Irish voters tore up the European Union bureaucrat’s blueprint for the future yesterday in a dramatic and decisive rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.
In a significant setback for EU bureaucrats' efforts to give themselves more power over EU member countries, last Thursday in a national referendum Irish voters decisively rejected a revised EU "Lisbon Treaty" designed to change the way the bloc governs itself and presents itself to the world.
Michael Martin, the Irish minister of foreign affairs, acknowledged with understatement: “Perhaps there is a disconnect between the European institution and its people that we need to reflect on.”
I believe the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty is welcome news, as I wrote earlier this week.
It means further centralization of EU power at its Brussels headquarters has limited support among the people of Europe. Over the years, Brussels bureaucrats have grown more powerful, and also more corrupt and unaccountable. The European liberal political elites tried to get the Lisbon Treaty adopted without national voting, but fortunately Irish law requires a national vote on all major treaties.
Already Rejected in 2004
In 2004 the insiders at the EU came up with a "constitution" so at variance with what average Europeans thought that it was overwhelmingly rejected by national votes in the Netherlands and France. With the prospect of further popular rejections, attempts at ratification ended.
But the Brussels bureaucrats' attitude was "to Hell with the voters."
In October 2007, EU leaders tried an end run and finalized this new Treaty of Lisbon which contained 90% of the rejected 2004 constitution, without allowing popular votes on it in individual nations. So much for democracy in the EU. These elites believe that they know better than the 500 million people they oversee. They are openly contemptuous of the democratic process and preferences of the people of Europe. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Irish, like the Dutch and French before them, said 'No.'"
Ireland Should Be Praised
Ireland is the only country in the European Union to put the pact to a referendum. The other member states are approving it through their parliaments and 18 have backed it so far, but European Union rules require unanimous support for the treaty to come into effect. Now it appears to be dead in its present form.
The Times of London summed up the EU defeat: "In one sense Ireland's rejection of the treaty was a function of simple self-interest. Its days as a major recipient of EU funds are over, but it still ranks as a small state whose influence the treaty would dilute with majority voting by ministers and an end to the rotating presidency. But the 'no' vote matters less for what it says about Ireland than about the treaty itself - an unsubtle reworking of the constitution thrown out by French and Dutch voters three years ago. It is overlong, absurdly complex and deliberately opaque. It defies the general reader to pay attention to its contents, but when Irish voters were forced to, they concluded, rightly, that any streamlining of the Brussels bureaucracy that it might achieve would come at too high a price in national sovereignty."
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