Their case...
We have asked commentators across Europe to put down their thoughts on why the people should be allowed to have their say on the revised EU Constitution. Click on the links below to read their articles:
Ruth Lea: "Why there must be a referendum" (IWR Mass lobby speech)
Ruth Lea, Director of Global Vision.
Roger Cole: "Irish must vote down Renamed EU Constitution" (IWR Mass lobby speech)
Roger Cole, Chair of Peace & Neutrality Alliance.
David Heathcoat-Amory: "Mass lobby speech: 'EU Treaty will bind us like a constitution"
David Heathcoat-Amory, Conservative MP for Wells.
Max Andersson: "The EU does not need a constitution to deal with global warming"
Max Andersson is a Green Party Member of the Swedish Parliament.
Harry van Bommel: "The future of the EU depends on the will of the people"
Harry van Bommel is a Dutch Socialist Party MP, responsible for European and foreign affairs, development, and general affairs.
Bill Emmott: "Gordon Brown should have the courage to call a referendum and campaign for a yes"
Bill Emmott was editor of the Economist from 1993 until 2006 and author of six books.
Simon Jenkins: "This broken promise is part of a wider fear of democracy"
Simon Jenkins is an award-winning journalist and author who writes columns for the Guardian.
Roland Vaubel: "A treaty of truly constitutional significance"
Roland Vaubel is a Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim, Germany, and a member of the European Constitutional Group.
Lea: Why there must be a referendum
The case for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is quite simple. We were promised a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty by the Labour Party in the 2005 Election Manifesto – and indeed by the Lib Dems. The Lisbon Treaty is, in all but name, the Constitutional Treaty. Many leading continental politicians and analysts have said this. For example, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel said “The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact.” Therefore, we should have a referendum.
There are two sets of arguments that seem to be used for denying us our right.
The first is that the Lisbon Treaty is fundamentally different from the Constitution – well no, see above. Additionally the Government claims that it has negotiated the “red lines” which will uniquely preserve Britain’s national interests. These “red lines” cover the Charter of Fundamental Rights, Foreign and Defence Policy, and Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters. But we know that these red lines are little better than red herrings, mere distractions from the real significance of the Treaty. And the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee (ESC) Reports have comprehensively shown that the red lines are most unlikely to be effective in protecting the UK from EU intervention in these areas - the red lines will leak like sieves.
The second is that referendums are not British. Parliamentary Democracy is British. But the Labour Government has held an unprecedented number of referendums since 1997. And they promised a referendum in their Manifesto on this issue.
The Labour Government should not renege on its promise to give us a referendum on the Treaty, which is of such huge significance & importance. All our polling shows that a huge majority of people want one. Global Vision’s last poll showed 74% in favour, 17% not in favour and 10% didn’t know.
The main provisions of the Treaty signify an awesome transfer of power from national parliaments to the centralised institutions of the EU. The EU’s powers will be significantly increased: the Charter of Fundamental Rights will become legally binding; the EU’s scope in shaping common foreign & defence policy will be hugely extended; police and judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters will cease to be intergovernmental and becomes a mainstream competence; there will be the creation of the notion of “shared competences” across a wide range of issues (including social policy, the environment, transport etc), where the EU can legislate as it wishes, restricting the scope of the member states to unilaterally do so.
The Lisbon Treaty is, of course, but the latest treaty in the progressive evolution of the EU as a sovereign power, with increasing political and economic integration:
• From the Treaty of Paris in 1951 (which created the European Coal and Steel Community).
• Through the 1957 Treaty of Rome (which created the European Economic Community)
• And the 1986 Single European Act.
• And the crucial 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union.
• And, more recently, the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty & the 2001 Nice Treaty.
• And now the Lisbon Treaty which potentially all but completes the building blocks for full political and economic union.
Suffice to say the EU is a very different organisation from the EEC this country joined in 1973 and voted on in 1975. The cumulative impact of these Treaties amounts to a fundamental shift in the nature of the EU & our relationship with it. Surely this is another reason for letting the British electorate a chance to have a vote on the EU.
But, in the meantime, we must continue to embarrass Gordon Brown. If he were a man of honour he would of course give us our referendum. If he does not give us our referendum, he is not a man of honour.
Ruth Lea is the Director of Global Vision.
Cole: Irish must vote down Renamed EU Constitution
I would like to the ‘I Want a Referendum’ group for inviting me to speak today and I wish you all the best in seeking the right to have a referendum on the Renamed EU Constitution (the Lisbon Treaty).
As Chair of the Peace & Neutrality Alliance and Convenor of the Campaign Against the EU Constitution in 2005, my purpose was to explain why were campaigning for a no vote in Ireland. Since then a great deal has happened, not least that the French and Dutch people voted in fair and free referendums to reject the EU Constitution. That should have been the end of it, however PANA and the CAEUC decided not to disband because we had more than a sneaking suspicion that it was not over.
EU elites did, in fact, continue to labour away in Brussels and reintroduced the Constitution under a new name: the Lisbon Treaty. To quote the German Chancellor: “ The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact.”
The EU elite, however, knew full well that if they asked the French or the Dutch to vote again even more would vote no. If they asked the British, the no vote would have been massive, well over 70%. So they decided to solve the problem by not asking the peoples of the EU. There was just one little problem, the Irish.
There always have been Irish people who wanted Irish Independence, Irish Democracy and Irish Neutrality. The Peace & Neutrality Alliance belongs to a tradition that goes back over two hundred years to Wolfe Tone. When we achieved our Independence we adopted our own written Constitution that includes Article six that states that all power derives from the people. So that when power is transferred from the people to the EU and its institutions, the people have to be asked first by way of a referendum.
The Peace & Neutrality Alliance seeks a Partnership Europe, a Partnership of Independent, Democratic States, and legal equals, without a military dimension. We believe this is a better vision, more reflective of what the people of the EU actually want than the advocates of the Renamed EU Constitution (the Lisbon Treaty). They are very clear about what they want and let me give you a few quotes:
“Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of Empire. We have the dimensions of Empire.” President of the EU Commission, Jose Barosso speaking on the Lisbon treaty in Strasburg 10/7/07
“Are we all clear that we want to build something that can aspire to be world power?” former President of the EU Commission, Romano Prodi speaking to the EU Parliament 13/2/01
“Within the EU itself, we will have moved closer to establishing a common European Army" German Chancellor Merkel speaking on the treaty 23/3/2007 Bild
So we know what they want and PANA is opposed to a European Superstate. On one level it is just another battle in a long history of battles for Irish Independence. On another level however it is much more than that. It is a European battle fought on Irish soil. A battle fought between those people, whether they are Irish, British, French, Dutch or other people throughout Europe that want a Partnership Europe, a democratic Europe and those that want an Imperial Europe. It is a battle we must win, not for the Irish people, but all the people throughout Europe that believe in democracy. Our victory would be a victory for the British people, for the Dutch people and the French people and all the people throughout Europe and we cannot and will not win without your help. This is your battle. Do not stand idly and watch. Help us win in every way you can.
Roger Cole is the Chair of Peace & Neutrality Alliance, Ireland.
Heathcoat-Amory: EU Treaty will bind us like a constitution
In Parliament we are debating the Treaty of Lisbon, but it is also the Treaty of Britain. For the first time in our history we are getting a written constitution, but we didn’t draw it up.
This Treaty was drawn up by others, but it will bind us like a constitution. Amongst other things it: defines and limits the powers of the national parliament; declares the supremacy of EU law over national law; gives the EU the exclusive right to conclude international agreements; asserts a common policy on criminal justice, immigration and asylum; creates a permanent supranational EU President, foreign minister and supreme court.
And if there are disputes in future about the interpretation of the Treaty or the powers of the EU, the deciding body will be the European Court of Justice which, under Treaty law (clause 9), will be required to practice ‘mutual sincere cooperation’ with the other institutions of the EU. All this, and much more, is in the 300 pages of treaty text. You don’t need to read it all to understand what is going on. It’s actually very simple. This is about transferring the power to make laws from those you elect and can get rid of to those who you do not elect and cannot get rid of.
It’s therefore about democracy, which is the highest ideal in politics.
The Government says it’s about efficiency and the ability of the EU to legislate with 27 members. But the EU has enlarged to 27 members under the existing rules and there has been no gridlock or paralysis. Who ever complained that the EU was not passing enough laws and regulations? The House of Commons receives over a thousand new EU proposals each year – far more than we can debate or scrutinise properly, even if we could stop them. A bit of EU paralysis would be welcome.
If the Government was interested in EU efficiency, they might have started by cleaning up the EU budget which has failed the audit test for the past 12 years. If the EU was a company run like that, the directors would long ago have been removed or sent to prison.
So this Treaty was never about reform; it was about getting more powers for the EU institutions. It is therefore about who governs us. British history can be seen as a long struggle to bring powers under the control of people we elect. Many wars have been fought, and much blood has been spilt to achieve and defend this. It is what self government means.
Now we are being invited to give it away. Britain had an Empire once and gave those countries self-government. The former colonies are now more independent than the mother country. It is Britain that has become the colony, the vassal state. History has no stranger irony.
I believe parliament cannot divest itself of these powers. They are ultimately not our powers, as MPs; they are your powers. That is why you were promised a referendum. All the political parties promised a referendum on the Treaty in their manifestos before the last election. David Cameron has just restated that he will keep that promise. If parties break their word on issues of this importance they will deserve the contempt of the electorate.
This campaign for a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon should be supported by all those who believe in liberty, democracy and the principle of self-government. You have my total support.
David Heathcoat-Amory is the Conservative MP for Wells.
Andersson: The EU does not need a constitution to deal with global warming
Supporters of the Lisbon Treaty, which is basically a renamed version of the EU-Constitution, have sought to promote it as a means that would allow the EU to ‘take action’ against climate change. However, this is a gross mischaracterization of the text. Anyone who bothers to read the Treaty will find that it does not provide the EU with any new powers to address climate change. Some words have been added to article 174, but no new powers. For those who, like me, are very worried about climate change and seek to deal with it in an effective manner, a thorough examination of the EU’s record on the environment will expose a litany of failed policies. The EU does not need a constitution to fight global warming – it needs the political will to develop policies that work, but that has nothing to do with the Lisbon Treaty.
Yet the promotion of global warming policies is but one of the inconsistencies and half-truths propagated by EU leaders in their efforts to mislead the public and bypass democratic processes for ratification. It is quite disappointing to find that Member States are not allowing their citizens to consider and evaluate any terms of the revived Constitution for themselves. It seems as if the political elites are afraid that if they let the people have a say in the future of the EU, they are not going to like what they will hear. That is certainly the case in Sweden. Citizens across Europe, with Ireland as the only notable exception, are being denied a voice as Government officials refuse to subscribe to the democratic principles supposedly enshrined in the European Union. The distance between EU leaders and their 490 million constituents will only continue to increase if citizens do not make their voices heard.
I hope that citizens of the UK will recognize the undemocratic nature of this process and call upon their leaders to act on the promise to hold a referendum. The EU must be held accountable for its mistakes and failed policies and it is up to its citizens to take up the challenge by protecting their fundamental right to vote.
The world is slowly waking up to the threat of the climate change, but we have waited far too long and some of the changes may be difficult to reverse. Let us not make the same mistake about the EU.
Max Andersson is a Green Party Member of the Swedish Parliament.
van Bommel: The future of the EU depends on the will of the people
How long can Europe continue to ignore the voice of its citizens? By denying them the right to vote on important decisions regarding the role and power of the European Union, our leaders subvert the basic democratic principles upon which the EU was originally founded. Polls reveal overwhelming numbers of citizens across Europe who want to have a say in the future of their respective states and as members of the EU. In the Netherlands, the latest poll shows that 75 percent of citizens of EU member states want a referendum on any new treaty that grants more powers to the EU.
The UK, like the Netherlands, should give its citizens the right to participate in the discussion of the EU and uphold its commitment to democratic values. I have campaigned for a referendum and proposed the “initiative law,” a measure which would require a referendum to be called under Dutch law. However, this legislative effort to uphold the will of the people has been met with dishonesty and hypocrisy by politicians. I believe that this issue is a question of principle. The Dutch citizen has a right to know who is responsible for the fact that there won’t be a referendum and given an explanation as to why.
UK citizens must also call upon their government to listen to its people and adhere to previous commitments. Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised to hold a referendum on the EU constitution. As the Lisbon Treaty made only minor reforms, retaining 95 percent of the original constitution which my country and France had voted against in 2005, Brown should be held to his word and allow his citizens to have their say. I encourage citizens of the UK to demand a referendum and call upon their government leaders to keep their promise.
As I continue to struggle for a referendum in which Dutch citizens will have their say, I support similar efforts across Europe. The European Union cannot exist without the input and support of its member states’ citizenry. There is no future for the EU without the will and consent of the people.
Harry van Bommel is a Dutch Socialist Party MP, responsible for European and foreign affairs, development, and general affairs.
Emmott: Gordon Brown should have courage to call referendum and campaign for a yes
The case for a referendum on the EU’s new treaty is stronger in all the other member countries of the Union than in Britain, especially the 10 that held or planned to hold a referendum for the previous version of the treaty (sorry, constitution). The treaty has not changed substantially between that version and this one: it still transfers power from member states to the EU, principally through the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the extension of majority voting in justice and home affairs though also, for some countries, because of the change in the voting system itself. So if a referendum was justified before, it must be justified now.
The Labour Party promised a referendum and is now being seen to break that promise on what seems to most people to be a technicality. Ah, all constitutional matters are technicalities, in a sense, I hear you say, but they are no less important for that. Indeed they are, which is why I doubt that Labour’s opt-outs provide a real get-out..
There is plenty of room to doubt whether the opt-out from the Charter is really watertight: it will depend on what the European Court decides as and when someone tries to challenge it in a case. It seems to me pretty strange anyway to opt out of something that is supposedly fundamental both to European citizens’ rights and to the European Union itself: a currency is just a policy choice, but rights are rather basic. European judges may well feel the same way. My suspicion is that within a decade Britain will have dropped both of the opt-outs, either because it is forced to or because a government chooses to. Neither looks tenable. Will there be a referendum then? I doubt it. It will be a transfer of power by stealth—exactly the sort of thing that erodes trust in politics and faith in the European project..
By the way, I would favour our own bill of rights, amid our own written constitution, and a referendum on that. Any substantial constitutional change should be ratified by referendum, it seems to me: you can’t have representative institutions legislating over their own powers.
That is also why I favour referendums on European powers—not because I am against Europe, nor indeed most of the provisions of the new treaty, but for reasons of constitutional principle..
I would rather see Gordon Brown and Labour have the courage of their convictions, hold a referendum and campaign vigorously to win it. They’ve got the Tories on the run, haven’t they?
Bill Emmott was editor of the Economist from 1993 until 2006 and author of six books.
Jenkins: This broken promise is part of a wider fear of democracy
By refusing to honour the pledge to hold a vote on EU reform, Brown is joining a collective flight from faith in popular will.
It may be indelicate to repeat what Tony Blair and Gordon Brown said in 2005 on the European constitution, but it was: "We shall put it to the British people in a referendum, and campaign wholeheartedly for a yes vote." When asked about a no vote they replied in unison that, "You cannot have a rejection of the treaty [sic] and then bring it back with a few amendments and say we will have another go." A governmental structure for the new Europe was too important for fudging. Blair proclaimed and Brown agreed: "Let the people have the final say."
Yet Gordon Brown, David Miliband and their court of lobbyists and commentators are wriggling, squirming, spinning, "re-interpreting" and forgetting. They have stood words on their head and pushed them up every orifice. No intellectual self-abuse is too great if it can cheat the voters of what was promised. Referendum denial is not political ethics for slow learners. In this case it is plain wrong.
Brown says he has "opt-outs", but these are irrelevant to the referendum as the same opt-outs applied in 2005. Miliband says the new treaty is "completely different" from the 2005 one, but no observer or other European leader agrees. The treaty has the same 250 clauses (all but 10 identical) and the same 63,000 words as the constitution. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, admitted that the name change was simply to give British ministers squirm room.
I am in favour of remaining within the European treaty structure, albeit not under the super-state umbrella conceived by Jacques Delors in the 1980s and Giscard d'Estaing in the 1990s, repeated all but verbatim in the reform treaty. With its vacuous preamble and mostly unreadable provisions, the treaty is a child of the old Europe. It frees the policy-making apparatus of over 50 veto areas, in human rights (mostly union rights), collective bargaining, working hours, social policy, transport, energy and the environment - and this just when national governments are struggling to liberate themselves from such regulation.
The one true check on the rampant self-aggrandisement of EU bureaucracy has come not from Europe's political elite but from ordinary voters. It has come in referendums and from governments fearing electoral unpopularity. Now even that accountability is to be denied. If people cannot decide how they are to be ruled, why should they obey the rulers? It is a question that always ends in tears.
Simon Jenkins is an award-winning journalist and author who writes columns for the Guardian. This comment piece was published in the Guardian on October 24, 2007. Click here to access the full piece.
Vaubel: A treaty of truly constitutional significance
I believe that Gordon Brown or Parliament ought to call a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because, unlike the previous treaty amendments, this treaty is of truly constitutional significance. For the first time ever, it lowers the upper majority threshold in the Council and extends the general empowering clause from common market matters to all fields of EU policy.
The empowering clause enables the Council to legislate even if the treaty “has not provided the necessary powers” (TEC Art. 308). The upper majority threshold in the Council is to be lowered from 73.9 per cent to 65 per cent. Both changes are bound to have far-reaching consequences – especially for the UK. The lowering of the majority requirement would make it far more difficult for the UK to assemble a blocking minority against unwelcome Council legislation, as it did with the Temporary Workers Directive. When the European Commission proposed it in 2002, the UK assembled a coalition of four countries which commanded a blocking minority of 30 per cent. If the majority requirement had been as low as 65 per cent in 2002, the proposal would have gone through without difficulty.
Under the new scheme, there would also be a reallocation of voting weights. The votes of the member states would be weighted by the size of their populations, which would further weaken the power of the anti-regulation coalition: their combined voting weight in the Council of 27 countries would drop from 21.2 per cent to 20.5 per cent. The proper place for population (or electoral) weights is not the Council but the European Parliament. But there the small countries are grossly over-represented, and the European Parliamentarians have decided that they will not remove the disproportionality.
If the new voting procedure is ratified now, the lowering of the threshold will be irreversible. A single member state – say, Belgium or Luxembourg – could prevent the others from returning to a higher majority requirement. Must the voting threshold be lowered to preserve the decision-making capacity of the Council in the wake of the Eastern enlargement? The voting record of the Council shows that the share of contested decisions has declined since the enlargement. Why not postpone the final decision about the voting regime until 2016? If the member states wait and see how the Eastern enlargement works out, their decision will be better informed and more appropriate.
Roland Vaubel is a Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim, Germany, and a member of the European Constitutional Group.
This is a treaty of truly constitutional significance
