A point about soverignty and democracy

Xterminator

I ave been thinking about the argument the no side use, claiming Nice will cause a loss of soverignty.

In Ireland we usaually have a coalition government.

This means that all partys do not get exactly what they want.
They agree common ground, and negotiate areas they are not in agreement on, until a compromise that satisfies all sides is reached. Yet the influence of each party is determined by the size of it, (ie the no. of TD's returned). Thus the larger partys weild more influence.
this is the basis on which many countries are run.

Now the voters for X party voted for that partys people and policies.
Yet they might end up getting a different set of peopel and policies than they voted for. Is this an erosion of democracy?
No, it is a natural extension of democracy.

Similarly Ireland will be in coalition with our Europe partners.
We have large areas in common interest, and when areas are reached where we dont agree we will reach a compromise.

If ireland is ever pushed to the pointwhere they are being forced to accept an unacceptable deal, we always retain the right to withdraw from the EU. No-one is comtemplating a Europe where we dont have this right.

I dont see any soverignty being lost here. Rather a voluntary inclusion in a coalition. After all we retain the right to withdraw from the coalition if and when we feel the need to.

X

Cork

It is not as simple as this. Consequnces will be dire with regards foriegn direct investment.

We need to be very careful to what we sign up to, There is nothing in this treaty for Ireland & this treaty is no treaty of Rome for the applicant countries/

Typedef

A one man one vote Europe will imply that Ireland will be the equivalent of the Aran Islands in comparison to Dublin in the governance of the European Union and thus consequently in the governance of Ireland. Ok so the disparity is not quite as striking as that, however a Federal Europe, which is what you seem to be arguing for, will reduce the Dial to the level of at best a County Council and in such a situation Ireland as a nation and Irish voters will have to live with nearly four hundred million other European citizens having the effective reigns of government over Ireland.

That is a fairly logical argument, a Federal Union will mean for a small nation like Ireland a total and absolute loss of self determinate governance for Ireland as the large voting blocks in Europe will call all the shots, due to their large voting sizes and Ireland's small voting size. Thus Ireland would have no substantial say over taxation, foreign policy, security, external treaties and so on in a Federal Europe. That is why I am against a Federal European Union and in favour of Irish soveringty as the primary means of governance of this island.

Myself I believe the best interests of the Irish people are served as Ireland being a nation in a nation of equals in the European Union and that a Federal Europe would amount to an effective dictatorship of the large countries to the small ones in the European Union, whether that effective dictatorship is well meaning or not is irrelevant to the fact that Irish people would no longer hold the reigns of government in Ireland and I don't honestly believe that would be a good thing for Ireland.

Typedef.

Xterminator

Originally posted by Typedef
A one man one vote Europe will imply that Ireland will be the equivalent of the Aran Islands in comparison to Dublin in the governance of the European Union and thus consequently in the governance of Ireland. Ok so the disparity is not quite as striking as that, however a Federal Europe, which is what you seem to be arguing for, will reduce the Dial to the level of at best a County Council and in such a situation Ireland as a nation and Irish voters will have to live with nearly four hundred million other European citizens having the effective reigns of government over Ireland.

Not so. I didnt mention a federal europe. And your exxagerated anology is not accurate, unless that aran islands has veto rights in our national parliment in certain areas, and has the right to withdraw from the republic, if it deems nessacary. Oh they would also requre there own national identity, history,language , and elected leaders etc.
It is just a flawed analogy.

Originally posted by Typedef
That is a fairly logical argument, a Federal Union will mean for a small nation like Ireland a total and absolute loss of self determinate governance for Ireland as the large voting blocks in Europe will call all the shots, due to their large voting sizes and Ireland's small voting size. Thus Ireland would have no substantial say over taxation, foreign policy, security, external treaties and so on in a Federal Europe. [/B]

Absolutly wrong. The Irish government would have to be kept happy that the EU is acting Irelands best interest, and the poeple who elect the government would have to believe this too (or they'll elect an anti EU government with a mandate to remove us from EU)

Originally posted by Typedef
Myself I believe the best interests of the Irish people are served as Ireland being a nation in a nation of equals in the European Union and that a Federal Europe would amount to an effective dictatorship of the large countries to the small ones in the European Union, whether that effective dictatorship is well meaning or not is irrelevant to the fact that Irish people would no longer hold the reigns of government in Ireland and I don't honestly believe that would be a good thing for Ireland.

Typedef. [/B]

To follow your argument, thjen i think we should have a republic of the Northside of Dublin. And within that we should have the republic of Ballymun! and so on etc.

Because the voice of the northsiders is drowned out in the comparatively larger voice of the republic of Ireland we cant allow the Irish to Dictate what we the northsiders should do, after all the sheer numbers of other people living in ireland abrogte any electoral responsibility to the northsiders becasue of the numbers etc..

And Northside is not guarenteed Commsioner, so how can we can trust our governmet to act in the best interest of the Northside when they might actually be from another area in the country!

And we cant let the government decide what rate of tax we should pay on the northside, and we cant let them decide our foregin policy, or matters of internal security. It would not be a good thing for the people of the northside.


And because the vioce of the people of ballymun would be drowned out in the republic of the northside, we cant allow them to Dictate etc etc.

and so on ad nausium
...........................................


You get my drift.
One persons vote is one persons vote. If you live in Ireland where there are about 4 million other voters, your vote means the same as if you lived in the US with 100's of millions of voters.

Its called democracy.
It is not perfect but its the best damn system weve come up with yet!

X

bonkey

Originally posted by Cork
It is not as simple as this. Consequnces will be dire with regards foriegn direct investment.

Cork, you have raised every one of these points before, and upon being challenged have offered nothing more than extensions of the original sweeping statements as "proof".

What dire consequences. Why?

If its not "as simple as this", you'd think that you'd explain why, rather than offering an equally simple retort.

jc

bonkey

Originally posted by Typedef
That is a fairly logical argument, a Federal Union will mean for a small nation like Ireland a total and absolute loss of self determinate governance for Ireland as the large voting blocks in Europe will call all the shots, due to their large voting sizes and Ireland's small voting size. Thus Ireland would have no substantial say over taxation, foreign policy, security, external treaties and so on in a Federal Europe. That is why I am against a Federal European Union and in favour of Irish soveringty as the primary means of governance of this island.

And were this a vote for a Federal Europe, most people would immediately agree with you. Hell, I'd probably agree with you

However, it isnt. It is a vote about taking the already-partially-Federal Europe and proposing to make it slightly-more-Federal-Europe.

If your problem is Federalism, then we're already doomed for being on the road, or Nice doesnt doom us unless you can show what critical point we are passing that makes Nice different.

Irish government is, and will remain the primary form of governance in this country, regardless of whether Nice passes or not. It may lose a degree of its independence, but this is nothing new, and I have yet to hear a single argument explaining why the changes Nice brings about will make it unacceptable that doesnt also imply that the current situation is unacceptable.

You talk about loss of influence in areas where we have already lost influence. So why was it ok to have handed this degree of influence over in the past, but now its a problem? This doesnt make sense. Either our current situation (EU without Nice) is unacceptable, or you are failing to show why Nice will make it unacceptable.

I mean - even all this talk about a Federal Europe. Nice does not bring this about. It moves us towards it, but so did Maastricht. No-one has shown to me why one was ok and the other is not. What point are we passing that causes the problem?

Myself I believe the best interests of the Irish people are served as Ireland being a nation in a nation of equals in the European Union

How many times do I need to point out that this is not just impossible, it is a contradiction.

The European Union coming into being marked (amongst other things)the decision of the member states to move away from a collection of "equal nations".

The EU has been, is, and will remain incompatible with your vision of the people's best interests. It was created specifically to move away from that view (amongst other things, as already mentioned).

I can accept this. You are entitled to your opinion, and it is a perfectly valid one.

What I cannot accept is that this view affects Nice. It doesnt. It effects the EU. We cannot satisfy your view of the EU with the reality of what the EU is.

And yet pre-Nice you werent crying for us to get out. Has Nice been the key to awaken this realisation of your national belief? Will you be calling for Ireland to remove itself from the EU post-Nice-referendum regardless of the outcome?

jc

bonkey

Originally posted by Xterminator
One persons vote is one persons vote. If you live in Ireland where there are about 4 million other voters, your vote means the same as if you lived in the US with 100's of millions of voters.

Yes, but Type's point is that he lives in Ireland, and wishes to continue living in Ireland. He does not want to live "in the EU", which is what he sees as the end-result.

He wants his vote to be one of 4,000,000 (or whatever population Ireland has right now) and not one of 800,000,000 (or whatever the population of the EU members would be post-expansion.)

Its a very valid point, except that Nice does not cause this transition. Its a transition we're partly on the road to already, and Nice brings us another step along the line.

jc

Typedef

Originally posted by Xterminator

You get my drift.
One persons vote is one persons vote. If you live in Ireland where there are about 4 million other voters, your vote means the same as if you lived in the US with 100's of millions of voters.

Its called democracy.
It is not perfect but its the best damn system weve come up with yet!

No I disagree with your definition. I don't think that it is a move towards representative democracy for Ireland to be subsumed into a four hundred million strong European Parliment representing tens of different nations under the banner (Cork and Ballymun have to do it in the Dial), as to my mind the analogy is wholey spurious, when you are dealing with competing national interests, for right or wrong that is the simian way.
Certainly not under the circumstances of a vaunted democracy, where in the context of the European Union the only permissable democratic answer is 'Yes' to further integration, because if you answer 'No' to further integration well then watch out, that means, yes you guessed it, your democratically elected government takes a democratic decision to cast aside the democratic verdict of the people and have itself a 'more palletable' democratic result. Is this democracy? In Ancient Greece maybe.