Ganley needs to explain ideas of democracy

“SIMPLE colours, simple messages,” was how one colleague described Declan Ganley’s launch of his Libertas group, under whose banner he hopes to run candidates for the European Parliament elections in all 27 EU countries in June.

He and fellow anti-Lisbon treaty campaigners blazed a trail in simple messages in last June’s referendum and he plans to make the Parliament elections a second debate on the treaty.

Mr Ganley should be asked to clarify some of his ideas now. He has said he will not tell people that their children will be taken from them under the terms of the treaty.

But he needs to explain what he means by sovereignty and democracy. He insists the EU is undemocratic and the treaty is also. Yet everything in the EU is drawn up, agreed and cleared by every member state’s democratically elected leaders, ministers, parliament, senate and courts before it becomes law.

Is he saying decisions taken by our Government are undemocratic? This questions the whole basis of our system of representative democracy. Perhaps he believes we should change this for a system where every person has a vote on every law?

He favours a single EU president elected by the people, US-style. This would mean countries giving up their sovereignty and the EU would become something of a federal state.

Ireland, with less than 1% of the EU’s population, would have little chance of electing the person they wanted.

Mr Ganley likes the modern idea of federalism — where the decision is taken at the lowest level of government at which it is most effective.

EU sovereign states, jealous of their independence but eschewing federalism, have built this into their treaties with the rule of subsidiary, which means that decisions must be taken as close to the people as possible.

Mr Ganley has been deprived of some of his anti-treaty arguments over the past few months. The Czech Constitutional Court ruled the treaty was not self-amending so any changes would have to be ratified. His claims that the Lisbon treaty would affect non-economic services of general interest — such as health and education — have also been laid to rest in the assurances received by the Government.

Those who said every country should have its own commissioner have won — and countries like Belgium that believe a smaller commission gives small countries a better chance of their commissioner getting a decent job conceded the principle in deference to the Irish.

Suggestions that the guarantees are not legally binding are wrong. Decisions made by leaders of the member states in council are legal, and Ireland’s assurances will be appended as protocols to the next EU treaty to come along — most likely the Croatia accession treaty — which must be ratified by every member state and is a legal document.

Arguments that those who voted no last time should vote no this time because it’s still the same Lisbon treaty are missing the point that they were mistaken in thinking the Lisbon treaty would change Ireland’s total control over issues like abortion, taxation and neutrality. On Friday the 27 countries affirmed these remained under Ireland’s control.

The argument that “no means no” is a good one. But it’s a matter of shame for the electorate and the Government that according to the evidence Irish voters based their decision on the wrong information.

The choice was to accept the consequences, which are unlikely to be in Ireland’s interests. The other choice is to see this in terms of a person sitting the wrong exam — you can fail them and say it’s tough. Or you can give them another chance to make sure they know what they are doing — whether they vote yes or no.