Thursday, February 21, 2008

European Parliament delivers two-fingered salute to the Republic.

For those who naively believe the result of the Republic of Ireland’s referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is of any importance whatsoever to the EUcrats:
From Ammendment 32 of the Corbett Report on the Lisbon Treaty debated on Wednesday:

Report A6-0013/2008

Richard Corbett, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo

Treaty of Lisbon

2007/2286(INI)

Motion for a resolution

Point -2 a – (before point 2, under the title "More democratic accountability")

Motion for a resolution Amendment
-2a. Undertakes to respect the outcome of the referendum in Ireland


A huge majority (499 to 129) of European MEPs have subsequently voted against the motion:

"The European Parliament undertakes to respect the outcome of the referendum in Ireland".

Of the Northern Ireland MEPS, Jim Allister and Bairbre de Brún stood on the side of democracy and voted "yes"; Jim Nicholson of the UUP, shamefully voted against the motion.

(Via England Expects)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even an Irish MEP failed to give the motion his support

http://www.libertas.org/content/view/245/1/

Anonymous said...

Where'd you get the info about Allister and Babs? England Expects only lists Nicholson - perverse.

O'Neill said...

I picked it up originally from the EU parliament site, you can either wade through umpteen ammendments theer or chdck Rebelman(!)'s comment here at Wed 9.44 PM.
http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?t=32018&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=24

Gawain Towler said...

Sorry about failing to list Allister and de Brun. Mea Culpa. You can see from my update thatthey are listed in the update on Amendment 34, Do you want a referendum

O'Neill said...

Yes

Anonymous said...

I cannot believe there is so little coverage of this! If they tried this 20 years ago there would be riots in the streets. What has become of us?

Anonymous said...

Caoimhin,

20 years ago. Margaret Thatcher. Single European Act. Riots?

Fergal Daly said...

Correct me if I'm wrong but the parliament has no choice. Adding this amendment would be a bit like be a bit like adding "Undertakes to acknowledge that grass is green".

I haven't looked for any notes on the debate but I'd imagine that that the argument against the amendment was that it was completely pointless.

So the story here is not that they voted not to respect it but that voted not to add a completely redundant piece of text to the report (granted that may also have been full of redundant bits of text).

Sounds like a bunch of people wasting their time and my money.

Fergal (who is voting No for more substantial reasons than this).

O'Neill said...

anonymous
I think Caoimhin was referring to the position in the Republic of Ireland as opposed to the UK.

Fergal
Sounds like a bunch of people wasting their time and my money.

My reading of it was that it was an attempt to bring the debate to the wider EU electorate as opposed to solely an internal ROI matter- a way of raising public awareness to the fact that the treaty has been steamrollered through every country with the exception of the ROI. So, yes, gesture politics, but I can understand why they did it.