Lisbon Reform Treaty blog
June 24, 2008
Time to reflect and move on
"The majority of Irish voted choose to reject the Treaty. That decision must be respected," Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore has said.
"We campaigned vigorously for a yes vote, because we believed the treaty was an important step forward in creating a progressive and democratic social Europe.
"The Irish vote must be seen as reflective not just of an Irish problem but a broader failure of the European Union to win the hearts and the minds of people of Europe.
"We must be given an opportunity to reflect on the outcome. It will take time to understand what the real concerns are and how they can be addressed. I do not pretend to have all the answers today; we do need a period of reflection."
You can see more of what Eamon told the Dáil in the accompanying video.
We would like to take this opportunity thank everyone who worked on the campaign from distributing leaflets, to putting up posters and canvassing, whatever your level of participation it is appreciated.
We would also like to thank those of you who took the time to comment on our Lisbon blog, on You Tube and on Flickr providing some lively debates.
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June 11, 2008
Public Services and Lisbon - the facts not the codology
Ensuring Legal Certainty, Local Autonomy and Citizen's Rights
High quality public services, accessible to all, are at the heart of the European vision of a well-run society. If the EU can get public services right, it will offer a powerful example of what a Citizen's Europe can mean in practice for people.
It is the view of the Labour Party and our sister parties across Europe that public services must answer to the logic of the public interest, not of the free market. Public authorities, at national, regional or local level, must be free to organise public services in their own way for citizens. But we need a clear legal framework defining the special relationship between the provision of public services and Europe's internal market rules. Over the past seven years of negotiations Labour and our allies have succeeded in achieving this in the Lisbon Treaty.
The current Treaties confirm that the Member States are solely responsible for key areas like health and education and expressly forbid EU harmonisation of these sectors (Arts. 149 and 152). The European Court of Justice has repeatedly found that public services provided by or paid for by the State are not covered by EU internal market rules. Again, Lisbon does not change this. In fact, Lisbon places new obligations on the EU to respect 'essential State functions' and there is a new clause stating that any EU-negotiated international trade agreements shall not affect the delimitation of competences between the EU and the Member States nor lead to harmonisation, for example in health and education, where the treaties already exclude such harmonisation (Art.188c).
However the ECJ has found that in some circumstances public services with a 'commercial element', like transport or postal services, can be subject to internal market rules. These circumstances however are not always clear. In some cases, social considerations supersede internal market rules, but in others, internal market rules can apply. The absence of legal clarity in these cases has led to calls for legislation in order to safeguard universal public service delivery. But the adoption of such an EU law isn't possible right now as there is no legal base for it in the current Treaties.
Consequently the Party of European Socialists and the Labour Party helped negotiate the incorporation of the legal base needed which is now incorporated in Article 14 & Protocol 26. Turning logic on its head the NO campaigners have chosen to misrepresent these new provisions as a threat to public services. Sinn Fein do this, even though their own political Group in the EP have supported the demand for these provisions.
Lisbon would in fact enable the adoption of EU legislation, by MEPs and national Ministers, setting out the principles and conditions necessary for the commissioning, funding and provision of public services, while protocol number 26 sets out the principles and values that would underpin such legislation such as: universal access; user rights, preferences and needs; high quality; affordability; and safety. The protocol goes on to say incidentally that the Treaties would not affect in any way the competence of the member states to provide public services. The Charter of Fundamental Rights, also opposed by Sinn Fein, reinforces the citizen's right to access public services, specifically education, social services, and healthcare.
These new provisions have been welcomed by the European Public Service Union representing over 8 million workers in 200 unions from 36 countries. The European Public Health Alliance, the European Trade Union Council for Education, the European Anti-Poverty Network, the European Disability Federation, the European Women's Lobby, Mental Health Europa, and the European Trade Union Confederation, have also welcomed the new provisions as a significant step forward.
The long-standing treaty provisions which seek to prevent distortion of competition, and which has been vital for Ireland's economic survival in the EU are also being misconstrued. These provisions, reiterated in Lisbon, are primarily aimed at ensuring companies cannot abuse monopoly positions or establish cartels. They have been used successfully by the EU in recent years to fine offending firms over €5 billion. In contrast BUPA failed to force the Irish government to abandon risk equalization in the Irish health insurance market using these provisions; a demonstration that we retain our right to set social standards in this area of health cover. But we cannot leave these matters to the vagaries of the courts, we need certainty, hence the new Lisbon provisions referred to.
The allegation that the EU is pushing privatisation is also a myth. Since the Treaty of Rome the EU is prohibited from advocating either privatisation or nationalisation. This 'neutrality' clause, Article 295, is unchanged by Lisbon. For instance EU rules did not force the Irish government to privatise Aer Lingus as the Commission has confirmed to me in writing. On the other hand the recent nationalisation of the Northern Rock bank by the UK government was entirely compliant with EU rules.
That is not to dispute that there are politicians and others who promote privatisation. However it is a step too far to claim that the EU institutions are obliged to achieve that purpose. It was not so in the time of Jacques Delors, it is not so now, and it will not be so with Lisbon.
Finally, to demonstrate how the new Lisbon provisions can be developed, the Labour Party has produced a draft European Regulation. If we succeed in having Lisbon ratified the next political task will be to campaign to have this regulation implemented by the Member State governments. If Lisbon is not passed we will have to start rolling the stone back up the hill all over again. With luck we might get back to where we are now in 10 years time, long after Sinn Fein has faded from the scene, but too late for millions of our citizens to benefit.
Proinsias De Rossa, Labour MEP for Dublin and one of the 200 parliamentarians who the drafted the original European Constitution in 2003.
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June 10, 2008
Lisbon - a Citizen's Treaty that will further democratise the EU - Gilmore
Speaking after the Labour Party's final press conference before the eve-of-vote moratorium in broadcasting coverage, the Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore said he accepted that the Lisbon Reform Treaty is a complex document that doesn't lend itself to simple explanation.
"However," he said, "there is now sufficient information available to the public to allow voters to make an informed choice on Thursday."
There are a number of very good reasons why working people should vote 'Yes' tomorrow.
- The Charter of Fundamental Rights will become part of the European Union Treaties and will, for the first time, make it a basic part of the EU that working people will have "the right to negotiate and conclude collective agreements at the appropriate levels and, in cases of conflicts of interest, to take collective action to defend their interests, including strike action"
- In addition, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, inserts in the EU Treaties, a range of rights for workers, including rights to information and consultation; protection against unfair dismissal; fair and just working conditions; and entitlement to social security and social assistance.
- The Treaty contains a "social clause" whereby social issues, such as the promotion of a high level of employment, adequate social protection and the fight against social exclusion must be taken into account when the EU is defining and implementing all policies.
- The Lisbon Treaty will strengthen people's rights to Public Services. It sets down a legal basis for legislating on public services, and includes a specific protocol on public services. In addition the Charter unequivocally gives citizen rights of access to public services.
You can see clips from the final press conference on our You Tube channel with contributions from Eamon as well as from our Spokesperson on Europe and Director of Elections, Deputy Joe Costello and our MEP for Dublin Proinsias De Rossa. You can also read Eamon and Joe's statements in our media centre as well as view photographs from the press conference on Flickr.
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Proinsias De Rossa explains why he is voting Yes
In the video Proinsias De Rossa MEP explains why he is voting yes. He says: "The Lisbon Reform Treaty provides a legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights which places new obligations on the European Union to resepct the rights of European citizens.
"It is important that people are not misled by believing that a negative vote means that the EU is going to sit down and renegotiate a better treaty for working people in Ireland or for those who need a social Europe.
"The reality is the Lisbon Treaty was negotiated at a time when the Social Democrats were in the majority in the EU. We had 11 out of 15 members States; now we have the situation where 17 of the member States are centre-right out of 27 so the balance is completely changed.
"It is far more likely we will lose things like the Charter of Fundamental Rights and other important advances if we vote no."
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June 09, 2008
Ruairi Quinn speaking on why he is voting Yes to Lisbon
Today's video features Ruairi Quinn TD who explains why he is voting yes to Lisbon this Thursday. You can see more of our videos on our You Tube channel.
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June 05, 2008
De Rossa's tour calling for a Yes vote
MEP Proinsias De Rossa with Cllr Keith Martin in Westport
Over the last couple of weeks Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa has been taking part in a tour of the country promoting a Yes vote in the Lisbon Treaty. During the 1000 km tour Proinsias made stops in Kilkenny where he met with Mayor Marie Fitzpatrick, in Limerick where he met with Cllr Joe Leddin, in Sligo with Cllr Jim McGarry and Cllr Veronica Cawley, in Westport with Cllr Keith Martin and in Cork with Deputy Kathleen Lynch.
You can see more photographs from the various stops on our Flickr photostream as well as other images from our Yes to Lisbon campaign.
After his whistle-stop tour Proinsias was back in Dublin today to host a Labour Party press conference on the Lisbon Treaty and Young People saying the Charter of Fundamental Rights represented a considerable step forward in the protection of the rights of young people.
You can read his full statement from the press conference in our media centre.
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June 04, 2008
Deputy Joe Costello on why you should vote yes
Deputy Joe Costello, Labour Spokesperson on Europe, on why you should vote Yes to Lisbon.
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May 28, 2008
Joan Burton speaking on why she is voting Yes
"A lot of the rights we enjoy as women such as equal pay, maternity leave have come from European developments since we joined the European Union as far back as 1973," explains the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Joan Burton TD in the accompanying video where she explains why she is voting yes to the Lisbon Reform Treaty.
You can read more from Joan's website on why she believes women should vote yes to Lisbon as well as the blog post from Sunday's poster launch with some of our women councillors and TDs.
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