A Blow against a Corporate
Europe
Today’s rejection of the
Lisbon Treaty is a victory for everyone who opposes a Europe dominated by big
business. It is also a victory for everyone who opposes the new militarism that
is creeping over Europe. Many of the 490 million people in Europe who were
deprived of their right to vote on this Treaty will be also delighted. In
rejecting Lisbon. Irish voters have struck a blow for democracy and demonstrated
their solidarity with their fellow Europeans.
This failure to ratify the
Lisbon treaty must surely be the final nail in this undemocratic treaty. There
is no room for renegotiation and we call upon the Irish government and the EU
Commission to take the Lisbon Treaty off the table in its entirety. People did
not reject aspects of the Treaty, they rejected the whole package and their vote
must be respected.
In one form or another, this
Treaty has now been rejected three times in three years, with the Irish joining
the French and the Dutch people in rejecting European Constitution / Lisbon
Treaty.
Today’s victory is all the more remarkable
given how voters have been subjected to more than six months of threats and
intimidation in order to brow-beat them into submission.
The corporate and state media not only
refused to allow the No side adequate and equal representation, they also set
the tone of the campaign and narrowed the terms of the debate. For example, one
of the most worrying aspects of this Treaty was the provisions it introduces for
trade in public services such as health and education. Virtually very attempt by
the Left to raise these fundamental issues were either ignored or
suppressed.
But the most striking feature of the Lisbon
Treaty debate was the way business nakedly promoted its interests. Libertas was
heralded by the media as the face of the No campaign by the sheer fact that it
was run and funded by multi-millionaire businessman, Declan Ganley. The fact
that Libertas had little, if any, grassroots support was conveniently ignored by
the media. On the Yes side, the employers' organisation IBEC supported the
Treaty because it facilitates increased 'liberalisation' and spent huge sums in
order to get their message across.
This level of open corporate interference in
a referendum campaign is unprecedented in Irish politics and proves only that
money can trump democracy in buying you a hearing.
Despite thess interventions the last Irish
Times/ MRBI poll of the campaign showed how the debate was fractured along
social class lines: The Yes vote registered a majority only with better-off
voters, while there was a big majority for the No side among the working
class.
The poll also found that one of the primary
issues raised by business groups - preserving the low corporation tax - only
featured in the concerns of 5 percent of No voters. The poll findings mirror a
similar pattern in France where support for the EU constitution came
overwhelmingly from higher socio-economic groups while opposition was
concentrated in the manual working class.
While the media and politicians will
attempt, like they did in France, to characterize today’s victory as motivated
by a narrow-inward looking desire to protect Irish sovereignty, this was not
reflected in our experience of campaigning on the streets where a variety of
issues came to the fore including neutrality, militarization, lack of democracy
and defense of public services.
The real fault lines was between those who
favour a competitive, neo-liberal Europe which was defined as ‘efficient’
and those who want to fight to achieve a more social, just and peaceful Europe.
The Labour Party and some trade union
leaders who acted under their political influence mistakenly argued that one
could accept a neo-liberal Europe and balance it with a vague charter of
fundamental rights. Their main role in the campaign was to give cover to groups
like IBEC who were totally clear that their reason for supporting the treaty was
to achieve more privatization.
The Labour Party’s enthusiasm to put
themselves at the service of corporate Ireland raises major questions for the
Irish left. It is now perfectly clear that a new radical left alliance needs to
be created to replace a failed Labour Party. Sinn Fein cannot offer that
alternative because it vacillates between opposing neo-liberal measures in the
South while implementing them in the North.
The left wing forces who contributed to a No
victory must now urgently come together to discuss constructing this
alternative. A failure to do so will leave the ground more open to Eurosceptic
groups around Declan Ganley or the fundamentalist right. The opportunity for a
genuine left to take serious steps forward has been created and we should not
squander it.
Finally the No vote in Ireland is a powerful
signal for workers across Europe to step up their resistance to corporate rule.
We stand in solidarity with the 200,000 trade unionists who marched in Lisbon of
the eve of this treaty and who correctly predicted that, if ratified, ‘it
would lead to an intensification of attacks against he rights of working
people’
We believe that another Europe is possible
and the rejection of the Lisbon treaty is an important step in that
fight.
Latest 04.06.2008
Don't be bullied - Vote No
One of the major arguments
on the Yes side is that the Lisbon Treaty is all about making the EU more
democratic. Yet the Irish are the only people in Europe who get to vote on the
Lisbon Treaty. Opinion polls across all 27 Member States show that between 60
and 70 percent of EU citizens want a Referendum on this Treaty. They are being
systematically denied this right for one reason, EU leaders fear people will not
vote the way they are told.
Lisbon is essentially a
redrafted version of the European Constitution, which was overwhelmingly
rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. Their punishment for this No vote
was to be denied a vote this time around.
It is worth remembering that
the reason Irish people get a vote is not because our government is more
democratic but because one Irish citizen, Raymond Crotty, took a case to the
Supreme Court demanding Irish people have the right to vote on EU
treaties.
However, this whole Referendum campaign has
been marked by a sense of sheer distaine for democracy.
Last week, the President of European
Commission José Manuel Barroso said that a No vote in the Irish referendum on
June 12th would be bad for Europe and Ireland, threatening Irish voters by
saying, "We will all pay a price for it, Ireland included."
In case these bully-boy
tactics didn't work, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was drafted in to
support the Treaty: Annan commented "I call on the Irish people to vote Yes for
the Lisbon Treaty," he told reporters. "We need a strong Europe.
Then, the Chairperson of the
European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee, Jo Leinen came out and
suggested that Ireland could be asked to leave the EU if it votes against the
Lisbon Treaty. This democracy loving MEP then went on to state that it was risky
for the government to hold a referendum on the treaty, which all other EU states
are ratifying through their parliaments.
Earlier this year voteno.ie were leaked a letter in
which Leinman warned that "It
would . . . appear highly advisable that any document concerning the
implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon which addresses politically sensitive
matters be examined only when it becomes sufficiently clear that the Treaty will
enter into force."
Not only do these statements
reveal EU leaders complete contempt for the democratic will of the people, it
also shows how worried they are about the Irish vote. They understand what No
campaigners have been arguing all along, that once people know the substance of
the Treaty they will vote no.
Latest 27.05.2008
End Corporate Interference in Irish
Politics
A report in the Irish
Times that the Yes campaign will be spending in the region of €2.3 million
during the Lisbon Treaty Referendum raises important questions about the level
of corporate interference in Irish democracy
Corporate Ireland has launched
a spending spree to ensure that their interests are protected from Declan
Ganley's Libertas on the No side, to IBEC and the Alliance for Europe on the Yes
side. And it seems to be working; the media have crowned Declan Ganley the face
of the No campaign and the dominant presence of employers agency IBEC and the
corporate backed Alliance for Europe in the debate has gone un remarked and
unchallenged.
In a rare moment of honesty
IBEC revealed their real agendas in campaigning for a No vote when they told the
Forum on Europe that: "A yes vote for the Lisbon Treaty creates the potential
for increased opportunities for Irish business particularly in areas subject to
increasing liberalization such as health [and] education . . ."
The Alliance for Europe, for
example, is supported by Construction Industry Federation (CIF), Irish Banking
Federation and American Chamber of Commerce all groups have everything to gain
from the neo-liberal policy that the Lisbon Treaty will impose on the people of
Europe.
At a bare minimum, voteno.ie is calling for spending
limits to be imposed on referendum campaigns and a ban on all corporate
donations. Failure to achieve this will see Ireland rapidly follow American down
the path of blatant corporate lobbying where those with the most money end up
influencing and determining how a country is
run.
Latest 21.05.2008
Trade Union Leaders comments on Lisbon
are Misleading
VoteNo.ie rejects recent
claims by Trade Union leader, Blair Horan (General Secretary of the CPSU) that
the Lisbon treaty will protect the values of social
Europe.
Blair Horan has argued that
"important social values" have been added to internal market rules and
that the commitment to "undistorted competition" has been
removed.
Mr Horan is clearly ignoring
the protocol, attached to the Treaty, that states: "Considering that the
internal market as set out in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union includes
a system ensuring that competition is not distorted…" In other words
undistorted competition continues to be one of the defining features of the
EU.
Mr Horan also claimed that the
treaty does not affect the ability of member states to provide public services.
But here, he is, again, ignoring the actual substance of the Treaty.
Lisbon explicitly states (Article 188C(4)) that the veto in relation to
international trade agreements will be removed for social, health and education.
This will make it easier to open up health and education to competition via
international trade agreements in the General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS).
It will only be possible to
veto a trade deal in very exceptional and undefined circumstances. Otherwise
qualified majority voting would apply, as is currently the case for
agriculture.
Trade in public services
involves means allowing private corporations to bid to deliver public services .
Public providers would then be obliged to compete with for profit
providers.
The important question for Yes
campaigners here is If you do not want trade in public services why surrender
the veto? The only reason to remove the veto on trade in healthcare or education
is to make it easier to push through privatisation.
Voteno.ie is calling on
voters, if they want the real story on Lisbon, to look at the treaty for
themselves and ignore the spin.
