The Lisbon Treaty

[Dimentio]

Today, if someone has failed to notice, Eire is voting yes or no to the Lisbon treaty again (last time was in 2007). If they vote yes, which polling institutions deem likely due to the economic crisis, Tony Blair might become the president of Europe in a few weeks.

Here is an interview with the commission vice president Margot Wallström.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvcdsj3ZWkg&feature=PlayList&p=CE93E30047AEE9AC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=15

The European commission is also pumping in millions of Euro in "information campaigns" in Ireland right now.

Here is the wikipedia entry on what the Lisbon Treaty will mean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lisbon_Treaty

What are your thoughts?

[Trystan]

Seems to me that the people have already spoken; they said no to the growth of an EU superstate and I'm sure most people would given the chance.

[Dimentio]

Well, they're voting again today.

[Dóchas]

ye we said the wrong thing last time so we had to "vote" again :rolleyes:

[brigadista]

when are the results in?

[RedAnarchist]

when are the results in?

Probably later tonight (GMT). Exit polls sadly suggest the Yes vote has won.

[Spawn of Stalin]

So the Free State is not quite so free any more. This might not have happened if the unions had stood firm and said no.

[Tower of Bebel]

This Rayan Air boss is giving me the kreeps. How awful can a capitalist be? "Only losers say no the EU"? This shows how serious the yes-campaign is: no contents, only money involved.

[brigadista]

Probably later tonight (GMT). Exit polls sadly suggest the Yes vote has won.

thanks and Damn...

[Revy]

a double loss for the Irish working class. living under the Lisbon Treaty's bullshit, and living under President Blair of the EU.

[Die Neue Zeit]

President Blair in a ceremonial position isn't as shitty as the Lisbon Treaty provisions for labour, other than his "gravy train" perks (to quote No2EU).

[Anaximander]

Would it be fair to characterize the EU as a super-state that, through its far reaching power, serves as an antidote to the sort of nationalist and/or socialist politics that have continued to upset a "business-as-usual" mindset held by the boss classes? A continent market managed efficiently and "democratically"; very pacifying.

As an American I have always looked at Europe as a "magical" place of revolutionary politics, partly because of the complacency in American culture and politics that have dulled working class-consciousness here, and partly because of historical events in Europe. While I realize the fantastic in my idea of Europe, I wouldn't say I would be happy to let it die. Is Europe too succumbing to a political architecture that seduces with the commodity, rather than oppresses with the truncheon?

Long sentences >.<

[Revy]

I would support a North American Union for one reason. No, not the economic issues. Rather, the free movement of people is something I stand firmly in support of. You cannot deny how progressive it would be to smash that border.

And I think that is why I would prefer for the EU to not be abolished. Remember, the Lisbon Treaty is one example of what the capitalists would do any day without the EU. the EU isn't something special in what it does. In the end, most people who oppose the EU are doing it for stupid nationalist reasons. "Oh we don't want our country controlled by Brussels." YAWN!

[Anaximander]

Well I could understand why people wouldn't want the centers of power further away from them. Europe united as EU is national upper classes united as continental boss class in a manner that their interests can transcend national borders and traditional cultural divisions. People want some measure of control (or least the feeling of control, hence the success of bourgeois "democracy") and they have been alienated from it until they react to alienation with either 1) historically reliable forms of politics, most notably regional patriotism and nationalism, or 2) a politics based off of class analysis, rather than national or cultural.

The question puts me in a bind, because I don't want to fall into the trap of supporting bourgeois nationalism in the "interests of the working class." Yet, I cannot help but feel such is truly the case here. I have a lot to learn...

[LeninBalls]

It's pretty dissapointing.

But in fairness the "No" campaign was really really weak. The most I saw is the odd Sinn Féin poster saying "More military spending, say no" or pictures of the Easter Rising and "They fought for your freedom", bland designs too. On the other hand "Yes" posters are plastered all over the place with fancy designs and misleading but deceiving arguements.

Could be just my town.

[Lyev]

Lisbon treaty hangs in balance as Ireland votes
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/10/2/1254512390493/Carmelite-convent-nuns-le-001.jpg Carmelite convent nuns leave a polling station in the Drumcondra area of north Dublin. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP

Ireland (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ireland)'s taoiseach, Brian Cowen, said he was "cautiously optimistic" that the Republic would ratify the Lisbon treaty despite signs that opponents of the EU reform project were gaining ground over the last 48 hours.
The fate of hundreds of millions of Europeans and the EU will be decided by the count in Ireland, which begins at 9am tomorrow.
An early exit poll carried out by pro-Europe opposition party Fine Gael, suggested that the yes camp had swung a victory with 52% over the no camp's 48%.
In the key battleground of Dublin today voting was up substantially on last year's referendum, when the Irish first rejected the treaty and threw the EU reform package into chaos.
A spokeswoman for the Dublin city returning officer said voter turnout across the capital's six constituencies was at an average of 21.4% this afternoon, compared with 15.5% in the June 2008 referendum. The Irish government is pinning its hope on a higher turnout in normally pro-European middle-class constituencies as opposed to working class areas, which are more likely to vote no.
One strategist from the ruling Fianna Fáil party said early returns from polling stations indicated that more people had turned out to vote in prosperous areas where support for Europe was stronger. However, he warned that the outcome would be "tight", admitting that the no campaign's tactic of portraying the referendum as a chance to punish the unpopular Fianna Fáil-Green party coalition had struck a chord with some voters.
The depth of opposition among some voters to Lisbon 2, as the vote has been dubbed, was evident on the streets of central Dublin. As a tram halted at the junction of North Abbey Street and O'Connell Street at lunchtime one elderly lady, heavily made-up and wearing a pink beret, banged on the windows to get passengers' attention. As they looked out she started waving a cardboard cutout of the Irish Tricolour flag and the message written in black on it stating "I voted no".
In the north inner-city area of Smithfield opinion on the treaty seemed evenly divided. The district close to Dublin's Four Courts symbolises the demise of the Celtic tiger boom. During the boom years Smithfield was redesigned from a cobblestoned square surrounded by public authority houses into an area of hundreds of luxury apartments, a five-star hotel and organic food shops. Today the main hotel is closed, the only shops left a bookies and a convenience store. A pawnbrokers is the only new client moving into the area.
The manager of one of the few remaining restaurants left in the area was taking a straw poll of his customers this lunchtime, asking them how they voted or whether they were going to vote at all.
Although a pro-European, Joe Forkan admitted that there had been a surprising number of people coming through the doors of his restaurant in Duck Lane, next to the Jameson Irish Whiskey museum, who said they were voting no. "I found that generally the fear of losing our military neutrality is playing on people's minds. It's a mixed sort of feeling on it, a lot of older people are not convinced by it. A lot of people told me they voted no," he said. "Personally I'm voting yes because you hear all these big businesses like Intel urging us to stay connected to Europe … We're gaining from Europe by the tourist trade on our doorstep and so we want to give a little back."
Among those casting their votes today at a local school in nearby Brunswick Street was a descendant of one of the rebels who fought in the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule. The great-grandfather of Patricia Mallon had been a member of the leftwing Irish Citizens Army that took part in the rebellion that sparked the Irish war of independence. While he fought the British, his great-granddaughter said she was taking a stance against Brussels and the alleged EU super state.
As immigrant families from Africa and eastern Europe passed by the school, Mallon said she was angry she even had to vote a second time on the Lisbon treaty.
"There shouldn't have been a vote again. No means no! So I am voting no again. Because if we vote yes we lose everything my great-grandfather and those men fought for. There is a hidden agenda in all of this and I don't like it," she said.
Asked what she thought of the European project, she said: "Crap, but I could say worse. We should be left alone and not have to follow other peoples and what they want us to do."
Her mother Mary's reasons for voting no were less to do with hostility to the EU but more her dislike of the present Irish government. "It's crazy that the ordinary people are being made to pay for the greedy developers who got Ireland into this mess," she said.


This was in the paper this morning. There was that chap saying he voted yes because the 'big businesses were telling him to' or something. Were they possibly encouraged yes votes because The Lisbon Treaty hopes to privatize a lot things and privatization means more profit for those 'big businesses? Is that right, maybe?

[Dimentio]

Would it be fair to characterize the EU as a super-state that, through its far reaching power, serves as an antidote to the sort of nationalist and/or socialist politics that have continued to upset a "business-as-usual" mindset held by the boss classes? A continent market managed efficiently and "democratically"; very pacifying.

As an American I have always looked at Europe as a "magical" place of revolutionary politics, partly because of the complacency in American culture and politics that have dulled working class-consciousness here, and partly because of historical events in Europe. While I realize the fantastic in my idea of Europe, I wouldn't say I would be happy to let it die. Is Europe too succumbing to a political architecture that seduces with the commodity, rather than oppresses with the truncheon?

Long sentences >.<

I don't think so.

Europe has a history of class antagonism and ethnic antagonisms. An EU which is more like a federal state would rather intensify existing antagonisms and create new ones. One of the reasons why the EU has managed to increase its power is because it has strengthened the regions at the expense of the national states by doling out money to subnational entities (like Catalonia, Wallonia, Scotland and Norrland).

Those who are positive to the EU do not generally consist of flag-waving European chauvinists (though those exist) but rather as people who see the EU a mean to earn quick euros. If ordered to sacrifice their personal well-being for the Union, they will run and hide the other way.

[LeninBalls]

Oh man, I saw my dad today and asked what did he vote and he said "Yes". :( I asked why and he said "well apparently jobs will come back! :)". He's been out of work and out of pay for a long time since he was a contstruction worker, so I can see how tempting it is to vote "Yes" when there are promises of pay again. :( If only I had visited him a day earlier!

[FSL]

I would support a North American Union for one reason. No, not the economic issues. Rather, the free movement of people is something I stand firmly in support of. You cannot deny how progressive it would be to smash that border.

And I think that is why I would prefer for the EU to not be abolished. Remember, the Lisbon Treaty is one example of what the capitalists would do any day without the EU. the EU isn't something special in what it does. In the end, most people who oppose the EU are doing it for stupid nationalist reasons. "Oh we don't want our country controlled by Brussels." YAWN!


What this NAU would achieve isn't smashing the borders and letting all the mexicans leave in peace and pursuit a better future.

First of all, immigration isn't simply causing a melting pot of all cultures that needs to be celebrated, there's more to it than the romantic view. People leaving their homes, families and countries behind for a foreign country is one of the biggest tragedies in capitalism.
More cheap mexican labor would only serve to increase racism against them in the US, leaving in them in a pitiful "pariah" state, much like what has happened with eastern europeans in UK or Italy in Europe.

There should be ofcourse efforts to legalize those that do make it through and a struggle for a better minimum wage.
What I mean is you can't *ever* support the advancement of capitalism thinking the working class has something to gain. At least everyone who considers himself a "revolutionary" should dedicate his strength in propagating a worker's cause.

Workers from poorer countries didn't get a better life just for walking into EU (in many cases EU laws have only served to strip them off whatever rights they had) and we shouldn't confuse internationalism with cosmopolitanism. Nothing is to be gained when capital is seeking more people to take advantage of.

[Dimentio]

Oh man, I saw my dad today and asked what did he vote and he said "Yes". :( I asked why and he said "well apparently jobs will come back! :)". He's been out of work and out of pay for a long time since he was a contstruction worker, so I can see how tempting it is to vote "Yes" when there are promises of pay again. :( If only I had visited him a day earlier!

Within one year, he will curse that he voted yes. A lot of the Swedes who voted yes in 1994 to join the EU turned very dissappointed. The reason why the country was persuaded into voting yes was because of an economic crisis.

[Andropov]

And I think that is why I would prefer for the EU to not be abolished. Remember, the Lisbon Treaty is one example of what the capitalists would do any day without the EU. the EU isn't something special in what it does. In the end, most people who oppose the EU are doing it for stupid nationalist reasons. "Oh we don't want our country controlled by Brussels." YAWN!
I think that is a very presumptuous statement.
The majority of people I have discussed the treaty with who are voting No is primarily to do with the Laval case and the greater expansion of the EU's military machine.

[Dimentio]

Is the Laval case actually discussed in other countries than Sweden?

[brigadista]

for info on the Laval case and others http://www.etuc.org/r/847

[BOZG]

It's pretty dissapointing.

But in fairness the "No" campaign was really really weak. The most I saw is the odd Sinn Féin poster saying "More military spending, say no" or pictures of the Easter Rising and "They fought for your freedom", bland designs too. On the other hand "Yes" posters are plastered all over the place with fancy designs and misleading but deceiving arguements.

Could be just my town.

Just your town. No one cares about your peasant backwater :P

[BOZG]

Oh man, I saw my dad today and asked what did he vote and he said "Yes". :( I asked why and he said "well apparently jobs will come back! :)". He's been out of work and out of pay for a long time since he was a contstruction worker, so I can see how tempting it is to vote "Yes" when there are promises of pay again. :( If only I had visited him a day earlier!

This "Yes for jobs" bollocks just shows how bankrupt the Yes campaign was. Where exactly were these jobs going to come from? Unemployment is on the rise right across Europe. Nevermind mind the fact that it's the same profitable companies that are sacking thousands of workers that are part of IBEC and claiming Yes for jobs.

[BOZG]

Is the Laval case actually discussed in other countries than Sweden?

Yeah, there's been a lot of discussion about Laval throughout the campaign, along with the Viking, Ruffert and Luxembourg judgements.

[BOZG]

This was in the paper this morning. There was that chap saying he voted yes because the 'big businesses were telling him to' or something. Were they possibly encouraged yes votes because The Lisbon Treaty hopes to privatize a lot things and privatization means more profit for those 'big businesses? Is that right, maybe?

Well, a lot of employers sent letters out to staff asking them to vote Yes for the sake of jobs and the economy. I know of one huge factory in Cork that management pulled together a staff meeting to actually call for a Yes vote and when one person challenged them, he ended up being somewhat victimised as a result.

No one was told to vote Yes because it would privatise services, in fact the Yes campaign have been claiming the total opposite, despite the fact that IBEC (the employers confederation) in a submission to the National Forum on Europe made it very clear that they supported Lisbon because it create new markets in previously untouchable sectors of the economy like healthcare, education etc.

[Dimentio]

In Sweden, most of the discussion about the Laval case was the right-wing media claiming that the Swedish labour unions were racist and socialism being an xenophobic ideology. And the social democrats defending themselves and appearing as on the weaker side.

[BOZG]

The establishment initially never responded to the issue of Laval here and then because it was constantly being raised by the No side, they accepted that it had a negative effect on Swedish workers' rights and conditions and just argued that it could never apply here because the agreed rate for construction work here is legally binding rather than a gentleman's agreement as I believe it was in Sweden.

[Vanguard1917]

Holding votes until an outcome favourable to the EU oligarchy is obtained... A great example of the EU elite's disdain for democracy and the people it wants to represent.

[BOZG]

Currently at 64% / 36%.

[Coggeh]

Currently at 64% / 36%.
It the yes side won . But don't worry everyone we'll all have jobs now :rolleyes:

[ls]

The EU chauvinist policy towards "former communist states" (those filthy eastern europeans :rolleyes:): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3513889.stm.

So to all you essentially calling for an EU superstate saying it'd be good: no, your fake-left Capitalist internationalism is just that, fake leftism.

If the no2eu campaign can be attacked as chauvinist, then definitely adovcating an EU superstate should be as well. The fact is that it would be both internally and externally, xenophobic and bureaucratic Capitalism to the very core, with far-reaching powers and consequences.

[Bitter Ashes]

67% voted yes.
*shakes her head to herself in despair*
Another step backwards towards Neo-libertarianism. Just what the world needed... *sighs*