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

Sam Vimes wrote: »

It's not me you're understanding, I copied and pasted that from a website. A bit more info on it here:
http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/glance/democracy/index_en.htm

"The newest of these is the citizens' initiative, whereby one million citizens, from any number of member countries, will be able to ask the Commission to present a proposal in any of the EU's areas of responsibility. The practical details of this initiative will be worked out once the Treaty of Lisbon takes effect."

When you say it's not an initiative, what exactly do you mean by initiative? The citizens of a number of countries can initiate a proposal, so it seems like an initiative to me

"The practical details of this initiative will be worked out once the Treaty of Lisbon takes effect." Sounds pretty ambiguous to me.

But anyway it has no legal power, so if they say it must have at least a thousand signiatures in all 27 states, or a million in just one, or whatever doesn't terribly matter if it only provides a suggestion to the Commission which must be adopted by the Commission, voted on in Parliament and agreed by the Consilium. If it ran contrary to legislation produced by the Commission, it is quite likely to be dismissed out of hand.

RandomName2 wrote: »

"The practical details of this initiative will be worked out once the Treaty of Lisbon takes effect." Sounds pretty ambiguous to me.

But anyway it has no legal power, so if they say it must have at least a thousand signiatures in all 27 states, or a million in just one, or whatever doesn't terribly matter if it only provides a suggestion to the Commission which must be adopted by the Commission, voted on in Parliament and agreed by the Consilium. If it ran contrary to legislation produced by the Commission, it is quite likely to be dismissed out of hand.

I've bolded the important bit in that post. The exact details haven't been worked out because they don't terribly matter. The important parts have been defined.

RandomName2 wrote: »

"The practical details of this initiative will be worked out once the Treaty of Lisbon takes effect." Sounds pretty ambiguous to me.

But anyway it has no legal power, so if they say it must have at least a thousand signiatures in all 27 states, or a million in just one, or whatever doesn't terribly matter if it only provides a suggestion to the Commission which must be adopted by the Commission, voted on in Parliament and agreed by the Consilium. If it ran contrary to legislation produced by the Commission, it is quite likely to be dismissed out of hand.

The idea that the Commission would have to produce legislation on foot of the petition is appalling, though.

A million signatures for Creationism - easy!

cordially,
Scofflaw

celticbest

Vote NO!

We are basically the only country in Europe were the people are given the chance to determine acceptance or rejection of the treaty. All politician's are looking for a Yes vote to ensure that they keep there pockets lined not because it is in the best interests of the people they were voted in to represent.

All Europe has done since the recession has gripped Ireland is give us warnings about our debts and getting them back in line it is up to the people of Ireland to resolve this issue not Europe. If we give more power to Europe were will we stand in the long run.

I am not against Europe per say, I just believe that the people of Ireland should always have as much control of there own affairs as is possible.

Daftendirekt

celticbest wrote: »

Vote NO!

We are basically the only country in Europe were the people are given the chance to determine acceptance or rejection of the treaty. All politician's are looking for a Yes vote to ensure that they keep there pockets lined not because it is in the best interests of the people they were voted in to represent.

I know I shouldn't, but... What the hell.

How will Lisbon help keep the politicians' pockets lined?

And why isn't it in the people's best interest?

celticbest wrote: »

Vote NO!

We are basically the only country in Europe were the people are given the chance to determine acceptance or rejection of the treaty. All politician's are looking for a Yes vote to ensure that they keep there pockets lined not because it is in the best interests of the people they were voted in to represent.

So you think that the politicians want a yes vote to keep their pockets lined. The only way they can line their pockets from a yes vote is if more money is brought into the country, allowing them to stop cutting expenditure. They can hardly justify giving themselves a pay rise while there's no money in the country and everyone else is taking cuts.

So what you're saying is: "Vote no, it'll screw the economy even more and the politicians will be screwed along with the rest of us and not be able to line their pockets".

Sounds reasonable

K-9

RandomName2 wrote: »

"The practical details of this initiative will be worked out once the Treaty of Lisbon takes effect." Sounds pretty ambiguous to me.

But anyway it has no legal power, so if they say it must have at least a thousand signiatures in all 27 states, or a million in just one, or whatever doesn't terribly matter if it only provides a suggestion to the Commission which must be adopted by the Commission, voted on in Parliament and agreed by the Consilium. If it ran contrary to legislation produced by the Commission, it is quite likely to be dismissed out of hand.

Scofflaw wrote: »

The idea that the Commission would have to produce legislation on foot of the petition is appalling, though.

A million signatures for Creationism - easy!

cordially,
Scofflaw

Exactly. I can't really see the problem here. If its a good enough proposal they'll run with it.

Scofflaw wrote: »

The idea that the Commission would have to produce legislation on foot of the petition is appalling, though.

A million signatures for Creationism - easy!

cordially,
Scofflaw

Totally agree - but the CI is a waste of space; hot air; pretty much purposeless. Million signatures, 100 million; doesn't really make much difference. I could nab Charlie McCreavey at Dublin Airport and shove a memorandum on EU-wide asylum reform into his hands - provided he was willing to share its contents with the other Commissioners it would be as useful as waiting for a petition to start.

Dinner

RandomName2 wrote: »

Totally agree - but the CI is a waste of space; hot air; pretty much purposeless. Million signatures, 100 million; doesn't really make much difference. I could nab Charlie McCreavey at Dublin Airport and shove a memorandum on EU-wide asylum reform into his hands - provided he was willing to share its contents with the other Commissioners it would be as useful as waiting for a petition to start.

The huge difference being that if you did that McCreevy could just stuff it in his pocket or throw it in the bin. He doesn't have to read it. But with CI it has to be considered by the commision. If it's a good idea they'll run with it.

RandomName2 wrote: »

Totally agree - but the CI is a waste of space; hot air; pretty much purposeless. Million signatures, 100 million; doesn't really make much difference. I could nab Charlie McCreavey at Dublin Airport and shove a memorandum on EU-wide asylum reform into his hands - provided he was willing to share its contents with the other Commissioners it would be as useful as waiting for a petition to start.

Not really. Consider the publicity involved in getting a million signatures across a few EU countries, and you'll see the difference between the two.

Petitions are a pretty standard feature of other European political systems - we don't use them ourselves, so we're inclined to think of them as the same as the petitions you sign at the top of Grafton Street, which they're not.

cordially,
Scofflaw

celticbest wrote: »

Vote NO!

We are basically the only country in Europe where the people are given the chance to determine ratification or rejection of the treaty. All politicians are looking for a Yes vote to ensure that they keep their pockets lined, not because it is in the best interests of the people they were voted in to represent.

All Europe has done since the recession has gripped Ireland is give us warnings about our debts and getting them back in line. It is up to the people of Ireland to resolve this issue, not Europe. If we give more power to Europe, where will we stand in the long run?

I am not against Europe per say, I just believe that the people of Ireland should always have as much control of there own affairs as is possible.

Noting here about driving the economy into the ground (but we all know that the Lisbon Treaty has nothing to do with the state of the economy anyway).

I think it would be reasonable to identify the post as antipathy with political incumbants (including in Brussels) who have had an active hand in generating a global recession, and yet are guaranteed well paid jobs (at least until the next general election) and can have the audacity to be censorious when it comes to the public vote on Lisbon. Which is a bit cheeky to be honest.

RandomName2 wrote: »

Totally agree - but the CI is a waste of space; hot air; pretty much purposeless. Million signatures, 100 million; doesn't really make much difference. I could nab Charlie McCreavey at Dublin Airport and shove a memorandum on EU-wide asylum reform into his hands - provided he was willing to share its contents with the other Commissioners it would be as useful as waiting for a petition to start.

If you shove a memorandum into his hands there is no guarantee of the bolded part, he can reject it himself without ever showing it to anyone. With a million signatures he's obliged to share it with the commission and if the proposal has any merit it's likely that someone will accept it and argue for it, not to mention the fact that having a million signatures automatically gives it more democratic merit than a proposal from one person and this initiative gives people a motivation to get those signatures

Dinner wrote: »

The huge difference being that if you did that McCreevy could just stuff it in his pocket or throw it in the bin. He doesn't have to read it. But with CI it has to be considered by the commision. If it's a good idea they'll run with it.

Fair enough - but there wont be much hope for ideas which run contrary to legislation previously produced by the Commission

djpbarry

RandomName2 wrote: »

Fair enough - but there wont be much hope for ideas which run contrary to legislation previously produced by the Commission

Regardless of whether or not you think the Citizen's Initiative is a good idea, is that the most ambiguous aspect of the treaty that you could find?

djpbarry wrote: »

Regardless of whether or not you think the Citizen's Initiative is a good idea, is that the most ambiguous aspect of the treaty that you could find?

I forgot that was the original question

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I forgot that was the original question

You asked for an example...

I thought the CI was a nice one because its both new and relatively simple. There's no way I'm going to start getting into counter arguments over the abiguous jurisdiction of the Euopean Minister for Foreign Affairs, or the responsibilities of the Commission President, or to what extent the Parliaments powers are extended.

It would be... longwinded

RandomName2 wrote: »

You asked for an example...

I thought the CI was a nice one because its both new and relatively simple. There's no way I'm going to start getting into counter arguments over the abiguous jurisdiction of the Euopean Minister for Foreign Affairs, or the responsibilities of the Commission President, or to what extent the Parliaments powers are extended.

It would be... longwinded

You gave an example and all of your questions about it were answered with ten seconds of googling and a single sentence. Could it be that these things are defined quite adequately except for the bits that, as you put it, don't terribly matter but that you have not investigated them?

RandomName2 wrote: »

You asked for an example...

I thought the CI was a nice one because its both new and relatively simple. There's no way I'm going to start getting into counter arguments over the abiguous jurisdiction of the Euopean Minister for Foreign Affairs, or the responsibilities of the Commission President, or to what extent the Parliaments powers are extended.

It would be... longwinded

We've got...months!

cordially,
Scofflaw

There's no reason to believe the Commission would listen to a Citizens Petition of 1 million people when they wouldn't heed the democratic-decision of 20 million Europeans to reject the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty provisions. It's just window-dressing to pretend they are addressing the democratic-deficit when in fact they are just centralising more power in Brussels.

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

There's no reason to believe the Commission would listen to a Citizens Petition of 1 million people

Firstly they have to consider it asfaik.

Secondly, I think what your suggesting is that Commission should have to act upon that initiative?

FutureTaoiseach wrote: »

There's no reason to believe the Commission would listen to a Citizens Petition of 1 million people when they wouldn't heed the democratic-decision of 20 million Europeans to reject the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty provisions. It's just window-dressing to pretend they are addressing the democratic-deficit when in fact they are just centralising more power in Brussels.

As turgon says, they have to consider it - that's the point. Second, as has been pointed out elsewhere, why bother with it if it's just a way of poking a million people in the eye?

Getting a million people to sign something takes a lot of publicity - and there won't be just one petition. A million people round Europe will havr to sign up for each petition that lands on the Commission's agenda for consideration, so by the time there's been six or seven petitions, maybe 1% of the population of Europe will have signed petitions, and 5-10% of the population will have heard of them.

If the petition mechanism isn't real, and only intended as democratic window-dressing, then within a year or two it will have backfired spectacularly, and in an entirely foreseeable way.

As to "centralising more power in Brussels" - Brussels does not make decisions, it is a place where the member states jointly make decisions. That isn't centralisation.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote: »

As turgon says, they have to consider it - that's the point. Second, as has been pointed out elsewhere, why bother with it if it's just a way of poking a million people in the eye?

Getting a million people to sign something takes a lot of publicity - and there won't be just one petition. A million people round Europe will havr to sign up for each petition that lands on the Commission's agenda for consideration, so by the time there's been six or seven petitions, maybe 1% of the population of Europe will have signed petitions, and 5-10% of the population will have heard of them.

If the petition mechanism isn't real, and only intended as democratic window-dressing, then within a year or two it will have backfired spectacularly, and in an entirely foreseeable way.

As to "centralising more power in Brussels" - Brussels does not make decisions, it is a place where the member states jointly make decisions. That isn't centralisation.

cordially,
Scofflaw

In my eyes it is centralisation in the hands of the EU institutions, of which the Council of Ministers, European Parliament, ECJ, Commission etc are part. You say that the decisions are made jointly. But it's not on the basis of equality. Were it, population-size would not count for anything in the voting system either in the European Parliament or the Council of Ministers. The fact that member state governments populate the Council of Ministers is neither here nor there. When they are deciding which horse to back on the Council of Ministers, they are doing so as the Council of Ministers or European Council, which are EU institutions. They are deciding on the question of further centralisation of policy in Brussels in terms of whether they support a proposed EU law or not. And given that the Irish govt has only used the veto once in 35 years, that adds to my contention that effectively, laws passed by the Commission, Council of Ministers and EP (where required which isn't always) constitute greater centralisation of power in Brussels.

What's more, if we ever did get a government that wanted a more questioning positition on further European integration insofar as it pertains to the European legidlative-process, the abolition of 34 vetoes under the Lisbon Treaty (and a further 16 if the Government exercises its prerogatives under Paragraph 7(iii) of the 28th amendment to the Constitution Bill to surrender the Protocol on the position of the UK and Ireland with respect to the European Area of Justice and Freedom) will prevent them defending Ireland's interests at the Council of Ministers. Which is another reason to reject the Lisbon Treaty.And as for "having to consider it", that is just not good enough. We would not stand for a situation in this country where the Government only had to "consider" legislation passed by the Oireachtas. But it becomes all the more untenable when it's for an unelected Commission to exercise discretion on whether to accept a petition or not. Rectifying the democratic-deficit at the heart of Europe, which the defenders of these provisions claim is being addressed by mechanisms like this, requires far more constitutional surgery than is being provided for in this Treaty with respect to the Citizens Petition and allowing national-parliaments greater access to information on impending legislative proposals from Brussels. National parliaments and the citizens petition should be given more than the mere power to express their respective opinions.

It seems to me that counting the Council of Ministers simply as an EU institution, and therefore regarding their decisions as part of centralisation, means that you're automatically discounting any input by the member states into the EU. By doing so, you assume what you should be endeavouring to prove.*

amused,
Scofflaw

*I've given up on the phrase "begging the question", but that's what you're doing.

FutureTaoiseach's idea of equality is where any given Maltese citizen has twenty thousand times a greater say than any given German. Hmmm...

turgon wrote: »

FutureTaoiseach's idea of equality is where any given Maltese citizen has twenty thousand times a greater say than any given German. Hmmm...

Sounds unreasonable until you realise that the relevant EU legislation would apply to 27 countries other than where there are derogations. I readily concede that I voted yes in the 3 EU referenda before Lisbon, but by then, the principle of Qualified Majority Voting had long since been embedded in the structures of the EU. As with parties, a vote for a Treaty should not be taken as 100% agreement with its contents. I accept that the law does not recognise such a distinction, but it exists morally.

But how exactly are you defending your assertion that any given Maltese citizen has twenty thousand times a greater say than any given German?

All you've stated there is that EU legislation applies to 27 countries, and that if you vote for something you might not agree 100% with it. Not only am I fully aware of those facts already, but I also fail to see what relevance your saying them actually has to your idea of equality.

turgon wrote: »

But how exactly are you defending your assertion that any given Maltese citizen has twenty thousand times a greater say than any given German?

All you've stated there is that EU legislation applies to 27 countries, and that if you vote for something you might not agree 100% with it. Not only am I fully aware of those facts already, but I also fail to see what relevance your saying them actually has to your idea of equality.

The relevance on the Lisbon issue is that we are effectively being asked if we want to exacerbate the existing inequality in decisionmaking on the Council of Ministers by expanding Qualified Majority Voting to 34-50 (depending on whether the Government uses the prerogative in Paragraph 7(iii) of the 28th amendment to the Constitution Bill 2009) new policy-areas. A remnant of equality is retained prior to Lisbon in respect of the policy-areas where we retain the national-vetoes, because each veto is equal.

All your saying there is that Lisbon removes some of the waht you see as equality in Europe.

What I want to know is why you think that any given Maltese citizen should have twenty thousand times a greater say than any given German.

turgon wrote: »

All your saying there is that Lisbon removes some of the waht you see as equality in Europe.

What I want to know is why you think that any given Maltese citizen should have twenty thousand times a greater say than any given German.

I don't accept the premise of that statement. You are pointing out that equal votes for each member state would over-represent some nations per head of population. Yes it would. But I think the principle of the equality of nations is more important than a headcount. You seem to be following a majoritarian principle that treats the European public as a single people, with the wishes of the majority - at least at the level of representative-govt - prevailing. Of course, you could also say that Ireland was over-represented in the Westminster Parliament, with approximately 20% of the seats. But the Irish people might disagree with you if you suggested that that allowed us to get our way over the British, as the 48 years waiting for Home Rule shows. In a sense, I am treating the 27 separate nations as separate "estates".