[Nuclear1]

The Irish voted against the Treaty of Lisbon, the future framework of the EU.

So now with three countries having rejected the Treaty (through their people's vote),  what does this mean for the future of the EU?

[Kosh]

Why was it rejected?

[Flipside]

It isn't the first time a framework structure for the EU has been rejected to be honest.

From what I understand of it, the current wording of it makes it lean too heavily in favour of the 'main' members, and there is a great deal of controversy over newer prospective members because of rivalries/confrontations between the various members.

What this probably means for the future of Europe is that, with any luck, the document will go back to the drawing board and actually come out as a future for Europe, and not just a future for the industrialised part of it.

Edit: I think part of what annoys me is the attitude by some politicians that they are 'dragging us kicking and screaming' into Europe, because that suggests that they are somehow being altruistic, and we are being reticent. The truth of the matter is that trying to call Europe a single entity is like trying to say that the US should be merged into one great big state and all the state-borders erased, and that anyone who disagrees is just 'holding back progress'. It might be true, to a given value of 'true', but that doesn't mean that it is workable.

[Uchuujinsan]

Well, the iirc most important change is that it should no  longer be the way that a single country has a veto.
To decide sth, at least 55% of the countries, representing at least 65% of the population would have had to agree.
Of course anyone loses control over the others if he loses the right for a veto.

Currently the main reason I hear for the "no" of the Irish was mostly that their big parties said "yes" - and due to some scandals many did just the opposite.
The European Union, is a very far away, very distant concept, that many dont see as "good", even if they gain a huge indirect benefit from it.
Only 40% even went to vote - that tells a lot.

[karajorma]

If anyone here expects the public to make an informed decision on Europe PM me for details of a bridge I have for sale.

[Kosh]

I think part of what annoys me is the attitude by some politicians that they are 'dragging us kicking and screaming' into Europe,

Then again option 2 is to become insignificant. Which would you choose?

[Hellstryker]

Become insignificant? What are you talking about? we all are, no matter what country you live in. It'll soon boil down to world government where the people have no power at all.

[Herra Tohtori]

This is also rather interesting...

Let's define a "riot" as a public unauthorized gathering... and while we're at it, let's define "upheaval" as disagreeing with the government, ans we're all set.

Yeah, I know it's a stretch, but the question arises why to have a footnote of a footnote that specifically introduces "exceptions" on the ban of death penalty?

[Nuclear1]

Wait, wasn't one of the aims of the Euro Constitution to abolish the death penalty totally?

From the Charter of  Fundamental Rights of the European Union
2. No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.

Or is that passage about reinstating capital punishment somewhere in the Lisbon Treaty and I'm not seeing it?

Currently the main reason I hear for the "no" of the Irish was mostly that their big parties said "yes" - and due to some scandals many did just the opposite.
The European Union, is a very far away, very distant concept, that many dont see as "good", even if they gain a huge indirect benefit from it.
Only 40% even went to vote - that tells a lot.

IIRC, this was also a huge motivating factor in the French vote against the Euro Constitution, with Chirac (who was getting more and more unpopular at the time) approving of the Constitution.

The truth of the matter is that trying to call Europe a single entity is like trying to say that the US should be merged into one great big state and all the state-borders erased, and that anyone who disagrees is just 'holding back progress'. It might be true, to a given value of 'true', but that doesn't mean that it is workable.

How is that so with the Euro Constitution? AFAIK it allows the nations to retain their sovereignty to roughly the extent the US federal government allows the states to have theirs.

Which of course leads to entirely new problems, but the whole European argument against the Constitution seems to be the same reason the Anti-Federalists disapproved of the US Constitution in 1787.  I don't know if any Euros here have taken a look at the Anti-Fed Papers, but I found them an interesting read and remarkably reflective of the current issues in Europe as well.

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

To put things into perspective, a nation that equals to about one percent of the entire population of EU decided to **** things up for everyone else. Yea, I'd call that democracy.

[Herra Tohtori]

Well according to that link*, the Treaty of Lisbon does bind the ratifying countries to the mentioned Charter, but the footnote of the footnote introduces some exceptions which basically would end up giving individual countries kinda free hands to use death penalty in cases of riots, upheaval or war.

Basically it looks to me like typical burocratic crap being shoveled to the citizens and you need to either be a lawyer to understand the combined meaning of the text, it's footnotes and their footnotes... or just be suspicious enough that you don't accept anything before it's comprehensive enough that you can find out of things yourself.

Personally I do not see any need for more European "unity", at least not at the moment. What's there more to unite? We're already in the same corner of the world, use basically same money (for the most parts anyway), and have a common parliament with limited power over individual member states. The only thing that separates the EU from United States of Europe is that the EU is not (but would, if Treaty of Lisbon were to be ratified by all member states) considered to be a singular entity like the United States of America, meaning for example that EU can't bind it's member countries into international treaties as one entity. And I frankly hope it stays this way... I really don't think it would be good for fringe countries like Finland to become part of United States of Europe, no matter what the promised hypothetical economical advantages were. The power politics in such an union would inevitably become even less favourable for us - and other smaller countries - than they already are, while the core states like Germany, France, Italy, UK, Benelux and possibly Spain would probably benefit a lot more. It wouldn't be the end of said fringe states, but at best we'd definitely not be better off as part of such an union. I don't think there will be any such thing as European identity anytime soon either, no matter how hard the politicians are trying to behave like such a thing exist. Except perhaps in a rather stupid and at least partially misjudged form of some kind of vague sense of intellectual/cultural superiority concerning the United States... the only part where this might have any basis in reality is in comparision of school systems, but putting ourselves on a moral high horse - which I personally have to consciously try to avoid and oftentimes fail in it - just because of that isn't really very good basis on an "European identity" in my opinion.


Of course, I might be wrong about all this, but I just have a bad feeling about it. Then again I have a bad feeling about politics in general... and politicians specifically.


*haven't read the Treaty of Lisbon, much less the footnotes of it's footnotes, so I'm going to just assume that this statement is valid, but then again it's on Internet so it might just be a big bit of yahoo and nothing more.


->Cannonfodder: It should also be remembered that the Irish were the only nation in whole Europe that got to voice their opinion in this whole matter - probably just because the politicians knew that the people would be unlikely to vote yes for this kind of thing. Personally I think that matters of this magnitude of importance should never be entrusted just to parliaments alone, but of course the politicians would disagree - after all it would reduce their power while in season to subject matters to peopel to decide. And heaven forbid, why would the People have the sense to make Correct Decisions... That's why most countries didn't see fit to subject the treaty ratification to a popular vote. Of course, votes like this often do become popularity contests rather than votes about the issues themselves, so it's all on very muddy waters either way.

What makes me the most hesitant to just accept the politicians' decisions about things like this is their obvious hesitation - or inability, I don't know which would be worse - to clearly list the things that these treaties would affect on. I don't basically know jack about any details on this treaty (except that it's supposed to help EU to expand to the East, which I have a few objections in itself, but that's for a different conversation perhaps) but then again, that in itself is enough for me to not be quite willing to accept it's ratification. And quite honestly I don't really trust the "professionals" in the parliament to be able to make good decisions on my behalf on this matter, with all the ineffective and senseless legislation they see fit to accept with a little bit of lobbying.

[Uchuujinsan]

Well, the whole benefit for EU would have been
a) more democracy in the EU (thats a bad thing?)
b) the EU can - again - decide sth.

Any joining member got a veto for nearly everything.
While it was possible to keep that with 2,3,5 members, atm it's extremely hard to make a decision for anything in the EU, nearly impossible.
That Ireland case shows it: Even IF the rest of the EU, even IF over 99% of the population of the European Union wanted to have that treaty, it wouldnt have mattered - the rest, the less than 1% of Ireland could have still blocked it. Very democratic.
But it if we had a situation were Ireland couldnt have blocked it, it would have had less power alone, of course small countries dont like that - they are losing power, power how to dictate the majority (of the population) of the EU what shouldnt be done.

In history, Germany had a similar situation with its Federal States a hundred years before. Especially Bavaria didnt want to join the "German Union" (selftranslated, maybe the term isnt correct in English)
But if we look back, was it a mistake to finally do that?
If you ask Bavarians now, how many would like to be independent again..?

What annoys me a little as well is that the small countries get billions of Euro paid netto from the core ones like Germany and France - noone complains about that...
So if you gain a direct profit everything is ok, but as soon as you are supposed to pay yourself (with power),and maybe only get an indirect profit,  like coordinated laws, more direct power in the EU (you dont have to hope your government decides for you that much what happens in the EU, the EU parliament was supposed to be strengthened a lot!).

I could talk a lot more about this case, but I think Ill stop here.

I want to add, Im not sad that the treaty didnt succeed - the are serious arguments against it.
It would have had a lot of benefits, but also a lot of drawbacks. As the situation is now, a better solution can be found, thats good. But a worse solution, or none at all, can also be found and thats not good.
In the long run, Europe has to be more unified or it will break up again, like any Union where its members desperately cling to power.

[Kosh]

he only thing that separates the EU from United States of Europe is that the EU is not (but would, if Treaty of Lisbon were to be ratified by all member states) considered to be a singular entity like the United States of America, meaning for example that EU can't bind it's member countries into international treaties as one entity.

In the future that bit about not being able to bind all the nations to singular international treaties will matter more and more. Right now we have two large nations with big populations on the way up and a host of smaller nations riding their wakes. Now, Ireland for example has a total population of about 6 million. Compare this with, say, India which has a population of 1.1 billion. Which do you think will carry more weight in the world as India continues to develop?

Size matters, especially when it comes to influence. A dozen small voices doesn't have the same effect as one louder, clearer one. Europe will need to be more united in the coming decades, or its voice will become increasingly drowned out.

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

->Cannonfodder: It should also be remembered that the Irish were the only nation in whole Europe that got to voice their opinion in this whole matter - probably just because the politicians knew that the people would be unlikely to vote yes for this kind of thing. Personally I think that matters of this magnitude of importance should never be entrusted just to parliaments alone, but of course the politicians would disagree - after all it would reduce their power while in season to subject matters to peopel to decide. And heaven forbid, why would the People have the sense to make Correct Decisions... That's why most countries didn't see fit to subject the treaty ratification to a popular vote. Of course, votes like this often do become popularity contests rather than votes about the issues themselves, so it's all on very muddy waters either way.

The people have given power to their representatives in fair and democratic elections, and those same representatives make decisions that affect our daily lives far more than any EU treaty. How does the parliamentary system suddenly fail when the issues at hand concern EU?

And yes, people have very little sense to make correct or educated decisions. They vote no because some minister was found in bed with someone else than his wife. They vote no because the weather on that particular day happens to be cloudy. They vote no because their cat died the week before. Would you really be ready to hand over decision making to those who are the least informed or to those who you have given the authority to learn about these things and decide based on that knowledge?

A good list of things that now wont become reality thanks to few hundred thousand irish: http://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/artikkeli/Mit%C3%A4+j%C3%A4i+saamatta/1135237164635 (finnish).

What makes me the most hesitant to just accept the politicians' decisions about things like this is their obvious hesitation - or inability, I don't know which would be worse - to clearly list the things that these treaties would affect on. I don't basically know jack about any details on this treaty (except that it's supposed to help EU to expand to the East, which I have a few objections in itself, but that's for a different conversation perhaps) but then again, that in itself is enough for me to not be quite willing to accept it's ratification. And quite honestly I don't really trust the "professionals" in the parliament to be able to make good decisions on my behalf on this matter, with all the ineffective and senseless legislation they see fit to accept with a little bit of lobbying.

The treaty's main goal was to streamline the decision making in EU, giving more power to the parliament, which, as you know, is directly elected by the citizens of the EU. I find it higly ironic that one of the main arguments against the treaty and EU in general is it's poor ability to make decisions and heavy byrocracy, but when there's an attempt to fix those isseues the no-camp is against it.

[Goober5000]

To put things into perspective, a nation that equals to about one percent of the entire population of EU decided to **** things up for everyone else. Yea, I'd call that democracy.

So the fact that out of all of Europe, only one country held a public referendum on the treaty -- would you call that democracy?

[vyper]

How does the parliamentary system suddenly fail when the issues at hand concern EU?

Because it's a question of handing power to foreign nationals, regardless of what representation we have within their midst.

We were promised a referendum on the "constitution". We didn't get it on the basis of minutia. Because Brown knew he'd lose.

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

So the fact that out of all of Europe, only one country held a public referendum on the treaty -- would you call that democracy?

Yes I would, and you can read the reasons for that in my response to Herra's post. That's what parliamentary democracy is about: you vote for the candidate you believe shares the values you yourself uphold and it's then his job to learn all he can about the issues brought up and make educated decisions based on his personal beliefs and the information available to him.

Is it perfect? Hell no, but it's far better than leaving it up to the people who tend to base their vote on everything but the issues being decided.

Because it's a question of handing power to foreign nationals, regardless of what representation we have within their midst.

As many have said already: Europe as a collection of bickering small nations will have very little influence in the world around us. And I see that as a shamefully regretful thing because I believe a strong European influence is a good thing to the world as a whole. Fencing yourself against the evil world is hardly any sort of solution to any problem these days.

We were promised a referendum on the "constitution". We didn't get it on the basis of minutia. Because Brown knew he'd lose.

Then remember that broken promise when the next round of elections comes up and boot the current leaders out of power.

[Flipside]

you vote for the candidate you believe shares the values you yourself uphold and it's then his job to learn all he can about the issues brought up and make educated decisions based on his personal beliefs and the information available to him.

Strictly speaking, that should be the case, however, take a look at the UK, we've had Brown in charge, who has different policies from Blair, for very nearly a year now. The man was never voted in, never had his opinions ratified by the public, and yet is determined to destroy as many civil liberties as he possibly can before he is forced to hold a general election.

So the person who is in charge of my country wasn't voted in for his own standpoint, he's wearing Blairs' shoes, but not following Blairs policies and is desperately trying to avoid having to give them up.

[vyper]

As many have said already: Europe as a collection of bickering small nations will have very little influence in the world around us.

In the imagination of Europhiles and Americans maybe...

Then remember that broken promise when the next round of elections comes up and boot the current leaders out of power.

A hell of a lot good that does when they've already handed your sovereignty away.

[Goober5000]

Yes I would, and you can read the reasons for that in my response to Herra's post. That's what parliamentary democracy is about: you vote for the candidate you believe shares the values you yourself uphold and it's then his job to learn all he can about the issues brought up and make educated decisions based on his personal beliefs and the information available to him.

Is it perfect? Hell no, but it's far better than leaving it up to the people who tend to base their vote on everything but the issues being decided.

As opposed to, say, Euro-MPs who have become so detached from the will of their constituents that they think they can do whatever they want?  Like establish a high speed rail connection just for themselves?

The EU is not for the benefit of its member states, it's to help the already-powerful grab even more power.  French and Dutch voters decisively rejected the EU Constitution the last time around, so, naturally, they weren't allowed to vote on the Lisbon Treaty.