Nice Treaty - Yes or No

thegills

I'm not sure if this is the place for this thread, or indeed if anybody will respond but I didn't see any other threads dealing with the Nice Treaty directly. I'm fed up listening to experts on the likes of 'The Last Word' telling us why we should not vote Yes or No - remember these people are probably those who encouraged us to buy eircom shares.

I would consider myself reasonably well versed in a political sense but I still cannot make up my mind. Perhaps Boards members could give me their reasons for voting Yes or No. Both sides are saying that job losses will occur so I think our economy will suffer anyway - 5 years of hand-outs from McCreevy has seen to that. I voted No last time BTW.

I'd like to hear other peoples reasoning.

Paulg

I think its impossible for anyone to predict what a yes or no vote would do for our economy in the short term, but i think that we should vote YES, not for ourselves, but for the countries wanting to join.

In the long term, it can only be good being part of a larger community.

sceptre

Originally posted by thegills
but I didn't see any other threads dealing with the Nice Treaty directly.

Ha! Have a look inPolitics. Too many threads over there if anything:D

Don't just look at page one of threads there - some long ones have just dropped off the front page.

yankinlk

Keep the thread going here. It's a valid question in this thread, and it might be interesting to see the result over here as opposed to politics.

I will be voting yes. Are we into this Europe or not? SHít or get off the pot.

I'm fed up listening to experts on the likes of 'The Last Word' telling us why we should not vote Yes or No - remember these people are probably those who encouraged us to buy eircom shares.

BTW...I listened to the Last Word when it was time to buy, borrowed 20k from the bank (they were giving it away at the time) invested for two weeks, and when THE LAST WORD said sell, I did. Cleared 20 per cent. I feel sorry for those people that DID NOT listen to the Last Word.

Cork

but i think that we should vote YES, not for ourselves, but for the countries wanting to join.

We are inserting a "shambles of a treaty" into our constitution.

NICE IS NOT PRIMARILY ABOUT EU ENLARGEMENT. IT IS ABOUT
CHANGING THE RULES FOR RUNNING THE EU IN FAVOUR OF THE BIG STATES AND TOTHE DISADVANTAGE OF THE SMALL - B E F O R E ANY ENLARGEMENT OCCURS.

FIRSTLY, the two-class two-tier two-speed EU provisions (miscalled "enhanced cooperation") which allow a sub-group group of 8 or more EU Members to use the EU institutions for their own purposes, even though several other Members disagree.This cannot happen now, for everyone has a
veto on such fundamental change. This provision of Nice destroys the EU as a partnership of legal equals.

SECONDLY,the rotating Commission provisions, which means that in an enlarged EU of 27 states,Ireland and other member states will periodically be unrepresented on the Commission, the body that proposes all EU laws, possibly for lengthy periods of time, depending on the decision that is eventually come as to the ultimate size of the Commission.

THIRDLY, the abolition of the national veto in 30 policy areas, including the appointment of national Commissioners - which means that Ireland will no longer have the final say in who our national Commissioner is, for whoever the Irish Taoiseach may wish to nominate must be acceptable to the Big States who will dominate the qualified majority on the EU Council.

FOURTHLY, the militarisation provisions, which put the Rapid Reaction Force directly under the EU, rather than under the Western European Union as heretofore, so turning the EU into a military alliance for offence, not defence. The RRF can undertake miltary operations of an offensive kind outside the EU's borders without the requirement of a UN mandate, and the
Politial and Security Committee set up under Nice will supervise its
operations directly under the EU Council of Ministers.

article6

I agree with Cork's opinion. However, if we look at it from a Business and Economy viewpoint, it can be seen that the YES side's claim that we will lose jobs is scaremongering.

It didn't happen last time did it? And surely, in this bleak global economy, any job losses would be made as quickly as possible.

So a NO vote won't lose us any jobs. A YES vote might, but I doubt it.

Enhanced co-operation is bad news for the overall EU economy. The actions of (for example) France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Spain, Austria, Sweden, and Denmark could seriously affect the interest rate, even for those countries which do not take part in the "Enhanced co-operation".

Also, the loss of a Commissioner and of a national veto would allow a "qualified majority" of 5 (I think, it might be more) out of 15 states (at the moment) to make economic decisions without the consent of the other 10.

I don't like the Treaty in general, but the economic repercussions are the ones which actually scare me.

McGinty

I have just read the Information guide 'Treaty of Nice and Seville Declarations 2002'. From reading it I would agree with a few aspects of the proposed nice treaty, however I have grave concerns, so I have decided to vote No.

I voted no last time due to the severe lack of information as to what the Nice treaty was about, and my motto is If in doubt, don't. So I voted no. I feel we should have received more information the last time. I beg the question why not? I ask why are we being asked a second time?

My concerns are the same as Cork's. Enlargement can go ahead anyway, entry into the EU by the candidate countries can go ahead without Nice. So it is a myth that the EU cannot enlarge if nice doesn't go ahead.

Jobs could be affected if we say yes or if we say no. If we say yes, countries like the US or Asia can set up their companies in countries such as Poland, etc due to cheaper labour costs and so forth in order to tap in the EU market. The same could happen though if we say no. However I am not prepared to take the risk by saying yes, because at the end of the day no one really knows what could happen. However I know and suspect this, by saying yes to nice we are opening ourselves up to a huge loss of power, and possibly treated as a second rate country being told what to do by the other larger nations. Also what if France, Germany and say Italy for example want to push a new proposal through and they bully smaller countries into co-operation. What do we do then? It is possible through Nice this could happen.

When reading the leaflet on the surface, the proposals for Nice sound very idealist and appears to want simplify things, however by reading between the lines it is open to abuse of power.