the Charter of Fundamental Rights is not named the "Charter to Reintroduce the Death Penalty", the UN is not called the "Bunch of Squabbling Countries", the WHO is not called the "Totalitarian Interference Organisation", free trade agreements are not called "Neo-Liberal Capitalist Bastard Exploitation Pacts".

Kyoto Treaty, Lisbon Treaty, Nice Treaty etc - don't imply anything good or bad.

Charter of Fundamental Rights - implies it has something to do with fundamental rights. Again, nothing implied good or bad.

Stability Treaty - implies it will (or will try to) bring stability. A bit different. Why didn't they call it Fiscal Treaty or Economic Treaty or name it after an EU city?

I take your point about naming treaties after their apsirations, and maybe I'm reading too much into it and there's nothing dodgy at all about them calling this a Stability Treaty, but it's hard to trust these people. And for the record I voted Yes to Lisbon 1 & 2 so I'm not anti EU or some paranoid conspiracy theorist.

Scofflaw

Psychedelic wrote: »

Kyoto Treaty, Lisbon Treaty, Nice Treaty etc - don't imply anything good or bad.

Charter of Fundamental Rights - implies it has something to do with fundamental rights. Again, nothing implied good or bad.

Stability Treaty - implies it will (or will try to) bring stability. A bit different. Why didn't they call it Fiscal Treaty or Economic Treaty or name it after an EU city?

I take your point about naming treaties after their apsirations, and maybe I'm reading too much into it and there's nothing dodgy at all about them calling this a Stability Treaty, but it's hard to trust these people. And for the record I voted Yes to Lisbon 1 & 2 so I'm not anti EU or some paranoid conspiracy theorist.

Eh, I'd agree with you in one particular. There's an obvious PR intent in the Treaty being called it what it's actually called - the three "action words" in the title of the Treaty are clearly aimed at the issues facing the eurozone: instability, poorly coordinated economies, and weak governance. Again, though, that's its jointly agreed formal title, not the choice of the Irish government, and the intended audience is the markets, not the Irish electorate.

But the government calling it the "Stability Treaty" as opposed to the Fiscal Treaty isn't anything odd. It's the media who have been calling it the "Fiscal Treaty", rather than the government. "Stability Treaty" better reflects its formal title - if you look at the Dáil debates, you'll see that's how the government have referred to it in the Dáil: http://www.google.ie/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=stability+treaty+site%3Aoireachtas.ie&oq=stability+treaty+site%3Aoireachtas.ie&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_nf=1&gs_l=serp.3...1585.4967.0.5146.17.16.1.0.0.0.198.1533.6j9.15.0.Fr1BuadPhpQ

And I suspect that if it weren't referred to as the "Stability Treaty", someone would now be claiming that the government is trying to avoid any association with the European Stability Mechanism.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Monty Burnz

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Surely this charge should be aimed at the treaty itself, not the referendum website?

blowtorch

meglome wrote: »

Did they fool the nation previously on a treaty?

Did I say they did? They did fool us however on their 'promises' before coming into Government. That's FG for you. So no surprise that they would attempt to fool us once again, and this time it happens to be a Treaty

Monty Burnz

blowtorch wrote: »

Did I say they did? They did fool us however on their 'promises' before coming into Government. That's FG for you. So no surprise that they would attempt to fool us once again, and this time it happens to be a Treaty

FG are not in government. They are part of a coalition. Besides, the Irish electorate are - on average - so stupid that you can hardly criticise parties for spinning them fairy stories. SF and the ULA pretend that we can be saved with some sort of magical money tree. FFail are waiting in the background saying very little and waiting for 'their' voters to migrate back to them.

Politics, eh?

Slydice

It depends on who you think puts an "Official" website up for the referendum.

The Referendum Commission (refcom.ie) seems to say that their "Official" website will be launched next week:

The Commission will also have a separate website - www.referendum2012.ie - with additional information, including a link to the Treaty. It is expected that the website will be launched in the first week in May.

Scofflaw

Slydice wrote: »

It depends on who you think puts an "Official" website up for the referendum.

The Referendum Commission (refcom.ie) seems to say that their "Official" website will be launched next week:

The RefComm one is the official one. I'm not sure this one is supposed to be there at all, unless it was done with party money rather than government money. Although, again, technically, the McKenna judgement doesn't kick in until next Monday.

cordially,
Scofflaw

later12

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Whoever said it was a band aid deserves to have their position or influence brought into serious question. Who said that?

To call a Treaty which will ensure the European periphery returns to recession without any growth appendage a "band-aid" is farcical.

meglome

Psychedelic wrote: »

Kyoto Treaty, Lisbon Treaty, Nice Treaty etc - don't imply anything good or bad.

Charter of Fundamental Rights - implies it has something to do with fundamental rights. Again, nothing implied good or bad.

Stability Treaty - implies it will (or will try to) bring stability. A bit different. Why didn't they call it Fiscal Treaty or Economic Treaty or name it after an EU city?

Also to be fair this isn't an EU treaty so probably no point in comparing the naming of it with other EU treaties. (Though I'd agree that name is trying to be aspirational).

Tin Foil Hat

meglome wrote: »

Also to be fair this isn't an EU treaty so probably no point in comparing the naming of it with other EU treaties. (Though I'd agree that name is trying to be aspirational).

Didn't stop them putting the EU logo on the website. Check out the twelve stars in the top right hand corner.

meglome

Tin Foil Hat wrote: »

Didn't stop them putting the EU logo on the website. Check out the twelve stars in the top right hand corner.

Well it is between members of the EU so that's not surprising either.

Going Forward

meglome wrote: »

Well it is between members of the EU so that's not surprising either.

We know that, but the use of the star logo could easily be interpreted as an endorsement.

BTW when was it stopped being referred to as "The Fiscal Compact"?

meglome

Going Forward wrote: »

We know that, but the use of the star logo could easily be interpreted as an endorsement.

BTW when was it stopped being referred to as "The Fiscal Compact"?

So every place the EU logo is used it's an endorsement or just there?

It hasn't stopped being called the Fiscal Compact however it wasn't ever called that officially.

Going Forward

meglome wrote: »

So every place the EU logo is used it's an endorsement or just there?

It hasn't stopped being called the Fiscal Compact however it wasn't ever called that officially.

Of course, -Nothing is "just there" -all Government publications are carefully designed by various experts including graphics and web designers.
Its called marketing.
A logo is used as a tool to create and develop a relationship between the publisher and the viewer.

The showing of the "stars symbol" in this or any official scenario is a clear sign of allegiance to the EU, and is not to be entirely unexpected.

A possible balance could be struck by showing the Irish harp government seal, as happens on other government sites.

recedite

Both names used here.
Srictly speaking, after the treaty was officially drafted with the wording "stability, coordination and governance..." at the top, it stopped being the more vague "fiscal compact" agreement that was being earlier negotiated by euro leaders.

Was it for brevity the govt. website left out the "coordination and governance" bit? Or are they still sensitive about their (our) lack of sovereign power :pac:

Going Forward

recedite wrote: »

Both names used here.
Srictly speaking, after the treaty was officially drafted with the wording "stability, coordination and governance..." at the top, it stopped being the more vague "fiscal compact" agreement that was being earlier negotiated by euro leaders.

Was it for brevity the govt. website left out the "coordination and governance" bit? Or are they still sensitive about their (our) lack of sovereign power :pac:

Compact what exactly??

I always found the term ambiguous, as it sounded that those using that term were doing so purely to avoid using the words "Treaty", or "Agreement" etc.

Some still appear firmly wedded to the Fiscal Compact term however.

Scofflaw

Going Forward wrote: »

Compact what exactly??

I always found the term ambiguous, as it sounded that those using that term were doing so purely to avoid using the words "Treaty", or "Agreement" etc.

Some still appear firmly wedded to the Fiscal Compact term however.

The agreement was known as the "fiscal compact" while it was being negotiated, and stuck to some extent, including the tendency to call it the "fiscal treaty" once it had become a treaty. Neither was ever its name, though - the name of the treaty is as per the treaty text.

cordially,
Scofflaw

zenno

Interesting speech I have to say...

meglome

zenno wrote: »

Interesting speech I have to say...

...snip...

You know it's a strange day when Irish people are celebrating the likes of Nigel Farage. He's on a level with the BNP. Obviously I can't say he's always wrong but he stands for things that are the polar opposite from most people I know.

zenno

meglome wrote: »

You know it's a strange day when Irish people are celebrating the likes of Nigel Farage. He's on a level with the BNP. Obviously I can't say he's always wrong but he stands for things that are the polar opposite from most people I know.

I'm not celebrating Nigel farage, I was simply saying that it was an interesting speech that's all. I'm not being invited to his birthday bash or junkets.

meglome

zenno wrote: »

I'm not celebrating Nigel farage, I was simply saying that it was an interesting speech that's all. I'm not being invited to his birthday bash or junkets.

What did he say?

recedite

zenno wrote: »

I'm not celebrating Nigel farage, I was simply saying that it was an interesting speech that's all. I'm not being invited to his birthday bash or junkets.

He delivered a pamphlet to my door advocating a No vote.
There is something odd about a UK MEP campaigning in an Irish referendum.
I suppose its a bit like the way we get to vote again and again until we get the "right" result. Nothing illegal about it, but its just a bit "odd".

chemini77

meglome wrote: »

Did they fool the nation previously on a treaty?

err yes, lisbon, they have not honoured any of the promises they made when looking for their YES votes there, more jobs they promised,, (unemployment increased and more businesses closed) no poverty they promised (tens of thousands fell below the bread line) , need i go on>?

golden lane

too many cooks spoil the broth..........

when are people going to learn........

join up, get loads of money...............somebody else joins up, they get loads of money...

economic madness...........doomed to long term failure.....

voting for foreign domination.........lunacy...

meglome

chemini77 wrote: »

err yes, lisbon, they have not honoured any of the promises they made when looking for their YES votes there, more jobs they promised,, (unemployment increased and more businesses closed) no poverty they promised (tens of thousands fell below the bread line) , need i go on>?

hang on a minute now... let's be very clear about the time-frame
Recession/Bubble Bursts = Mid 2008
Lisbon treaty law = December 2009

We had a massive construction bubble burst and a world recession happen before the Lisbon treaty came into force. So while our domestic economy is is bad shape exports have been booming. So jobs must have been created for those exports, though they cannot make up for the mess we created before the Lisbon treaty came into effect.

Actually I posted about this some time back. Let me see can I find it...

meglome wrote: »

...BTW the Lisbon treaty came into force in December 2009, the recession started over a year earlier. So you're complaining that your plane was late when the engines had been damaged by a bird strike and demanding to know why the faster wingtips put on afterwards didn't sort it. They are two different things, it's very simple.

Scofflaw

meglome wrote: »

hang on a minute now... let's be very clear about the time-frame
Recession/Bubble Bursts = Mid 2008
Lisbon treaty law = December 2009

We had a massive construction bubble burst and a world recession happen before the Lisbon treaty came into force. So while our domestic economy is is bad shape exports have been booming. So jobs must have been created for those exports, though they cannot make up for the mess we created before the Lisbon treaty came into effect.

Actually I posted about this some time back. Let me see can I find it...

Just to put figures on that - at the height of the bubble, 12% of employment was directly in construction, 10.33% of GNP was construction activity, while estimates of construction-related proportions of employment and GNP are around 20-25% - a quarter of the domestic economy. 72% of all domestic bank lending was property-related. 15% of our tax take was based on residential property related taxes alone.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Youngwisdom

meglome wrote: »

Did they fool the nation previously on a treaty?

Yes, they made us vote a second time, which they will probably do again if we vote no, it insures the people with limited knowledge (those who don't do their own research) change their minds, this fits in well with the over commitment to promote the yes vote.
I was handed a flier promoting the yes vote outside Heuston station the other day, it gave a brief summary of why to vote yes and no reasons to vote no!
:mad:

Again I'll put my fingers in my ears when the government start talking smack!!!

Godge

Youngwisdom wrote: »

Yes, they made us vote a second time, which they will probably do again if we vote no, it insures the people with limited knowledge (those who don't do their own research) change their minds, this fits in well with the over commitment to promote the yes vote.
I was handed a flier promoting the yes vote outside Heuston station the other day, it gave a brief summary of why to vote yes and no reasons to vote no!
:mad:

If the person handing you the leaflet was in an organisation promoting a yes vote, why would the leaflet give any good reason to vote no?

I have seen some of the stuff from the SF/ULA axis of ignorance and their leaflets attempt to promote a no vote by telling a pack of lies.

Youngwisdom

Godge wrote: »

If the person handing you the leaflet was in an organisation promoting a yes vote, why would the leaflet give any good reason to vote no?

I have seen some of the stuff from the SF/ULA axis of ignorance and their leaflets attempt to promote a no vote by telling a pack of lies.

I agree,
Hence the need to get a government which has a common goal (the success of Ireland, Economically, Enviromentally and Socially). The parties only squabble at the expense of the tax payers. Why do people listen to Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, when did they do anything right, Sinn Fein have the right ideas but they only say them to go against everyone else for the sake of it, throw out half them chair fillers and elect a real peoples party.

I voted like most people today to be greeted by an 2 old teachers of mine, why are these people, who are being well payed for crossing names of a list, still coming from the public service? Teachers and the like? Don't forget how inefficiently the public service was paid right up to 2008, literally bleeding us dry. Why can't people on the dole do it, they would make more than they do in the week for the few hours today n at least i would feel sick getting up in the morning to pay tax for nothing. Not being insensitive for the unemployed, i know the majority have no choice. How is a treaty which will automatically produce austerity if the government doesn't meet its optimistic targets help us? Sure we havn't hit any of our targets yet, we certainly will be hit with more austerity measures if this treaty is ratified and the government will have no money left for capital investments, which is the only thing providing the construction industry with its last legs, No investment, no growth, and high taxes then no foreign direct investment or tourism!
Simple economics required!

meglome

Youngwisdom wrote: »

Yes, they made us vote a second time,

Sorry I asked did they fool us on a treaty before and you answered a different question as far as I can tell.

I hate to point out the obvious but no one was forced to vote yes or no, or at all. I seem to recall not voting at all in the first Lisbon vote as I didn't know what I was voting on, and happily voted yes the second time. And not a bit of force involved.

Youngwisdom wrote: »

which they will probably do again if we vote no, it insures the people with limited knowledge (those who don't do their own research) change their minds, this fits in well with the over commitment to promote the yes vote.

Or back it the real world... the government asked people why they voted no and got assurances on those points. Since the reasons were mostly not contained in the treaty it was embarrassing yet easy to sort.

Youngwisdom wrote: »

I was handed a flier promoting the yes vote outside Heuston station the other day, it gave a brief summary of why to vote yes and no reasons to vote no!
:mad:

You think the Yes campaign should convince you to vote no? BTW were you angry about the lying no posters up all over the place?

Youngwisdom wrote: »

Again I'll put my fingers in my ears when the government start talking smack!!!

It's fascinating in this country that we distrust the government so much that we'll accept what even bigger liars have to say.

C14N

Psychedelic wrote: »

I noticed the official website for the upcoming Treaty referendum is www.stabilitytreaty.ie and everything there referring to Stability Treaty, instead of Fiscal Treaty which is what I've heard it being referred to all along until now.

Was this the original name for the Treaty as agreed by the EU member states? Or have the Irish Government re-branded it?

Isn't that totally biased in favour of a Yes vote? In a psychological way I mean. If it was called a Fiscal Treaty or Economic Treaty or <insert EU City> Treaty there's no bias.

Well I thought "Stability Treaty" was just propaganda but now it has been revealed that it was the original name. Is it really so shocking that the people who wrote it up (and want to to be passed) would give it an appealing name that describes what they want it to do?

Psychedelic wrote: »

They wouldn't call it the "Instability Treaty" or the "More Austerity Treaty".

No, because that wouldn't get it through or describe what it's supposed to do. And don't worry, there have been plenty of people making up for them with their "Austerity Treaty" and "Bankers' Treaty" nonsense.

Youngwisdom wrote: »

I voted like most people today to be greeted by an 2 old teachers of mine, why are these people, who are being well payed for crossing names of a list, still coming from the public service? Teachers and the like? Don't forget how inefficiently the public service was paid right up to 2008, literally bleeding us dry. Why can't people on the dole do it, they would make more than they do in the week for the few hours today n at least i would feel sick getting up in the morning to pay tax for nothing.

1) Considering they can't teach (since the school closes for referenda and elections) and will be paid anyway (since teachers are paid salary, not an hourly wage), I can't understand your confusion at getting them to do the job of supervising the place. Paying more people to do the job will just cost more money.

2) Long time teachers are usually trusted members of the community.

3) The effort and cost required to advertise the job, screen applicants, hold interviews to make sure they can be trusted and then officially pay them for ONE DAY of work is so ludicrously not worth it that I'm surprised you would even bring it up.

Also, I notice you said this is the 3rd time Germany is trying to take over Europe. Obviously you are melodramatically exaggerating this situation as Germany taking over Europe and another time is WW2 when Hitler managed to amass quite an empire for himself but when else has Germany tried to take over? AFAIK the German Empire was never very big before Hitler's time (certainly not as big as the likes of the Roman or Ottoman empires) so was it another time during the 20th Century as they recovered from WW2 with half a country?

later12

C14N wrote: »

Well I thought "Stability Treaty" was just propaganda but now it has been revealed that it was the original name. Is it really so shocking that the people who wrote it up (and want to to be passed) would give it an appealing name that describes what they want it to do?

Except it doesn't.

The name of the Treaty is the Treaty on Stability, Co-Ordination and Governance in the EMU.

There are three aspects to the Treaty: Stability, Co-Ordination and Governance.

Stability is one of those words that no reasonable person would be opposed to. Co-ordination and Governance, however, imply some level of exchange of which voters are likely to be less automatically in favour.

Now, the Referendum Commission was of the opinion that the "Stability, Co-ordination and Governance Referendum" would be far too many words for voters to handle.

That's pretty strange to my ears, because it's less words as they used for the "Referendum on inquiries by the Oireachtas" in 2011.