Ireland stabs Europe in the heart

Discussion in 'International News' started by EstebanLugo, Jun 14, 2008.

  1. Borussia

    Borussia Member+

    Jun 5, 2006
    Fürth near Nuremberg
    Club:
    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    They have all reasons to be worried, since the left-hand driving will have to be abandoned and the € gets introduced, hence! :p Their whole nation will also be assimilated by Brussels. :))


    But they also have a reason to be happy: The Lisbon Treaty allows every member to leave the EU if wanted ... so the Tories are free to decide if they win the upcoming elections.
     
  2. Borussia

    Borussia Member+

    Jun 5, 2006
    Fürth near Nuremberg
    Club:
    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    How I told you earlier, I'd rather worry about "criminal things" occuring in Russia these days (i.e. killing of journalists)...


    Because he's as clueless as yourself.
     
  3. johan neeskens

    Jan 14, 2004
    If you're not willing to take the good with the bad then get out altogether is my point. I mean to me it's a no-brainer. If you ask me, would you be willing to give up a bit of Dutch sovereignty for the privilege of being part of a bigger and stronger entity it's not that difficult is it. What this comes down to in my opinion is that many Europeans still believe that their country can do better on its own than as part of the European Union, whether politically or economically. That to me is naive beyond comprehension in a globalising world. Even China has acknowledged the need for international cooperation on virtually all levels FFS. Yes I'm fully aware that my country is politically insignificant, but we're a European power economically and you could even argue globally. The fact that the Dutch are a lot more pro-EU than the Brits as such tells me that this is a political power struggle. Which almost by definition is fruitless.

    Yes the British attitude bugs me especially because as I'm Dutch I see the Brits as our natural allies much sooner than I ever would the German-French axis. The Brits have shown throughout the history of the EU that they have much more of a listening ear for the smaller EU nations. But the smugness of the British media in suggesting that Blair might become the new president of Europe, for example, is baffling. Why in god's name would Europe want a president from a country that's chosen to opt out on European stuff on numerous occassions. But noooooooo the British media don't talk about that, all they care about is power. If your country wants to be that self-obsessed, that's fine by me and none of my business but stop bugging the rest of Europe with it. So vote Tory in the next elections and get done with it as this is getting very tiresome for the rest of us.
     
  4. johan neeskens

    Jan 14, 2004
    I've made quite an effort to read the Lisbon Treaty and I can't for the life of me think of anything in it that makes the EU likely to be a less effective force within the world. What exactly are you referring to within the Lisbon Treaty that is so bad? What exactly is this pointless waffle you're alluding to? To me the whole point of the Lisbon Treaty is to clarify common European values and to clarify to the rest of the world what the European voice is and to have that voiced through a European president and minister of foreign affairs. Considering that even on this board people have been whingeing forever about the lack of a unified European voice to the world and a lack of clear, unfiied European values, what on earth can you object to in the Lisbon Treaty as it addresses all of these issues?
     
  5. Borussia

    Borussia Member+

    Jun 5, 2006
    Fürth near Nuremberg
    Club:
    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    Nice to see you finally back into politics, Johan. ;)

    But please be smart and don't reply to certain repetitive postings (believe me, it's useless:) ... since this topic has been discussed for enough times in this thread in the meanwhile.

    Those who believe that Lisbon & the EU are shit, are free to believe it. And those who just want to inform themselves, are always free to take a look HERE (as mentioned so often).


    Buona notte.
     
  6. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    It's actually quite interesting discussing this with our European enemies... er... I mean, partners ;) :D

    Someone said the other day that the Lisbon treaty was designed to make the EU more democratic. I guess that might be true in some senses but, surely, if they want to convince us of that how about letting US vote for the new president?
     
  7. Matt Clark

    Matt Clark Member

    Dec 19, 1999
    Liverpool
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Much as I enjoyed Klaus' blustering and grandstanding on his way to bowing to the inevitable, his perception of the Treaty is no more reliable than those of the Euronuts on the other side of the fence. Both are driven by a need to dress it up as something it's not.
     
  8. Matt Clark

    Matt Clark Member

    Dec 19, 1999
    Liverpool
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    I know it is - and it's one of the most crashing failures of the EU apparatus as it stands. You can't agitate for better, you can either like it or lump it. Yet for some reason, even those of you who explicitly recognise it when you say "don't like it, then leave", don't seem capable of making that final, tiny cognitive leap to thinking "Hang on .... is this a good thing?".

    I agree - that's exactly what it is.

    Nothing's difficult when you talk in fluffy generalisations of that kind. How about adding some meat to those bones? Which bit of Dutch sovereignity? In what way is it a stronger and bigger entity? By which means do you define positive values in both "big" and "strong". The US is big and strong, is that the aim? China is big and strong. India is too.

    And there are a whole raft of specific instances where that is manifestly the case. Now, there are also an equally large number of instances where collective, collaborative action between nations with common interests make more sense than going it alone. But neither side of that coin is the dominant one. And that's where unquestioning Europhiles like you, who fail to even make such a distinction, even as you accuse others of "naivety beyond comprehension", fail the logic test.

    Which is all about political factionalism and has nothing to do with any lofty European ideal. Britain was the principal driver of expansion from 15 to 27 states because a large number of smaller states under her sphere of influence counterbalances the Franco-German centre of gravity within Europe. Likewise, the Lisbon Treaty and it's various forebears are the Franco-German response to that realignment, in that it reduces the extent to which any one nation (read "one of the big ones, principally Britain") can use veto powers to rally cheap support for any given issue.

    From this point on your post is just another example of the massive chip you have on your shoulder about Britain and the British, so I'll do you the courtesy of not picking that apart too.
     
  9. Matt Clark

    Matt Clark Member

    Dec 19, 1999
    Liverpool
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Reading the treaty itself is all very cute and admittedly a prerequisite to properly discussing it, but do bear in mind that Treaties are written with interpretation and perspective in mind. All 27 nations read into it what they want to read into it - that's the skill of the writer.

    Read one of the hundreds of authoritative commentaries on the Treaty. The choice of interpretation there is equally broad, but at least, given that the commentaries are at one removed from the authors of the Treaty and their principal political sponsors, you at least get a choice of real insights, flavoured in whatever way you prefer.

    Set short: the Lisbon Treaty uses the principals of majority voting and "conferred competency" (lost sovereignty) to make genuine legislative advances hostage to political fortune. Whereas big issues could previously be dealt with along clear battlelines and the veto enforced clarity of mind in the search for genuine compromises, now you just have to get enough of the little people to vote with you (by whatever political skullduggery or horsetrading you can stomach) and a poor law you happen to have a specific interest in can be foisted upon the rest of Europe. The ability for countries to enfore geniune debate and to put individual initiatives under the microscope is diminished - ultimately this benefits no one other than the EU itself.

    So you haven't read it then?

    Precisely - waffle. Are our values clearer now than they were before the Treaty? You and I, we're both dyed-in-the-wool Europeans, we even live in the same corner of the continent, how's the clarification coming on? Clarified yet?

    Wow, you really do only do skin-deep, huh? Having some stuffed shirt stand up and say "Hi, I'm Europe" isn't the point here. It's not the objective. That is to actually say something meaningful and then, crucially, to DO something meaningful. How does the President and the Foreign Secretary of the European Union advance that cause?

    Tokenism, again. The European staple. And too many of us lap it up with about the same critical rigour as a kitten at a saucer of milk.
     
  10. Matt Clark

    Matt Clark Member

    Dec 19, 1999
    Liverpool
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nice to see you finally back into politics, Andy.

    But please be smart and don't reply to certain repetitive postings (believe me, it's useless:) ... since this topic has been discussed for enough times in this thread in the meanwhile.

    Those who believe that Lisbon & the EU are immaculate and perfect, are free to believe it. And those who just want to inform themselves, are always free to take a look HERE (as mentioned so often).
     
  11. johan neeskens

    Jan 14, 2004
    What chip on my shoulder? Is it or is it not a fact that the possible appointment of Blair as EU president and Milliband as foreign minister has gotten about a hundred times more British media coverage than the actual content of the Lisbon Treaty itself? It's a sorry state of affairs that the EU can't seem to manage to communicate their message, I'll give you that, but the response of the British media to the Blair rumours tells a story of its own as far as I'm concerned.

    I'm no Europhile btw. Whatever that means to start off with.
     
  12. johan neeskens

    Jan 14, 2004
    They're not perfect and deserve criticism. The grounds they are criticised on by the Europhobes however are downright ignorant. All it does is reflect their populist & nationalist agenda.
     
  13. ViscaBarca

    ViscaBarca Member

    Mar 26, 2004
    London
    democracy is a bitch, he?
    remind us Matt, how did your country go into an illegal, aggressive war again? did anyone have a veto? was there ever a 'geniune debate'? did anyone in power listen to the people on the ground? how many people actually voted for the people who took your country into war in the first place?
    funny, if it's Britain it's called a democracy, as soon as it's Europe it's suddenly undemocratic and helps no-one.
     
  14. Matt Clark

    Matt Clark Member

    Dec 19, 1999
    Liverpool
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Arf ... come on. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, old thing.

    No it's not. But even if it did, what's your point?

    What's that then?

    You could say precisely the same thing about the Euronuts - the grounds by which the EU and its machinations are praised (even right in this thread) are downright ignorant. All it does reflect is their unthinking acquiesence to institutional propaganda fed to them by the EU.

    Easy game, this.

    Nice one. Cartoon bluster is all this thread was missing. Cute. But meaningless.

    I'm no fan of the Iraq war, nor of the government that took us into it. But if all you've got left is attempting to make direct parallels between the democratic equity of the directly and popularly elected government of Great Britain and that of the EU apparatus which has imposed the Lisbon Treaty on us, then I shall proclaim this debate decided in my favour.

    Besides, your response entirely misses the point I was making in the excerpt of my post that you chose to quote.

    #fail
     
  15. johan neeskens

    Jan 14, 2004
    Matt he's right and you know it. People can't stop whingeing about the EU being undemocratic while in reality the system is very similar to that in many other democratic countries. You vote for a party, the parties who win get a deciding say, and put forward the prime minister. You may not like that system but undemocratic it is not. If the English and indeed the Europeans in general had voted for a right-wing majority in the European elections they could've stopped the Lisbon Treaty. But they didn't. There's no point in whingeing about it afterwards.
     
  16. Matt Clark

    Matt Clark Member

    Dec 19, 1999
    Liverpool
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Right about what? That the UK government's decision to go to war against Iraq was made in the face of large-scale opposition? Yes, sure. But as I said - irrelevant.

    Similar. Not the same. And the areas of difference happen to be the most significant in terms of a democratic deficit.

    I'm sorry, you appear to be suggesting that the European Parliament was in some way significant to the passage of the Lisbon Treaty from poor idea to poor ratified legislation. Must be a misunderstanding on my part, because no one's that stupid.
     
  17. benztown

    benztown Member+

    Jun 24, 2005
    Club:
    VfB Stuttgart
    Then you must love the Lisbon Treaty as it is the result of exactly that process. In the end, all 27 EU members supported it after lots of genuine compromises were reached. Why would any country sign this treaty when it thinks that it would harm the country? Obviously every European government out there believes that the treaty will benefit themselves, not just the EU institution.
     
  18. Matt Clark

    Matt Clark Member

    Dec 19, 1999
    Liverpool
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    You all appear to be channelling other people's views into mine. I've never once claimed the Lisbon Treaty harms a country (mine or anyone else's). My beef with the Lisbon Treaty is that it's nothing of anything and might as well not exist for all the genuine benefit it delivers to Europe or individual member states within Europe. It's too wishy-washy to "harm" anyone.

    I don't perceive any viable rationale for this idea. Nothing could be less obvious. At best, a small number of European governments who have acted as quasi-sponsors of the Treaty and it's previous incarnations will believe it benefits them - but is that the point? There seems to be a lot of swing here, between "the Lisbon Treaty is good for Europe" and "some countries believe the Lisbon Treaty is good for them". I've been through the strategic significance of the process that led to us being saddled with the Lisbon Treaty and that's entirely removed from whether or not this Treaty is of any value to the European project. It is, in fact, just a continuation of the norm: European legislation that protects the narrow strategic interests of a small subset of member states in the name of general progress.
     
  19. benztown

    benztown Member+

    Jun 24, 2005
    Club:
    VfB Stuttgart
    Then I don't understand what the commotion is all about. If some people want it while the others think that it doesn't matter at all, then by all means, let those who want it have it. This makes for such an easy bargaining chip...

    Well, that's because Europe hardly has any wide strategic interests that are agreed upon by everybody. So it's simply another compromise. And it is a practical thing to end stagnation in Europe where each of the 27 member states has vetoing power. So if anything, we'll see less horse trading from now on because the individual countries won't be in such a strong position anymore.
     
  20. Matt Clark

    Matt Clark Member

    Dec 19, 1999
    Liverpool
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Higher standards. Not making do. Not "taking the good (bad) with the bad (slightly worse)".

    Really? That's not what it says in the preamble to the Lisbon Treaty. Nor is that what you will hear if you speak to your average Euronut about why the EU in its present form is such a spiffy and exciting thing and in no way in need of a major kick up the arse.

    Yeah - a crap one. Having this is worse than having 27 members with vetoes.

    Now THIS I would love to see explained in more detail. That's quite simply fascinating logic.
     
  21. Prawn Sandwich

    Oct 1, 2003
    Bhutan

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