The Nice treaty is a treaty just passed in the European Union to allow 12 applicant member states to join the Union. The treaty required all of the member states to ratify it before it was passed. Ireland was the only country constitutionally obliged to have a referendum on it. The first referendum took place in 2001, which was voted no. This year, the Irish government called for a second referendum (somebody pass the democracy) which turned out to be a yes.

Why? Because the government allocated �500 million to a Yes to Nice campaign and kept all the No propoganda off the TV. Come on, people, 500 million?! We could have built a hospital or two, or raised the amount of aid given to 0.7% of the GNP (asked by of all European countries, but we're in this falsified economic downturn supposedly so we give something like 0.4%).

If you bothered to read that, you may wonder why we had to have a referendum. It's because the treaty does a lot more than expand Europe. In fact, this treaty isn't even necessary to expand Europe. The D�il (House of Commons or whatever they are in your country) said that if the people voted No to the treaty, that it would be a No to Nice and a Yes to expansion, which every No voter welcomed.

This treaty does:
- Militarises us. It is a violation of our constitution (we are militarily neutral which is why we got a referendum) but the treaty puts military matters into the EU hands.

- Makes an undemocratic share of power proportionate to population size. France, Britain, and Germany will have twice as much power while Ireland gets a measly 2.02%. And 1/4 of the time we won't even have a commissioner representing us.

- This is carefully worded so they don't say it but Europe is going to become one big superpower. Look at the signs: The power is population divided as if we were all one big country and, quote:

quote:

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The European Union with 378 million people is already larger than the United States in terms of population. It remains substantially smaller in term of GDP ($7,894.5 billion compared to $10,124.8 billion) and has just one-third the U.S. landmass, according to EU figures. The addition of the new countries will likely reduce the average income in the EU. But the hope is that the new countries will grow richer from ready access to Western European markets in the short run and that ultimately the entire continent will become more prosperous through unified markets.
http://www.forbes.com/2002/10/21/1021topnews.html

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This treaty does a lot of other things that I can't remember. Oh yeah, and the EU can right now legally expand by 5 countries, but after that we could just get another treaty to allow the 6 countries to join without having to mess with military might. And also, very few people knew that there would be expansion even if we voted no because it got about 20 seconds on the news and didn't really explain it well. Lastly, the Yes side are trying to confuse the people with the exact same arguments the no side are using (the Labour Party signs say Secure Irelands Neutrality, Vote Yes). That makes about as much sense as a sign saying Purple Monkey Dishwasher. Damnit my country sucks.

Well said

http://www.lifeisannoying.com/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=Politics;action=display;num=1035136703

grasshopa

I agree that the methods you refere to stink, but do you really believe that the countries who are now enabled to join, would be better off on their own, as som kind of second class Europeans?!

Communication is only possible between equals!

Ewige Blumenkraft! FoxLeonard

[This message has been edited by FoxLeonard (edited 10-21-2002).]

FoxLeonard, we would expand without the Nice treaty. Everyone is for expansion undoubtfully, as am I. What pisses me off the most is that in the time it took for two referendums to take place we could have probably had the 5 countries in and be ratifying an agreement to let the other 6 countries in by now.

"purple monkey diswasher"! i love it! thats great. im going to make shirts that say that and add them to my webstore( http://www.cafepress.com/pirateport as if anyone really cares...)

but anyway i agree with you that your referendum was bullshit. it was pointless and it went against your constitution and militerized you, thats bullshit. especially with the way it was run with the blatantly false advertisements and what not. that really sucks dude, but aside from bitching about it what can you really do? if theres nothing else you can do whats the point of bitching... but wait that would make most of the posts in politics kinda pointless(including my own) wouldn't it? by anyway seriously all i can say is "ehhh, what are you going to do?"

You could do that but you'd probably get sued by The Simpsons

The 2 main oppositions to all of this are indymedia.ie and irishantiwar.org, parties include the green party, sinn f�in, and the nationalist socialist party, none of them are particularly popular.

i believe i missed that episode which is apretty rare thing cause i have most of them on tape. and i would image that those parties would be the mosst popular ones...

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Originally posted by grasshopa:
Everyone is for expansion undoubtfully, as am I.

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Does this include Turkey? Is there an Azerbaijani in your future?

Nox

quote:

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Originally posted by grasshopa:
FoxLeonard, we would expand without the Nice treaty. Everyone is for expansion undoubtfully, as am I. What pisses me off the most is that in the time it took for two referendums to take place we could have probably had the 5 countries in and be ratifying an agreement to let the other 6 countries in by now.

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grasshopa!

Then we are in total agreement!

Unfortunately there are organisations and (groups of) political parties, who are against the expansion of the EU. They often critizise EU�s fumblings, unnecessary delays and undemocrating proceedings, and rightfully so, one would think. But their critisism is in reality selective and aimed at swinging the public oppinion for other purposes. In this case the purpose is to put an end to the expansion of the EU.

But not to the EU! They just want the EU to be a western Europe, elitist United States of Europe. They are the ones who do all and everything to keep the EU decisions "out of harms way" from the peoples of Europe. They are the ones who, among other things, succeeded in lobbying for the new version of Festung Europa (Fortress Europe); closing the EU borders (the way the Nazis also would have done...). they are the ones who managed to connect military matters to the Nice treaty etc...

In the case of expansion they managed to significantly slow down the process, but they failed to stop it. And I�m rather proud to say that Sweden�s Prime Minister Persson was the one who came up with the "surprise compromise" that was agreed on.

FoxLeonard

[This message has been edited by FoxLeonard (edited 10-27-2002).]

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Originally posted by Nox:
Does this include Turkey? Is there an Azerbaijani in your future?

Nox

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I can�t answer for grasshopa, but...

In Swedens book, YES!

And in this case I happen to support my government!

FoxLeonard