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The Lisbon Memo / Insider Email: A Campaign Based On Proven Dishonesty

Posted on 14 Aibreán, 2008 by NationalPlatform.Org

THE LEAKED BRITISH E-MAIL ON THE IRISH GOVERNMENT’S REFERENDUM STRATEGY

From last Monday’s IRISH DAILY MAIL

(Front page report on Monday 14 April 2008 + Editorial on page 14)

__________

THE TREATY CON by John Lee and Michael Lea

The Government has hatched an elaborate plan to deceive voters over the forthcoming EU treaty referendum, the Irish Daily Mail can today reveal. A leaked email shows that ministers are planning a deliberate campaign of misinformation to ensure that the Lisbon Treaty vote is passed when it is put to the public as required by the Constitution

Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern has even been personally assured that the European Commission will “tone down or delay” any announcements from Brussels “that might be unhelpful”. Alarmingly, the email says that ministers ruled out an October referendum, which would have been better procedurally, because they feared “unhelpful developments during the French presidency – particularly related to EU defence”.

This suggestion will raise grave fears that the State’s constitutional commitment to military neutrality could be undermined by the treaty – a rehashed version of the failed EU constitution.

The memo was sent to the British government by Elizabeth Green, a senior UK diplomat in Dublin, following a briefing from Dan Mulhall, a top official in the Department of Foreign Affairs. Its aim was to relay to her political masters in London the lengths to which the Government here was going to in its bid to ensure a “Yes” vote in the referendum.

Ireland is the only EU state which is allowing voters a say on the treaty, and European heads of state are terrified that they will reject it. Campaigners have warned that the new treaty could remove Ireland’s powers to decide its own tax rates and social policies.

However, the most controversial aspect is the likelihood that it will be used to advance the concept of a “European army” which would violate the principle of neutrality that has long been a foundation-stone of the State. France is particularly keen to advance the notion of an EU force, which critics fear could be ordered into action over Irish objections by a majority vote of EU heads of state.

Already concerns have been raised that soldiers who are part of the Irish peacekeeping force being sent to Chad could be compromised by French political and military objectives in the area. The leaked email admits that this is one of the issues which needs to be kept from voters, saying that the possibility of the French speaking out on this issue meant that the referendum could not be delayed until the autumn.

It states: “Mulhall said a date in October would have been easier from a procedural point of view. “But the risk of unhelpful developments during the French presidency – particularly related to EU defence – were just too great. (Nicola) Sarkozy was completely unpredictable.”

The Irish official was also worried that the latest World Trade Organisation talks, which have already aroused the fury of farmers, could turn the voters against the new treaty. Farmers and suppliers are planning a one-day shut down this week to protest at the tack being taken by EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson. The email said that Mulhall was concerned about “a WTO deal based on agricultural concessions that could lead the powerful farming association to withdraw its support”.

However, Government ministers appear to be basing their hopes on the fact that the treaty cannot be read or understood by most voters – and that launching a quick referendum would stop them from doing so. “Most people would not have time to study the text and would go with the politicians they trusted,” it said. And it pointed out that the Government plans to keep people from analysing the details, saying the “aim is to focus the campaign on overall benefits of the EU rather than the treaty itself”.

It goes on to explain the details of the Referendum Bill, which it says, was “agreed following lengthy consultation with Government lawyers and with the political parties”. However, it admits that the bill is “largely incomprehensible to the lay reader”.

The memo refers to plans to fool campaingers over the date and states: “Irish have picked 29 May for voting but will delay an announcement to keep the No camp guessing. “The Taoiseach and (Dermot) Ahern saw a slight advantage in keeping the No camp guessing.” It has since been stated that the referendum will be held on June 12 – although it is not clear from the email whether this is the correct date or whether the May 29 option is still being considered as a possibility in order to destabilise the “No”campaign.

The email adds that the EC was doing its best to keep any bad news from the Irish voters and that Mr Mulhall had maintained that other partners – including the commission – were playing a helpful low-profile role.

It added that during a trip to Dublin, Vice-President Margot Wallstrom “had told Dermot Ahern that the commission was willing to tone down or delay messages that might be unhelpful:.

The leaked message also points out that most Irish media have been supine on the issue, saying “Mulhall remarked that the media had been relatively quiet on the ratification process so far. We would need to remain in close touch, given the media crossover”

A Government spokesman refused to comment on the leaked email last night- merely saying: “The date is as set by the Taoiseach, there is no change in that.”

__________

Editorial Comment (page 14)

LISBON CAMPAIGN IS ANOTHER BITTER BETRAYAL

Whether the Lisbon Treaty is accepted by the Irish public or not, one thing is clear – the Government campaign in its favour is already one of the most deeply dishonest in Irish history.

The revelation that the Government has conspired with foreign politicians to deceive its own electorate speaks of profound betrayal. For months, ministers have been calling for a fair campaign based on the facts of the treaty itself. Now we know that all the while the very same ministers have been collluding in a campaign of deliberate misinformation.

That the Irish people should be the victims of a dishonest alliance between their own government and outside powers is something many will find very hard to forgive quickly.

As for the Lisbon Treaty itself, voters will now find it very difficult to trust a single word the Govenrment says in its defence. At each stage, the aim has not been to inform the electorate but to deceive it. Instead of scheduling polling day for October,which would allow the country to come to grips with the treaty’s byzantine complexity, the Government has specifically chosen a date to capitalise on the artificial uncertainty this premature vote creates. Even the precise timing has been cynically manipulated to catch the other side off-guard.

This is not just poor form; it is a thoroughly undemocratic way to conduct what is supposed to be a free and fair vote. These low tricks are not just a case of using dark arts for narrow tactical advantage, they are deliberate lies about crucial matters of the Irish national interest.

One reason there is so much understable uncertainty in the electorate over the Lisbon Treaty is that it might mean we lose control over our military commitments and that our low corporate tax rate might be abolished by Brussels.

Now we know that on both counts the Government’s conspiracy has specifically sought to conceal the truth. We are voting earlier than would ordinarily be expected so that voters will not have a chance to see new defence developments in the EU that officials expect from the French EU presidency later this year.

Opinion divides on the merits and demerits of Irish neutrality, but that question should be decided by Irish voters, not slipped through on false premises. Today’s revelations also prove that neither our Government nor the French Government can be trusted when they say that well-known plans to introduce tax harmonisation have been sidelined.

This all amounts to a shocking culture of lying in the highest echelons of Irish politics. Deliberate lying about vital matters of Irish national interest should be unreservedly condemned by those in favour of Lisbon as much as by those against. The political culture in which this is possible is the proof, also, of just how corrosive the departing Taoiseach’s lying has been for public life.

Many people have not yet reached an opinion about the Lisbon Treaty. That decision must be taken on the full facts and not on a shimmering mirage of dishonesty. Nor should we be afraid to consider our relationship with the EU anew. We have been well served by EU membership in the past. We are under no obligation, though, to vote blindly for whatever is put before us simply for that reason.

If there is a case for the Lisbon Treaty on the merits of the actual document, the Government should make it – and should be able to make it easily and persuasively. That they have not will lead many to wonder why a campaign based on proven dishonesty should be given the benefit of the doubt when such crucial issues are at stake.

Filed under: EU & Democracy, EU Corruption, Lisbon Treaty | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

*Myths about the Lisbon Treaty

Posted on 12 Aibreán, 2008 by NationalPlatform.Org 
Myth 1. LISBON WILL MAKE THE EU MORE EFFICIENT:

If you get rid of democracy and the need to consult with people, you can certainly get more laws passed.  But will they be good laws?
Is that more efficient government?  When it comes to law-making it is quality that counts, not quantity. Hitler could issue new laws
ever five minutes, but were they good laws?

The advent of 12 new Member States has not made the negotiation of new EU laws more difficult since they joined the EU.  On the
contrary, a study by the Science-Politique University in Paris calculated that new rules have been adopted a quarter times more
quickly since the enlargement from 15 to 27 Member States in 2004 as compared with the two years before enlargement. The study also showed
that the 15 older Member States block proposed EU laws twice as often as the newcomers.  Professor Helen Wallace of the London School
of Economics has found that the EU institutions are working as well as they ever did despite the enlargement of the EU from 15 to 27
members. She found that "the evidence of practice since May 2004 suggests that the EU's institutional processes and practice have stood up rather robustly to the impact of enlargement." The Nice Treaty voting arrangements thus seem to  be working well.

Myth 2. LISBON ENABLES THE EU TO DEAL WITH CLIMATE CHANGE:
Lisbon would commit the EU to “promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems and in particular combating climate change”(Art. 191.1 TFEU). This is laudable, but its significance has been “spun” out of all proportion. Note that the action is “at international level”. It does not give the EU new powers internally. Any internal actions on environmental problems would have to be reconciled with the EU’s rules on distorting competition, safeguarding the internal market and sustaining the energy market. Combatting climate change can carry heavy costs. EU targets for carbon dioxide reduction in Ireland announced earlier this year would cost Ireland ¤1000 million a year if implemented, which would average some ¤500 per household. In fact the EU’s carbon reduction targets would impose a heavier relative burden on Ireland than on any other EU country. Also note the absurdity that the new Treaty reference is to combatting climate-change, without qualification. It is not just “man-made” climate change. So the EU is going to take on things affecting climate-change which are not of human origin, like sunspot cycle as well!Myth 3: LISBON MAKES THE EU MORE DEMOCRATIC:
Lisbon provides that if one-third of National Parliaments object to the Commission’s proposal for an EU law, the Commission must reconsider it, but not necessarily abandon it (Protocol on the Application of the Principles of Subsidiarity and Proportionality, Art.7.2). It might review the draft law, or if it considered the objection was not justified, it might ignore it. This right to complain, for that is what it is, is not an increase in the powers of National Parliaments, as it has been widely misrepresented as being, but is symbolic rather of their loss of real power. To say that it is an increase in the power of National Parliaments to “control”, or even to affect, EU legislation is a blatant lie. Lisbon takes away major law-making powers from National Parliaments. It would give power to the EU to legislate in relation to some 32 new policy areas, thereby removing these areas from decision by National Parliaments. It also gives the EU the power to decide many other matters.

Lisbon would increase the power of the European Parliament by giving it many new areas of new EU law which it could propose amendments to, but that does not compensate National Parliaments and the citizens who elect National Parliaments, for their loss of power to decide. The new EU laws would still be PROPOSED exclusively by the non-elected Commission and would then be MADE primarily by the Council of Ministers, mainly on the basis of population-based voting. The EU Parliament can only amend these EU laws if the Commission and Council agree. Ireland would have 12 members out of 750 in the European Parliament under Lisbon,a reductuon from the current 13. When we had 100 out of 600 MPs in the 19th century UK Parliament, the Irish people were not that happy with the laws that were passed there. Yet Westminster was a real Parliament which decided all UK laws. The Irish representatives could propose laws in it, as they cannot do in the European Parliament.

If someone says that it is the National Government which really decides what laws are passed in the Dail or Parliament, because the majority of TDs or MPs belong to the Government party, and the EU Commission is acting like a national government in proposing EU laws, the obvious reply is that National Governments are elected by National Parliaments, who in turn are elected by the national citizens. But the EU “Government”, the Commission, is not elected. It is appointed by the Commission President and the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents on the basis of qualified majority voting.

Filed under: EU & Democracy, EU & Environment, EU Enlargement & Integration, EU Foreign Policy | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

[09/05/2006] Open Letter to TDs/Senators re tomorrow’s “Europe Day” Dail debate: What they may not know about the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950

Posted on 9 Bealtaine, 2006 by NationalPlatform.Org
The open letter below has been sent today to all TDs and Senators to inform them of facts they may not know about the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, which is being commemorated iin “Europe Day” today and in the all-day debate they will be holding in the Dail tomorrow.
________________
The National Platform
EU RESEARCH AND INFORMATION CENTRE
For a Europe of independent democratic co-operating nation states
24 Crawford Avenue
Dublin 9
Tel.: (01) 8305792
Tuesday 9 May 2006
Dear Deputy/Senator,
As an addendum to the e-mail I sent you yesterday about the EU Commission Office in Dublin encouraging local broadcasters to break the law, may I send you for your information below the full text of the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, which the Commission and the European Movement desire you to celebrate today and in the special Oireachtas debate tomorrow.
May I draw to your attention the phrases in the Declaration which state that it is “a first step in the federation of Europe”, and that “this proposal will lead to the realization of the first concrete foundation of a European federation”. These political objectives are usually omitted when the Declaration is referred to, and most people do not even know of their existence.
A federation is of course a State and yet for decades now the champions of EC/EU integration have been swearing blind that they have no knowledge of any such plans. This is the lie they have been telling the peoples of the different European countries as the EEC/EC/EU has steadily acquired ever more features of a supranational Federation: flag, anthem, Parliament, Supreme Court, currency, laws, battle groups, code of fundamental rights and now – they hope – its own Constitution and real citizenship and citizens’ obligations. That would leave the power to levy taxes as the only major power of government still remaining at national level. And the Eurocrats clearly aspire to obtain this in time.
The Irish people do not want to become citizens of the federal Europe which the Commission and its ideological hangers-on in the European Movement have been seeking to construct for decades now, while pretending that they are really only concerned with jobs and economic growth. Do YOU want to become a citizen of such a Federation? Is that what the men and women of 1916 had in mind, whom you were purporting to honour just a few short weeks ago?
Already the EU is the source of two-thirds of our laws here in Ireland. Under the proposed EU Constitution that proportion would increase. The power of the EU Commission would increase correspondingly, for it has the monopoly of proposing all laws in the EU. No wonder the Commission has the gall to lash out millions of our money on “Europe Day” gimmicks, on special supplements in our newspapers, and on political advertising in the print and broadcast media – all with the aim of persuading us that we should give it more power.
The proposed EU Constitution, if it were to be ratified, would legally abolish the present European Union and Community and would establish in their place a new Union that would be founded like any State upon its own Consitution. In other words, it would endow this new EIU with the constitutional form of a supranational State, which we would all be made real citizens of, and not just nominal or honorary EU “citizens” as at present. We would then owe this new European Union our prime obedience and allegiance, for it would be, and its Constitution would be, superior to our own State and Constitution, and the Irish Constitution would have to be amended by referendum to recognise that supremacy.
Do you, as an Irish legislator, and an Irish citizen, want to be a citizen of a federal EU State; for one can only be a citizen of a State?
Was this what De Valera founded Fianna Fail for? Or Griffith, Collins and Cosgrave when they laid the foundations of Fine Gael? Or Connolly, who founded the Labour Party, and who gave his life along with Pearse and the others to establish a State in which the Irish people would exercise their right to “the ownership of Ireland and the unfettered control of Irish destinies”? Is having two-thirds of our laws made in Brussels, in making which the Irish people have minimal input, exercising the unfettered control of Irish destinies?
So read Schuman’s Declaration of 9 May 1950 and know what you are really celebrating on “Europe Day”!
Yours faithfully
Anthony Coughlan
Secretary
PS. Did you see Commission President Manuel Barroso writing in today’s Irish Times “Europe Day” supplement on “the need to respect the views of the people of France and the Netherlands”, who voted against the EU Constitution last year, while simultaneously he and his fellow Eurocrats are urging as many EU Member States as possible to continue ratifying the “Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe” – which is the very opposite of respecting the views of the French and Dutch? This epitomises the consummate arrogance and profoundly elitist and anti-democratic mindset of these people. It is the reason why ordinary citizens are turning against them in every EU country, and will continue to do so.
____________________
Full text of the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 (emphasis added below)
This is the full text of the proposal, which was presented by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and which led to the creation of what is now the European Union:-
World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it.
The contribution which an organized and living Europe can bring to civilization is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. In taking upon herself for more than 20 years the role of champion of a united Europe, France has always had as her essential aim the service of peace. A united Europe was not achieved and we had war.
Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. Any action taken must in the first place concern these two countries. With this aim in view, the French Government proposes that action be taken immediately on one limited but decisive point.
It proposes that Franco-German production of coal and steel as a whole be placed under a common High Authority, within the framework of an organization open to the participation of the other countries of Europe. The pooling of coal and steel production should immediately provide for the setting up of common foundations for economic development AS A FIRST STEP IN THE FEDERATION OF EUROPE, and will change the destinies of those regions which have long been devoted to the manufacture of munitions of war, of which they have been the most constant victims.
The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible. The setting up of this powerful productive unit, open to all countries willing to take part and bound ultimately to provide all the member countries with the basic elements of industrial production on the same terms, will lay a true foundation for their economic unification. This production will be offered to the world as a whole without distinction or exception, with the aim of contributing to raising living standards and to promoting peaceful achievements.
In this way, there will be realized simply and speedily that fusion of interest which is indispensable to the establishment of a common economic system; it may be the leaven from which may grow a wider and deeper community between countries long opposed to one another by sanguinary divisions.
By pooling basic production and by instituting a new High Authority, whose decisions will bind France, Germany and other member countries, THIS PROPOSAL WILL LEAD TO THE REALIZATION OF THE FIRST CONCRETE FOUNDATION OF A EUROPEAN FEDERATION INDISPENSABLE TO THE PRESERVATION OF PEACE.
To promote the realization of the objectives defined, the French Government is ready to open negotiations on the following bases.
The task with which this common High Authority will be charged will be that of securing in the shortest possible time the modernization of production and the improvement of its quality; the supply of coal and steel on identical terms to the French and German markets, as well as to the markets of other member countries; the development in common of exports to other countries; the equalization and improvement of the living conditions of workers in these industries.
To achieve these objectives, starting from the very different conditions in which the production of member countries is at present situated, it is proposed that certain transitional measures should be instituted, such as the application of a production and investment plan, the establishment of compensating machinery for equating prices, and the creation of a restructuring fund to facilitate the rationalization of production. The movement of coal and steel between member countries will immediately be freed from all customs duty, and will not be affected by differential transport rates. Conditions will gradually be created which will spontaneously provide for the more rational distribution of production at the highest level of productivity.
In contrast to international cartels, which tend to impose restrictive practices on distribution and the exploitation of national markets, and to maintain high profits, the organization will ensure the fusion of markets and the expansion of production.
The essential principles and undertakings defined above will be the subject of a treaty signed between the States and submitted for the ratification of their parliaments. The negotiations required to settle details of applications will be undertaken with the help of an arbitrator appointed by common agreement. He will be entrusted with the task of seeing that the agreements reached conform with the principles laid down, and, in the event of a deadlock, he will decide what solution is to be adopted.
The common High Authority entrusted with the management of the scheme will be composed of independent persons appointed by the governments, giving equal representation. A chairman will be chosen by common agreement between the governments. The Authority’s decisions will be enforceable in France, Germany and other member countries. Appropriate measures will be provided for means of appeal against the decisions of the Authority.
A representative of the United Nations will be accredited to the Authority, and will be instructed to make a public report to the United Nations twice yearly, giving an account of the working of the new organization, particularly as concerns the safeguarding of its objectives.
The institution of the High Authority will in no way prejudge the methods of ownership of enterprises. In the exercise of its functions, the common High Authority will take into account the powers conferred upon the International Ruhr Authority and the obligations of all kinds imposed upon Germany, so long as these remain in force.

Filed under: EU & Democracy, EU Superstate | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

[04/05/2006] EU Commission Office in Dublin induces Irish broadcasters to act illegally

Posted on 4 Bealtaine, 2006 by NationalPlatform.Org
Huge sums of EU political advertising to influence Irish voters in next EU Treaty referendum


The EU Commission Representation in Ireland has induced Newstalk 106 and local community radio stations across the country to act illegally during March and April by carrying daily political advertisements aimed at influencing voting behaviour and party attitudes in the upcoming referendum on the proposed EU Constitution, or an alternative Treaty based upon it, within the next year or so.
It is illegal for Irish broadcasters “to accept any advertisement directed towards any religious or political end” under the provisions of the Radio and Television Act 1988, s.10(3),which governs local broadcasters, and the Broadcasting Authority Act 1960, s.20(4), which governs RTE.*
The advertisements. which were paid for by the Commission Representation in Molesworth Street, Dublin, are one-sided propagandist statements of positive-sounding facts about the EU that are capable of influencing people’s attitudes and votes in a future referendum on the EU Constitution or other Treaty aimed at increasing the powers of the EU and its institutions, among them the Commission itself.
The advertisements are ostensibly aimed at telling people of the existence of a “Europe Direct” information centre, which people are urged to contact if they require further information on the EU or wish to obtain a speaker on it. Each reference to “Europe Direct” is preceded by a potent and one-sided propagandist statement about the merits and benefits of the EU, which is certainly capable of influencing attitudes and votes, and the views of political parties and the party allegiances of citizens, under the guise of providing objective information from and about this information service. On any fair and objective assessment this March-April advertising is directed towards a political end and is therefore illegal in Ireland.
Here are examples from the series of 10 or so different advertisements:
“Do you know that since 1973 Ireland has received over 5.5 billion euros from the European Community? To find out more about the EU, contact Europe Direct…” (phone number follows) (Mon.10 April, Newstalk 106, 7.15 a.m., During the Eamon Dunphy Breakfast Show)
“Do you know that as a citizen of the EU you are guaranteed the right to buy goods in any of the EU Member States? What’s more, the introduction of the euro enables you to compare prices and get the best value for your money in the EU. To find out more, contact Europe Direct etc.” (Tues. 11 April, 8.30 a.m. and Wed.12 April, 8.15, Newstalk 106)

“Do you know that the EU has an expert panel of speakers available to speak on EU policies and development? To hear a speaker, contact Europe Direct etc.” (Sat. 8 April, South-East Radio, lunchtime)

“Do you know that telephone calls cost less because of the EU?” (Sun. 9 April, Newstalk 106)

“Do you know that there is EU legislation to ensure the food you eat is safe?” (Tuesday 18 April, Newstalk 106)

“Do you know that the EU is the largest contributor of development aid to poorer countries?” ( Newstalk 106, Mon. 20 March)

Irish EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy stated at the launch of this advertising campaign in February: “Following rejection of the Nice Treaty in 2001, Ireland knows only too well the importance of communicating Europe. After the French and Dutch rejections of the Constitution, all of Europe knows it now. This campaign wll not only inform people of the different information sources available but will also show the benefits of EU membership, and provide very practical advice on how to avail of European laws to protect their rights.”

This political advertising campaign is the first time that the EU Commission, through the office of its Dublin Representation, has financed anything of this kind in this country. It is possible that the Commission and its Secretary-General in Brussels are unaware that its Irish Representation is encouraging Irish broadcasters to act illegally.
On the other hand, if the Commission Representation in Ireland, or its superiors in Brussels, can get away with these political advertisements on the pretext that they are only providing “information” and stating objective facts, the citizens of Ireland may as well throw their hats at any attempt to protect their democracy from external, politically motivated manipulation from now on. They will be exposed to having their political attitudes to the EU and its affairs moulded by a self-interested Brussels Commission with effectively limitless amounts of money at its disposal to influence the voting intentions of Irish citizens in future EU-related referendums here, thereby increasing the Commission’s own powers.
The background to the emergence of the EU Commission as a major political advertiser in Ireland, and as a direct player on the local political scene is this:
The EU Commission has been allocated some 200 million euros to spend in the current period to encourage “reflection” on the situation regarding the proposed EU Constitution that was rejected by French and Dutch voters a year ago. The ratification process of The Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe**, to give it its proper title, has now been resumed, as if the French and Dutch referendums had never happened. Belgium decided to ratify the EU Constitution in March. Finland is expected to do so by parliamentary vote next month, before it takes over the six-month EU Presidency in July. The remaining parliamentary ratifications will then follow, with possibly an Irish referendum at their end, so that by this time next year all EU States will have ratified the EU Constitution with the exception of France, the Netherlands, Britain and possibly Poland. Germany will then be in charge of the EU and a new French President will be in office, and steps will be taken to finesse the French and Dutch Nos and put maximum pressure on the countries still to hold referendums.
This is the real reason for this EU-funded political advertising campaign that has commenced in Ireland at this time. The Commission’s 200 million euro “information” budget is being targeted mainly at the countries where referendums on the EU Constitution are necessary, with a view to influencing eventual voting behaviour there. While pleading that it is providing “impartial information” through its betwork of some 300 Europe Direct Centres across the EU, the Commission is in fact producing potent propaganda – all as part of the real-politik of reviving the EU Constitution.
If an Irish political party such as Fianna Fail or Fine Gael sought to advertise the existence of a party information line or speaker-service on Irish radio, or to used advertisements to tell people that they had done such-and-such when they were last in Government, broadcasters would immediately refuse such advertisements as illegal. The EU Commission, a much more powerful body than any Irish political party, must not be allowed to use its virtually limitless funds to subvert our democracy in this way.
Unsurprisingly, the advertisements for “Europe Direct” do not draw public attention to less palatable facts about the EU: For example that only one-third or so of our laws now originate with the Oireachtas, the rest coming from Brussels Š Or that Spanish and other EU fishermen have the same legal entitlement to exploit Irish fishing waters as Irish fishermen do Š Or that the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy raises food prices for families and discriminates against Third World agriculturalists Š Or that it costs Irish taxpayers so many millions to adapt the country’s bridges and roads to accommodate the 50-ton lorries permitted by EU law.
Patricia McKenna, former Green Party MEP, is making representations to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland and to the RTE Authority, asking them to take steps to ensure that Irish broadcasters cease breaking the law in this matter, as they have been doing, perhaps unwittingly, by carrying these EU-funded political advertisements during March and April. She is also making representations to the Secretary-General of the EU Commission in Brussels to take steps to prevent the officials of the Commission’s Representation in Ireland from abusing their responsibilities by encouraging Irish broadcasters to act illegally and misusing EU funds for purposes that are illegal under Irish and possibly EU law.
Patricia McKenna comments: “If the EU Commission is allowed to get away with this type of political advertising at taxpayers’ expenses, including Irish taxpayers, it will undermine the entire thrust of the Supreme Court’s 1995 McKenna judgement which was supposed to protect people from having their money used to persuade them to vote in a particular way.” In 1998 Patricia McKenna made representations to the EU Commission in Brussels which led to its telling its officials in the Commission Representation in Dublin to desist from disseminating one-sided pamphlets geared at influencing Irish citizens to vote Yes in the Amsterdam Treaty referendum as being in contravention of both Irish and European law.
Ms McKenna can be contacted for further information if need be, at (01) 8300818 or 087-2427049
We appeal to all Irish democrats, whatever their vews on the EU, all fair-minded citizens and all responsible media bodies, to raise their voices on this matter.
If you should hear any of these broadcasts on your local community radio station, please phone the station to tell those in charge there that they are acting illegally by broadcasting it, and then inform the local police that the sttaion in question is breaking the law.
(Signed)

Anthony Coughlan,
Secretary (01-8305792 /6081898)


* A discussion of the case-law on this topic up to 2003 may be found in Marie McGonagle, Media Law, Round Hall Press, 2003. There have been some further relevant cases since the latest edition of this book.

** The Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe would repeal all the existing EC/EU treaties and establish what would be legally quite a new EU, based like any State upon its own Constitution. It would give the EU the constitutional form of a supranational State for the first time and would make us all real citizens of that, owing it our obedience and allegiance, rather than be notional or honorary EU “citizens” as at present. It would give the EU a political President, a Foreign Minister and diplomatic corps and would increase the EU’s policy-making powers in nearly 100 new areas.

Filed under: EU & Democracy, EU Corruption, Referendum | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

[10/04/2006] 1916 & the EU: A question to ponder on the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising

Posted on 10 Aibreán, 2006 by NationalPlatform.Org 
A QUESTION TO PONDER ON THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1916 RISING

"We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland
and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and
indefeasible"

-  1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic

QUESTION:  Is the right of the Irish people "to the ownership of Ireland
and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies", proclaimed in 1916,
compatible with having two-thirds of the laws we must obey enacted by the
EU in Brussels, in making which the Irish people have a very minor say?

The German Federal Ministry for Justice has stated in answer to a
parliamentary written question that between 1998 and 2004, 23,167 legal
acts were adopted in Germany, of which 18,917, or 80%, were of EU
origin(See the German and English texts of this question and answer below).
Presumably Ireland, being a unitary rather than a Federal State like
Germany, would have a higher proportion of domestic national laws enacted
centrally; so it seems plausible to assume that the EU makes two-thirds or
so of our laws rather than the 80% in Germany. The Taoiseach or Minister
for Foreign Affairs might usefully be urged to give the public the exact
figure for the Irish State, as the German Government has done.

Having to obey laws made mostly by others means being ruled by others. It
is the opposite of a country being independent, sovereign and democratic.
What role do the Irish State and Irish people have in making EU laws?  We
have one member out of 25 on the EU Commission, the body of nominated,
non-elected officials which has the legal monopoly of proposing all EU
laws. That is 4% influence.  We also have one Minister out of 25 on the EU
Council of Minsters, which makes EU laws on the basis of the Commission's
proposals. That is again 4% influence there. In practice most EU laws are
adopted nowadays by qualified majority vote on the Council of Ministers,
where Ireland has 7 votes out of 345, that is 2% of a say, and in which it
may be outvoted on most matters.

The European Parliament may propose amendments to draft laws of the EU
Council of Ministers, but it cannot have these amendments adopted without
the agreement of the Council and Commission, and it cannot itself initiate
any EU law. The Irish State has 13 members out of 732 in the European
Parliament, that is 2% of a say, and the North has 3 MEPs.

Yet when the whole of Ireland  was part of the United Kingdom between 1800
and 1921,it had 100 MPs out of 600 in the British Parliament, of which some
70 were Nationalists. That gave Nationalist Ireland 12% of a say at
Westminster; yet the Irish  people were unhappy with majority rule from
London then and aspired to a Parliament of their own in an independent
Irish Republic.

As for "the right of the Irish people to the ownership of Ireland", how can
Irish politicians pretend to exercise that right when under EU law it is
illegal for an Irish Government to adopt any measure that would prevent the
450 million citizens of the other EU States from having the same rights of
ownership and establishment in this country as Irish citizens, in relation
to land-buying, fisheries, residence, employment or the conduct of any
economic activity?

In addition to being subject to laws made overwhelmingly by non-Irish
people in Brussels, the Irish Government is regularly fined for breaking EU
laws by the EU Court of Justice - something no sovereign State anywhere in
the world is subject to. How is that compatible with "the unfettered
control of Irish destinies"?

As well, EU membership means that Member States lose their right to sign
trade treaties with other States, as this is done by the Brussels
Commission acting for the EU as a whole. It means that the Member States
are legally obliged to work towards a common foreign and security policy
and common rules in crime and justice matters. Last September a judgement
of the EU Court of Justice laid down that the EU can adopt supranational
criminal sanctions such as fines, imprisonment or confiscation of assets
for breaches of EU law by means of majority vote. This means that Ireland
and its citizens may be subjected in future to such criminal sanctions even
if they had voted against them, and for matters they do not necessarily
regard as crimes.

Before Ireland joined the EEC in 1973, Article 15 of the Irish Constitution
stated that "the sole and exclusive power of making laws for the State is
hereby vested in the Oireachtas: no other legislative authority has power
to make laws for the State." The Irish State was constitutionally sovereign
then in a way that it clearly is no longer.

As a member of the Eurozone Dublin has no control of either the rate of
interest or its currency exchange rate, which are classical economic tools
of all independent governments that seek to advance their people's welfare.
As regards interest rates and the exchange rate we have to abide by
policies decided by the EU Central Bank in Frankfort,Germany, whose
priority necessarily must be the economic needs of the more populous EU
countries.

All this is clearly incompatible with "the right of the people of Ireland
to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish
destinies", proclaimed in the Declaration of the Republic in Easter 1916.
Yet the Taoiseach and leaders of Fianna Fail who have put us under European
Union rule and who desire to give the EU more power still by ratifying the
proposed EU Constitution, proclaim themselves to belong to "The Republican
Party".

On Easter Sunday next they will perpetrate the hypocrisy of professing to
honour the men and women of 1916 against the background of these facts
which make a mockery of their professions. And they will be supported in
that by the leaders of the other major Dail Parties, who glory in their
servitude to EU rule and who equally support the discredited EU
Constitution that was rejected by the peoples of France and the Netherlands
in their referendums last summer.

_______
GERMAN VERSION OF QUESTION RE RATIO OF EU LAWS TO NATIONAL LAWS
_______

Abgeordneter: Johannes Singhammer (CDU/CSU)

Wie viele Rechtsvorschriften mit Wirkung für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland
wurden in den Jahren 1998 bis 2004 auf der europäischen Ebene und auf der
nationalen Ebene neu beschlossen?

Antwort des Parlamentarischen Staatssekretärs Alfred Hartenbach
Vom 29. April 2005

In den Jahren 1998 bis 2004 wurden insgesamt 18,167 EU-Verordnungen und 750
EU-Richtlinen (einschließlich Änderungsverordnungen bza.-richtlinien)
erlassen.

Im selben Zeitraum wurden auf Bundesebene insgesamt 1195 Gesetze (davon 889
im BGB1.Teil I und 306 im BGB1. Teil II) sowie 3055 Rechtsverordnungen
(einschließlich Änderungsgesetzen bzw.-verordnungen) verkündet.

________

ENGLISH SUMMARY OF QUESTION AND ANSWER
_______

To ask the Minister what proportion of the legal acts passed in Germany
between 1 May 1998 and 1 May 2004 had their origin in European Union
regulations or directives and how many were were solely national in origin.

On 29 April 2005, the German Federal Justice Ministry replied that between
1998 and 2004, 23,167 legal acts were adopted in Germany, of which 18,917,
or 80%, were of EU origin.

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[10/04/2006] EU bribes journalists?

Posted on 10 Aibreán, 2006 by NationalPlatform.Org 
EU FUNDING JOURNALISTS TO COVER EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

By Dan Bilefsky,  International Herald Tribune

Wednesday 5 April 2006

BRUSSELS:  The European Parliament is subsidizing journalists to cover its
parliamentary sessions in Strasbourg, a move that legislators say aims to
ensure that the EU's only democratically elected body is not ignored.

As part of a program dating to the 1980s, journalists from across the EU
member states are receiving travel and entertainment subsidies from the
Parliament to help defray the cost of covering the legislature when it
shuttles once a month to Strasbourg, in Eastern France, from Brussels,
journalists and legislators say.

The program is being criticized by some members of Parliament who have
themselves recently come under pressure to give up generous perks.

The funding for journalists can include payment of a first-class round-trip
train ticket or an economy-class plane ticket to Strasbourg from any of the
25 EU countries and a daily stipend of E100 to cover hotel, food and
entertainment over two days.

About 60 journalists from across the bloc are invited to Strasbourg each
month under the program, which is administered by parliamentary offices in
EU member states. Media organs that have benefited from the subsidies in
the past include RTBF of Belgium, RTE of Ireland, ERT of Greece and ORF of
Austria, among dozens of others, EU sources said.

Attempts to contact these organizations for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful.

The Parliament also provides television journalists with unlimited use of
free state-of-the-art television studios, free sound and camera equipment,
and free two-person camera crews that can be borrowed for the day.

"The parliamentary sessions are stultifyingly dull, so the Parliament does
whatever it can to make it easier for us to work here, including paying for
our journeys and providing plush facilities," said a broadcaster who has
benefited from the program and who requested anonymity. "I would never get
my Parliament reports on the air if the Parliament wasn't paying for it."

Hans Peter Martin, an independent member of Parliament from Austria and a
former journalist for the German magazine Der Spiegel, said the
Parliament's funding of journalists showed that representatives of EU
institutions had not understood the principles of free press and democracy.
Martin, who has been campaigning to rein in parliamentary perks, came to
prominence in 2004 for surreptitiously filming fellow Parliament members
leaving Brussels and Strasbourg after signing in for daily stipends.

"The funding of journalists creates the impression that the Parliament is
paying for propaganda, and by doing so it harms the ideals of the EU more
than any positive headlines they might get out of it," he said. He added
that journalists could not hold the Parliament accountable if they
themselves were benefiting from its funds.

Although it is generally viewed as unethical for journalists to accept
funding from institutions they cover, analysts said that in countries that
rely on public broadcasters, the notion of using available public money to
fund journalists may be viewed as acceptable.

Jaime Duch, spokesman for the Parliament, said the funding was intended to
encourage EU journalists who would not otherwise cover the Parliament to
make the monthly pilgrimage to Strasbourg. He said the Parliament under no
circumstances interfered with what was reported. "If we didn't help them,
they wouldn't come because they have other priorities," Duch said. "And if
we stopped the funding, the journalists would protest."

One television journalist who regularly travels to Strasbourg using funding
from the program said the daily stipend was sufficient to pay for a quality
hotel and lunch at an upmarket brasserie, including a glass of Bordeaux
wine and a dish of Strasbourg's celebrated sausages. The neo-classical
Hotel Hannong in Strasbourg - popular with journalists - costs about E60 a
night if booked on the Internet.

Another broadcaster, who like others interviewed for this article requested
anonymity, said perks such as these had prompted journalists to refuse
requests by editors to write stories on members' privileges and travel
expenses at the Parliament, a topic of growing interest in Europe. "How can
I expose such perks when I myself am benefiting from them?" the journalist
asked.

Harald Jungreuthmayer, a correspondent for ORF, the Austrian broadcaster,
defended the funding as necessary to generate coverage of an institution
that is often maligned and even more often ignored. "It's part of the PR of
the European Parliament," he said. "The Parliament's aim is not to put a
spin on coverage, but to get any coverage at all."

He added that he had never observed any attempt by the Parliament to
influence coverage.

Other institutions have drawn strong crtiticism for efforts to influence
media coverage. The Bush administration came under fire in November when it
came to light that the Pentagon had contracted with the Lincoln Group, an
American public relations firm, to pay Iraqi news outlets to print positive
articles while hiding their source.

The Strasbourg payments are likely to fuel controversy at a time when
European Parliment perks are under scrutiny. The Parliament, which spends
E200 million a year shuttling between Brussels and Strasbourg, agreed last
June to reform part of its generous system of members' allowances,
including perks that allow members to be reimbursed for the most expensive
economy-class air tickets even if they fly a budget airline.

But perks for journalists have so far remained intact. In fact, legislators
confided, some members of Parliament from smaller countries like Portugal
and Greece have been lobbying to have the subsidies for journalists
expanded in order to ensure that the members receive coverage back home.

The Parliament's efforts to raise its profile come as the EU is suffering
an existential crisis caused by the rejection of an EU constitution by
France and the Netherlands. The Parliament shapes legislation on everything
from environmental regulations to warnings on cigarette pacts. However, it
still remains better known for its generous members' perks than for its
public policy. In the last European elections in 2004, voter turnout fell
to 45 percent from 50 percent.

Brussels's 1,550 journalists, one of the world's largest press corps
outside Washington, benefit from a host of perks and privileges from EU
institutions, including free meals and unlimited free phone calls during EU
summit meetings and free television studios at the European Commission. At
the beginning of every six-month EU presidency, the presiding country
invites journalists to a free junket in the capital. In February, Austria,
the current holder of the EU's presidency, invited 62 Brussels-based
journalists to Vienna, paying for their lodgings in a lavish Hilton hotel
and hosting a complimentary dinner in an 18th-century baroque castle where
a soprano sang Strauss operettas - all on the tab of the Austrian
government. Media organs had the option of paying for the trip. Only eight
opted to do so, according the Austrian representation to Brussels.

"It was a worthwhile investment," said Nicola Donig, spokesman for the
Austrian presidency.

__________
Copyright © 2006 the International Herald Tribune All rights reserve

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[27/03/2006] The “dead” EU Constitution rises to haunt again …

Posted on 27 Márta, 2006 by NationalPlatform.Org 
BERTIE AHERN ON THE EU CONSTITUTION

"Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said Ireland would now probably not hold a
referendum on the constitution until after the French election next year.
Mr Ahern said he thought there would be an EU constitution in the future,
although it may not be called a constitution. He also warned against
attempts by the 'cherry-picking brigade' to take bits out of the current
text to create a new treaty."

- "Irish Times" report by Jamie Smyth, Brussels, Saturday 25 March,
following last Friday's EU summit meeting

______________

EU LEADERS IN TALKS TO BRING BACK EU CONSTITUTION: 18 MEMBER STATES NOW
FAVOUR NEW RATIFICATION ATTEMPT  (Open Europe Bulletin, 9 March 2006)

This week the German press reported that Paris and Berlin are engaged in
confidential talks aimed at re-submitting the core of the EU Constitution
to French and Dutch voters, who rejected the Constitution last year.
French and German leaders had previously been in disagreement about the
best way to go about bringing back the EU Constitution.

It is believed the plans involve reducing the Constitution to its first two
parts - Part One, which sets out the EU's competences, and Part Two, the
Charter of Fundamental Rights.

German news weekly Der Spiegel reported that in order to be seen to address
some of the concerns which led to the No votes, a short political
declaration would also be added on to the Constitution, setting out the
EU's commitment to social protection.  The new slimmed-down document would
then be put to a fresh poll in both France and the Netherlands, while the
third (and main) part, which details EU policies, would be ratified in the
national parliaments of these countries.

In recent weeks more EU Heads of Government have added their names to calls
for the return of the Constitution.  Analysis by Open Europe suggests that
18 of the 25 member states are now backing the adoption of the EU
Constitution in its original form.  Poland and the Czech Republic are also
backing a new treaty, though not the Constitution in its original form.
Only the Netherlands (where nearly two thirds of voters said No) has said
that the Constitution is "dead".  But even the Netherlands has suggested
that it could be open to "something new".

The consensus in Brussels is that the debate about the EU Constitution will
"go live" again in Spring 2007 - due to the combination of the German
Presidency of the EU and the result of the French elections.

Summary of the attitudes of EU Member States towards the EU Constitution:

Dead - Netherlands (but Foreign Minister agrees "something new" needs to
happen)

Not the Constitution but a different new treaty - Poland and Czech Republic

Unsure - UK, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden

EU Constitution in some form - France, Germany, Finland, Portugal, Estonia,

Austria, Slovenia, Latvia,  Hungary, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Spain, Cyprus,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Malta -  have ratified  the Constitution
already

Where they stand:

Amongst others, Finland and Portugal appear to be backing the Franco-German
plan, calling for an EU Constitution based on the original with only
"marginal changes." (Le Figaro, 7 March)  Finland is expected to ratify the
Constitution during its presidency of the EU in the second half of this
year, and Portugal has said it will ratify a new version of the text as
soon as it is agreed.

At a meeting in February the Presidents of Hungary, Italy and Latvia also
expressed support for resuscitating the Constitution, and Slovenia, which
will hold the EU Presidency in the first half of 2008, has announced that
"the EU Constitution is very much alive" - thus revealing that every EU
Presidency that will take place between now and 2009 is committed to
bringing back the EU Constitution.

Of the other countries which have not yet voted on the Constitution,
Denmark, Ireland and Sweden have not revealed their plans, but Estonia is
quietly pursuing the ratification process.

President Lech Kaczynski of Poland has said that the Constitution "has
practically no chance of being ratified in Poland, neither by referendum
nor by parliamentary vote", (Le Figaro, 24 February) but, along with Czech
President Vaclav Klaus, he has called for a "new treaty" to be drafted.

Only the Dutch government has officially pronounced the EU Constitution
"dead," Foreign Minister Bernard Bot said "we have discussed the
Constitution, which for the Netherlands is dead." (Telegraph, 12 January)
However, even the Dutch have left themselves some wriggle-room; in a
subsequent interview with Die Presse, Bot agreed that "something new"
needed to happen. (20 January 2006)

For its part, the UK has so far refused to say whether it believes the EU
Constitution is dead. Tony Blair has said the Constitution "will have to be
revisited" (PA, 20 February).

<http://mailshot.moodia.com/sent/Redirect.aspx?mid=403&rid=125628&sid=83
8693&link=http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/singlemarket.pdf>

_____________________

28 February 2006

GISCARD D'ESTAING; FRANCE WILL VOTE YES IN THE END

At a lecture at the London School of Economics last week former French
President and chief drafter of the EU Constitution Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
argued unequivocally that "The rejection of the Constitution was a mistake
which will have to be corrected."  He said, "The Constitution will have to
be given its second chance", and joked, "Everyone makes mistakes." He said
the French people voted No out of an "error of judgement" and "ignorance",
and insisted that "In the end, the text will be adopted."

Referring to the second referendums on Europe that have taken place in the
past in Ireland and Denmark, Giscard said, "if the Irish and the Danes can
vote Yes in the end, so the French can do it too." He said arrogantly, "It
was a mistake to use the referendum process, but when you make a mistake
you can correct it."

Plans to resurrect the rejected EU Constitution - whether in whole or in
bits - are now well and truly under way.  With only a handful of countries
unsure about bringing the Constitution back, and determined EU leaders
negotiating to compromise on the way forward, it is only a matter of time
before the same text in a different format will be on the agenda of the
European Council. In a recent poll of politicians, business leaders, NGOs
and officials in Europe 70 percent said they believed bringing back bits of
the Constitution would not be "undemocratic".  At the beginning of its EU
presidency Austria said "We must respect the French and the Dutch No votes
but also the decision of those who have ratified the treaty."  Clearly this
sentiment has been forgotten.

See
<http://mailshot.moodia.com/sent/Redirect.aspx?mid=403&rid=125628&sid=83
8693&link=http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/05/st15/st15576.en05.p
df>  for a summary of the efforts now under way in each EU Member State to
sell the Constitution to voters.

__________________

THE DEAD EU CONSTITUTION RISES TO HAUNT AGAIN

Briefing  by Jens-Peter Bonde MEP, June Movement Denmark; Joint Chair,
Independence and Democracy Group, European Parliament ... Friday 10 March
2006

The Finnish Parliament will ratify the "dead" EU Constitution before
Finland takes over the EU presidency on 1 July this year. This became
obvious this week in  discussions between a delegation from the European
Parliament's Constitutional Committee which included me and the Finnish
Parliament.

The President of the Finnish Parliament, former Prime Minister Paavo
Lipponen, told us that he is in favour of an early ratification of the EU
Constitution. The Finnish Government have sent a White Book on the
Constitution to the Finish Parliament. They will now start deliberations on
the text.

The Finnish Prime Minister, Vanhanen, is not keen on being involved in a
conflict before his European presidency. He is not the person to push the
matter. However, he is not the person to block the process either. In the
Convention I worked with him for a referendum on the Constitution. He must
have forgotten that when he became Prime Minister, thus illustrating the
old proverb: "It's the job that decides, not the person."

The majority in the Finnish Parliament and all parties except a small
minority of individuals want the EU Constitution now. We only heard one
single voice of opposition during our visit: Timo Soini of the True Finns
party. Everyone else was pleased with the Constitution, which I doubt most
of them have even read.

At the same time support for the European Union in Finland has reached its
lowest level ever in opinion polls. The appeasement policy of the Finnish
elite towards Brussels was striking. I understand Finnish security
interests in EU membership, but why sign a Constitution that will reduce
Finnish democracy in the very year when they celebrate 100 years of Finnish
democracy?

The ratification and the celebration may indeed coincide on the same days
in June. What a paradox! The Finnish Constitution gives all the power to
the Finnish voters. In the proposed EU Constitution you can only indirectly
find the normal democratic principles.

Those people we vote for at national level cannot make proposals in the EU.
All EU proposals are made by people that we cannot elect or select.

In Finland and all other democracies the elected members of parliament
decide the laws. You can have a new majority at the next elections and then
change the law by means of new legislation.  This fundamental democratic
principle does not exist in the European cooperation or in the proposed EU
Constitution.

In the EU 85% of all laws are effectively decided by civil servants behind
closed doors, and the remaining 15% by ministers and civil servants
together. As a derogation from that, members of the European Parliament can
influence EU law-making by proposing amendments to  EU laws coming from the
EU Council and Commission when they are supported by an absolute majority
of the Parliament's members, which require agreement between left and right.

In the Finnish Parliament all laws can be changed, amended and decided by a
simple majority in the parliament. Finnish voters always have the last word.

We now need to re-start the debate on the content of the proposed EU
Constitution before it will be ratified in more countries. Since the French
and Dutch voters killed the Constitution, it has been ratified in
Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus, Latvia and Belgium. Estonia and Finland are on
their way.

After the French presidential elections in May next year the German
Chancellor and the new French President may try to have a re-run in France
of the very misleading and short Parts I and II  of the Constitution and
then have the  detailed Parts III and IV ratified by the French National
Asssmbly

In the European Parliament my "Group for Independence and Democracy" is
buying a bus to travel throughout Europe to meet the voters and debate the
proposed EU Constitution and our alternatives with them. I hope that we
shall have this bus ready for the European summit in Brussels on March 23th

Here is our different material on the Constitution (see link below)
http://www.euabc.com/

___________________

SO, YOU THOUGHT THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION WAS DEAD, DID YOU?

Daniel Hannan MEP, Daily Telegraph, London, 20 March 2006

Two years from now, the European constitution will be in force - certainly
de facto and probably de jure, too.  Never mind that 15 million Frenchmen
and five million Hollanders voted against it.  The Eurocrats have worked
out a deft way of getting around them.  Here's how they will do it.

First, they will shove through as many of the constitution's contents as
they can under the existing legal framework - a process they already begun
even before the referendums.  Around 85 per cent of the text can, with some
creative interpretation, be implemented this way.  True, there are one or
two clauses that will require a formal treaty amendment: a European
president to replace the system whereby the member nations take it in turns
to chair EU meetings; a new voting system; legal personality for the Union.

These outstanding items will be formalized at a miniature
inter-governmental conference, probably in 2007.  There will be no need to
debate them again: all 25 governments accepted them in principle when they
signed the constitution 17 months ago.  We shall then be told that these
are detailed and technical changes, far too abstruse to be worth pestering
the voters with.  The EU will thus have equipped itself with 100 per cent
of the constitution.  Clever, no?

Don't take my word for it: listen to what the EU's own leaders are saying.
Here is Wolfgang Schüssel, Chancellor of Austria and the EU's current
president: "The constitution is not dead."  Here is Angela Merkel, leader
of Europe's most powerful and populous state: "Europe needs the
constitution Š we are willing to make whatever contribution is necessary to
bring the constitution into force."  Here is Dominique de Villepin, who, in
true European style, has risen to prime ministership of France without ever
having run for elected office: "France did not say No to Europe."  And, on
Tuesday, our own Europe minister, Douglas Alexander, repeatedly refused to
rule out pushing ahead with the bulk of the text without a referendum.

For the purest statement of the Eurocrats' contempt for the voters,
however, we must turn to the constitution's author, Valery Giscarde
d'Estaing.  Here is a man who, with his exquisite suits and de haut en bas
manner, might be said to personify the EU: so  extraordinarily
distinguished, as Mallarmé remarked in a different context, that when you
bid him bonjour, he makes you feel as though you'd said merde.  "Let's be
clear about this," pronounced Giscard a couple of weeks ago.  "The
rejection of the constitution was a mistake that will have to be
corrected."  He went on to remind his audience that the Danish and Irish
electorates had once been presumptuous enough to vote against a European
treaty, but that no one had paid them the slightest attention.

The same thing is happening today.  Since the French and Dutch "No" votes,
three countries have approved the text and three more - Finland, Estonia
and Belgium - look set to follow in the coming weeks, which would bring to
16 the number of states to have ratified.  At the same time, the European
Commission has launched a massive exercise to sell the constitution to the
doltish national electorates.  Their scheme goes under the splendidly James
Bondish title of "Plan D". I forgot what the D stands for: deceit, I think,
or possibly distain.  Anyway, squillions of euros are being spent on
explaining to us that we have misunderstood our true interests.

While all this is going on, the EU is proceeding as if the constitution
were already in force.  Most of the institutions and policies that it would
have authorised are being enacted anyway: the External Borders Agency, the
European Public Prosecutor, the External Action Service, the Charter of
Fundamental Rights, the European Defence Agency, the European Space
Programme.  The text is not, as the cliché of the moment has it, being
"smuggled in through the back door"; it is swaggering brazenly through the
front.

Whenever one of these initiatives comes before us on the constitutional
affairs committee, I ask my federalist colleagues: "Where in the existing
treaties does it say you can do this?"  "Where does it say we can't?" they
reply.  Pressed for a proper answer, they point to a flimsy cat's-cradle of
summit communiqués, council resolutions and commission press releases.

To be fair, this is how the European project has always advanced.  First,
Brussels extends its jurisdiction into a field of policy and then, often
years later, it gets around to regularizing that extension in a new treaty.
The voters are thus presented with a fait accompli, the theory being that
they will be likelier to shrug their shoulders and accept it than they
would have been to give their consent in advance.

This, indeed, is how the EU was designed.  Its founding fathers understood
from the first that their audacious plan to merge the ancient nations of
Europe into a single polity would never succeed if each successive transfer
of power had been referred back to the voters for approval.  So they
cunningly devised a structure where supreme power was in the hands of
appointed functionaries, immune to public opinion. Indeed, the EU's
structure is not so much undemocratic as anti-democratic in that many
commissioners, a la Patten and Kinnock, have been explicitly rejected by
the voters.

In swatting aside two referendum results, the EU is being true to its
foundational principles.  Born out of a reaction against the Second World
War, and the plebiscitary democracy that had preceded it, the EU is based
on the notion that "populism" (or "democracy", as you and I call it) is a
dangerous thing.  Faced with a result that they dislike, the
Euro-apparatchiks' first instinct is to ask, with Brecht: "Wouldn't it be
easier to dissolve the people and elect another in their place?"

To complain that the EU is undemocratic is like attacking a cow for being
bovine, or a butterfly for being flighty.  In disregarding public opinion,
the EU is doing what it has been programmed to do.  It is fulfilling its
prime directive.

Sadly, we British are also exhibiting one of our worst national
characteristics, namely our tendency to ignore what is happening on the
Continent until too late.  With a few exceptions - and here I doff my cap
to the pressure group Open Europe, which is waging a lonely campaign to
alert people to the danger - we are carrying on as though the French
electorate had killed off the constitution, and so spared us from having to
think about the European issue at all.

Once again, we are fantasizing about the kind of EU we might ideally like
to have, rather that dealing with the one that is in fact taking shape on
our doorstep.  Will we never learn?

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[28/02/2006] EU decisions still cloaked in secrecy

Posted on 28 Feabhra, 2006 by NationalPlatform.Org 
*** EU DECISIONS STILL CLOAKED IN SECRECY

Trumpets blew in Brussels in Decemeber when it was announced that the
Council of Ministers, which makes EU laws, would allow TV cameras in to see
them doing that. They called this opening the Council's law-making function
to "the public".  Now it turns out that the cameras can come in only for
the Council's initial deliberations after the EU Commission, which has the
monopoly of proposing EU laws, has presented its proposal, and the final
actual vote on it. "The debates in between will still be closed to the
public," says the EU Ombudsman in an interview with EUobserver. "The
intermediate steps are the more  delicate ones, where decisions are
hammered out and negotiations take place." Also the December decision only
covers certain EU policies, but not all. So the main EU legislature  will
in practice remain as closed and secret as North Korea's.  It will remain
literally an oligarchy, a committee  of 25 Ministers making laws in secret
for 450 million people,  and irremoveable as a group . . . The total
opposite of real democracy in fact.

_____________

*** THE EU CONSTITUTION: WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE PEOPLE SPOKE?

"If you had referendums in Poland, the UK or Denmark, I'm not sure what
would happen," said Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende in January,
referring to national referendums on the proposed EU Constitution that were
initially  planned but called off after the French and Dutch peoples voted
No to it last summer.

And how would Ireland have voted in October last in the referendum the
Government had in mind for then if the French had voted Yes?  Would
26-County voters have voted to make themselves real citizens of the EU
State the proposed Constitution would have legally established,instead of
being the notional or honorary EU citizens they are now?  Would they have
voted to give the new EU the Constitution proposed to found the loyalty and
obedience that  all states demand of their citizens and which the
Constitution explicitly refers to?   Would they have voted to make the EU
Constitution supreme over the Irish Constitution by changing the latter so
as to recognise that supremacy?  For that would have been the legal effect
of the constitutional amendment the Government and principal Dail political
parties would all have been urging 26-County voters to vote Yes to.

How would such a step have been reconcileable with "the right of the people
of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of
Irish destinies",  called for in the 1916 Proclamation which President Mary
McAleese was extolling recently, a right that Proclamation states is
"sovereign and indefeasible"?  "Indefeasible" means a right that cannot be
lost or alienated.

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[28/02/2006] Napoleon the first Euro-Federalist?

Posted on 28 Feabhra, 2006 by NationalPlatform.Org 
*** NAPOLEON THE FIRST EURO-FEDERALIST?

"We must have a European legal system, a European appeal court, a common
currency, the same weights and measures,  the same laws ...I must make of
all the peoples of Europe one people,and of Paris the capital of the
world."  So said Emperor Napoleon 1 in conversation with his Chief of
Police Joseph Fouché around  1805, as quoted in Chapter 1 of the book
"1812" by Adam Zasmoyski, who gives two sources:Herold 245,243,and Fouché,
II/114,

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[28/02/2006] Another Europe is Possible

Posted on 28 Feabhra, 2006 by NationalPlatform.Org 
*** DESIGN FOR A NEW EUROPE

Professor John Gillingham, senior Harvard research scholar, has written a
valuable book, "Design for a new Europe".   In a lecture to launch it
earlier this month he argued that the EU must change fundamentally,
otherwise it "will either drift off into irrelevance, become an obstacle to
desirable change, or at worst, its structural failures could trigger
financial panic."

Professor Gillingham called for an overhaul of the Brussels institutions,
and the return of powers over the CAP and regional funding to Member
States.  He also argues that the EU needs to develop a more flexible
structure, consisting of a minimal number of common policies with all
additional policies operating on an "opt in" basis.

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