Cowen should respect treaty vote and cry halt to ratification process

BARRY WALSH (Letters, June 30) misrepresents calls on EU member states to halt the continued ratification of the Lisbon Treaty as us dictating to them.

This is nothing but an attempt to stifle the objections of democrats.

According to the EU’s own rules, Lisbon cannot come into force unless it is ratified by all 27 member states. The treaty, therefore, is legally dead.

This was supported by the Polish president recently when he explained there was no point in him signing the treaty following the Irish no.

All democrats and those governed by EU rules are duty-bound to call for a halt to the continued ratification by other member states.

Given how the rejection of the treaty by any country should mean it is dead, supporting or opposing continued ratification became the ultimate test of whether Irish politicians actually respect the people’s decision. For all his lip-service about “respecting” the people’s verdict, Brian Cowen’s failure to call for a halt to the ratification process so far has also been a failure to uphold our referendum result. This is the response of an anti-democrat.

Could Mr Cowen’s aim be to bring about a situation whereby 26 member states will have have ratified it (mostly in parliament) and then try to force a yes vote by the Irish electorate in a referendum re-run? This would be a total denial of democracy.

Would Barry Walsh and the rest of Fine Gael also silence our criticism of the ratification of Lisbon by parliaments in other EU member states?

While I would ordinarily not object to parliamentary ratification, it is incumbent on all democrats to denounce it where it has been specifically used to deny the people the right to exercise the franchise in referendums. This was most notably the case in Denmark and France. Even French President Nicholas Sarkozy conceded that “there would be no treaty if we had a referendum in France”.

France and Denmark were not alone in abusing parliamentary ratification. Indeed, a number of opinion polls undertaken across the EU for the British think-tank Open Europe have shown that a majority of people in all 27 countries want a referendum.

EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy recently stated his belief that if given the opportunity, a majority of people across the union would vote no. Could it be that member states are denying referendums because they know that people would vote no throughout the EU?

Is this the kind of EU we want?

Claire O’Donoghue

Lehenaghmore

Togher

Cork