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Media statement

Friday afternoon, 13 June 2008

Foreign Minister Michael Martin and other Irish Euro-federalists are already planning to subvert the Lisbon Treaty referendum result by urging the other EU States to continue with their ratification process instead of telling them that Ireland cannot ratify the Lisbon Treaty as it stands, and that further ratifications elsewhere are therefore pointless, and the Treaty must be reopened.

EU Treaties must be ratified unanimously. Each country ratifies a Treaty on the assumption that all other countries will do so too. If one country says that it cannot ratify a Treaty as it stands - in Ireland’s case because the Irish people have rejected it - there is no point in the other countries proceeding, and the Irish Government should request them to stop.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen now faces a momentous choice.

Will he align himself with his own people and respect the Irish people’s vote by telling his EU colleagues that Ireland cannot ratify Lisbon as it stands, and therefore there is no point in the remaining States continuing with their ratifications?

Or will be align himself with the other EU States against the Irish people, and urge the former to proceed with their ratifications on the assumption that Ireland will re-run the referendum when everyone else has ratified, as Bertie Ahern did with Nice. For that is the implication of other EU States now proceeding with ratifying the Treaty with the Irish Government’s encouragement.

Mr Bobby McDonagh and the top civil servants in Iveagh House will already be planning a joint response with France and Germany to insist on the ratification process continuing. Foreign Minister Martin’s comments on lunchtime radio today about other countries “of course” continuing with their ratifications, reflects the policy the Iveagh House people will be urging.

The Irish No vote is on a much more substantial turnout than the 35% of Nice One in 2001. The No majority is much stronger. It reflects much wider concern at the way the EU project is going. Representative members of the Irish political class have broken with the predominant uncritical consensus on the Euro-Federalist project - Shane Ross, Declan Ganley, Bruce Arnold, Ben Dunne, Gay Byrne, Ulick McEvaddy, Prof. Ray Kinsella, Gerard Hogan,

This provides Ireland and Europe with an opportunity to take a fundamental look at the EU integration process.

Neither the Irish people nor the peoples of the other EU countries want an EU that is given the constitutional form of a State, as the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Constitiution proposed, even though this issue was not highlighted in the referendum. The peoples of Europe will not tolerate such a fundamental subversion of their national democracy and independence. Even if this federalised EU were to be brought off, it would not be sustainable.

Instead of the “period of reflection” which was supposed to follow the French and Dutch No votes in 2005, and which turned out to be an excuse for repackaging the rejected Constitution in the form of the Lisbon Treaty, Europe now needs a period of consultation - with its own peoples, with citizens everywhere - and not just a matter of Brussels talking to Brussels.

The best course now is to return to the aspirations of the Laeken Declaration, which called for democracy, transparency and closeness to the people. The EU Member States should now go back to the drawing-board, for their own sakes, for Ireland’s sake and for Europe’s.

Fundamental to any new Treaty is Lisbon’s population-based voting system which is not acceoptable to Ireland or to other smaller States, for it represents a power-grab by the Big States. Each State must retain its national Commissioner, a demand that does not require the opening of the Treaty.

Each State must retain the right to decide who its national Commissioner is, instead of that right being altered to a right to make “suggestions” only. Any future new Treaty should contain special Protocols to safeguard Ireland’s position as regards company taxation, public services, fundamental rights or mutual defence commitments. Laws in Brussels should only be made by people who are directly elected to make them, eitherin the European Parliament or National Parliaments. These are fundamental principles of democracy.

Anthony Coughlan
Secretary

1. Harmonisation of Corporate Tax;

2. Losing permanent Commissioner, Halving voting strength;

3. The “Blank Cheque” Self-Amending power;

4. Superiority of all EU law over Irish Constitution;

5. Lisbon origin in rejected EU Constitution.

* Where is this all going? Harmonisation of Corporate tax:

Article 2.79 of the Lisbon Treaty would insert a six-word amendment -”and to avoid distorton of competition” - into the Article of the existing European Treaties dealing with harmonising indirect taxes - Article 113.

This would enable the European Court of Justice, which adjudicates on competition matters, to decide that Ireland’s 12.5% rate of company tax, as against Germany’s 30%, is a distortion of competition which breaches the Treaty Articles dealing with the internal market (Art. 26 and Arts.101-9 TFEU) in relation to which qualified majority voting on the Council of Ministers applies.

The Irish Government’s veto under Article 113 would thus be irrelevant.

* Where is this all going? Loss of permanent Commissioner and reduction in voting strength:

- Lisbon removes any Irish voice from the EU Commission, the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws, for five years out of every 15 (Art.17.5 TEU).

- Lisbon abolishes our right to decide who the Irish Commissioner is when it comes to our turn to be on the Commission, replacing it by a right to make “suggestions” only for the Commission President to decide (Art.17.7 TEU).

- Lisbon Treaty would double Germany’s say on the EU Council of Ministers; Ireland’s voting weight would be more than halved to 1% (Art.16 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The self-amending Treaty:

- This could be Ireland’s last referendum on Europe - the EU can acquire new competences without another treaty, like signing a blank cheque.

- Lisbon would permit the EU Prime Ministers to shift most of the remaining EU policy areas where unanimity still exists, to majority voting, without need for new EU Treaties or referendums (Art.48 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The dilution of Bunreacht na hEireann and the superiority of EU law:

EU law is already superior to Irish law. Lisbon would further weaken Irish control by adding more competences and powers to the EU.

- It hands over to the EU the power to make laws binding on us in 32 new policy areas, such as crime, justice and policing, public services, immigration, energy, transport, tourism, sport, culture, public health, the EU budget etc.

- It removes a national veto in 68 areas

- Lisbon will give the EU Court of Justice the power to decide our rights as EU citizens - Ireland’s Supreme Court would no longer have the final say (Art.6 TEU).

* Where is this all going? The Treaty’s origin in the EU Constitution:

- The Lisbon treaty is a repackaged version of the EU Constitution (96% the same). France and the Netherlands both rejected it, people across Europe have felt increasing unease about the EU project.

Big States will control the new post-Lisbon European Union. The Lisbon Treaty will double Germany’s say on the EU Council of Ministers from 8% to 17%. France’s say would go from 8% today to 13%, and Britain’s and Italy’s from their current 8% to 12% each. Ireland’s voting weight would be more than halved to 1% (Art. 16 TEU).

“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.”(emphasis added)
- Schumann Declaration, 9 May 1950, on the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community

“The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal State.”
- Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian Prime Minister, Financial Times, 21 June 2004

“From the inside it looks like an arrangement based on Treaties between States. From the outside it
looks like a State itself.”
- Jens-Peter Bonde MEP, From EU Constitution to Lisbon Treaty … euabc.com ; bonde.com

“The State may ratify the Treaty of Lisbon signed at Lisbon on the 13th day of December 2007, and may be a member of the European Union established by virtue of that Treaty. No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by membership of the European Union, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the said European Union or by institutions thereof, or by bodies competent under the treaties referred to in this section, from having the force of law in the State.” (emphasis added)
- 28th Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 2008 … What the people will be voting on in June

The Treaty of Lisbon is quite different from previous European Treaties, for it would establish a new European Union in the constitutional form of a supranational EU Federation It would thereby revolutionise the constitutional and political order of the EU itself and of its Member States.

Implicit in the first sentence quoted above from the Irish Government’s 28th Amendment of the Constitution Bill, which the people will be voting on in June, is the fact that the Lisbon Treaty would establish a constitutionally new European Union which would legally and politically be very different from what we know as the “European Union” today. The proposed constitutional amendment refers to “the European Union established by virtue of that Treaty”, namely the Treaty of Lisbon. This shows clearly that the post-Lisbon Union would be a different European Union from that which stems from the 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European Union, which is the EU that we are members of at present.

The“European Union established by virtue of that Treaty”, which the 28th Amendment of the Constitution Bill seeks to permit Ireland to join, corresponds to the Union that was referred to in the first sentence of Article I-1 of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, which the peoples of France and Holland rejected in their 2005 referendums. That sentence stated: “This Constitution establishes the European Union.” Both the 2004 EU Constitution and the Treaty of Lisbon which succeeds it would give the constitutional form of a supranational Federation to the new European Union which they each sought to establish if they were to be ratified.

Explaining to the Irish people the difference between the post-Lisbon and the pre-Lisbon European Union is the most important task facing those who seek to make voters aware of the constitutional and political significance of the issue they will be voting on in the Lisbon Treaty referendum. The difficulty of the task is compounded by the fact that the same name,“The European Union”, is being used for two entities, the pre-Lisbon Union and the post-Lisbon Union, which are constitutionally and politically very different from one another. Lisbon would give the new Union which it would establish a de facto supranational Federal Constitution which would be virtually identical in its legal effects to the Constitution for Europe which the French and Dutch voted No to. The approval and ratification of the Lisbon Treaty therefore would usher in a constitutional and political revolution in what we call the European Union today and in the national constitutional order of the EU’s Member States, including Ireland.

The Lisbon Treaty would bring about this constitutional revolution by amending fundamentally the two existing European Treaties, the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty Establishing the European Community (TEC). The former would retain its name, while the latter would be renamed the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). These two amended Treaties would then become the de facto Constitution of the post-Lisbon European Union which they would constitute or establish, although they would not be called a Constitution. The EU would thus be given a Constitution indirectly rather than directly, as had been proposed in the original Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. The 1993 Maastricht Treaty was a Treaty ON European Union. The Consolidated Treaties as amended by Lisbon would effectively become the Treaty OF European Union.

The provision of the Lisbon Treaty that “The Union shall replace and succeed the European Community” (Art. 1, amended TEU) makes clear that the post-Lisbon Union would be quite a new entity, as the European Community of which the 27 countries are all currently members would cease to exist.

Member States would still retain their national Constitutions post-Lisbon, but they would be subordinate to the new Union Constitution, as the second of the two sentences quoted above from the 28th Amendment of the Constitution Bill makes clear. As such the Irish and other Member State Constitutions would no longer be constitutions of sovereign States, just as the various local states of the USA retain their constitutions although they are subordinate to the Federal USA Constitution.

The new European Union’s powers would be conferred on it by its 27 Member States, for they would voluntarily have agreed to obey the EU’s superior authority in the policy areas surrendered, which nowadays cover much the greater part of government. Where else after all could the new Union obtain its powers? This so-called “principle of conferral” is normal in all classical “bottom-up” Federations, such as the USA, 19th Century Germany, Switzerland, Canada or Australia. These contrast with Federations which have been established by unitary States assuming federal form, e.g. post-World War 2 Germany, Russia, India, Nigeria etc., which might be referred to as “top-down” Federations.

The remaining governmental powers, which have mainly to do with the traditional social services and the taxation needed to finance them, would remain with the Member States. State sovereignty in the new Union would be divided between the Federal and local state levels, as is normal in Federations. Similar provisions to Lisbon’s “principle of conferral” are to be found in the American Constitution and that of other Federal States. The provision permitting a Member State to leave the EU (Art. 50 TEU) is also normal in classical Federations.

The metamorphosis of the pre-Lisbon EU into a post-Lisbon Union with the same name but of fundamentally different constitutional and political character, is exemplified by changes in the formal structure of the amended Treaties which would become the new Union’s Constitution. The two treaties, the TEU and TFEU, are stated to have the same legal value (Art. 1 TEU). Up to now, Article 47 TEU has determined that the Treaty on European Union is subsidiary to the Treaty Establishing the European Community (TEC), which Lisbon would rename The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Post-Lisbon, this Article 47 TEU would be replaced by Article 40 TEU, which stipulates the subsidiarity of the Common Foreign and Security Policy only (CFSP), as against the other competences set out in the treaties. Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty would insert the new Title III on the institutions of the new Union into the Treaty on European Union, the primary treaty, and not into the Treaty on the Functioning of the Union, the present TEC, where they are currently set out.