EU assistance is a right – not a reward

IN his letter (July 11), Liam Aylward MEP argues Ireland should ratify the Lisbon Treaty because its economic recovery depends on support from the EU and the European Central Bank.

Firstly, there are no provisions in the Lisbon Treaty which could conceivably speed the emergence of Ireland or any other EU member state from the recession.

Secondly, there are no provisions in the EU treaties which would permit the union or its institutions to withhold support from a member state which had declined to ratify amendments to those treaties. Indeed any such attempt to victimise a member state which had exercised its sovereign right of veto, recognised in the treaties, would patently amount to discrimination on the grounds of nationality, prohibited in the treaties.

EU assistance is an entitlement under the present contract between the states, not a potential reward for agreeing to changes to the contract. If anybody in the EU institutions suggested otherwise then they would be contemplating or advocating a serious, unjustifiable, breach of contract.

And if that were the case, what reliance could be placed on any other aspect of the EU treaties, whether amended by the Treaty of Lisbon or no?

Dr Denis Cooper

Belmont Park Ave

Maidenhead

Berkshire

England SL6 6JS