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It's not the slyness that shocks; it's the brazenness. Two months ago, an internal report revealed gross irregularities, even outright criminality, in MEPs' staff allowances. Now, MEPs have voted to forbid publication of that report.
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Irish farmers supported by agricultural businesses, are to go on strike today to get attention for a campaign to protect the welfare and trade protection privileges of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), in opposition to concessions from Europe and the US on access to agricultural products in current global trade talks, in return for a reduction in industrial import tariffs by developing countries. India for example has tariffs as high as 34% on some industrial products. Ireland's first world economy is a direct result of the previous liberalisation of trade in industrial goods and services between developed countries. Since 1973, Irish agriculture has been the principal per capita beneficiary of the CAP and by 2013 when wealthy Ireland becomes a net contributor to the EU budget, it will have received a 40-year bonanza that will amount to to €41 billion by the time we become a net contributor in 2013.
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Below are the two key sentences of the amendment which you will be asked to put into the Irish Constitution on Thursday 12 June. If people vote Yes they will be giving the European Union the constitutional form of a Federal EU State, in which Ireland would become a provincial state or region. This would be the end of Ireland's position as an independent sovereign country. The French and Dutch have already rejected this proposal in referendums. By voting No we remain full EU Members based on the Nice Treaty, but we reject the Lisbon Treaty as a step too far. Millions of Europeans who are being denied referendums on Lisbon by their politicians, are hoping that we will say No to it for their sakes.
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The Lisbon Treaty amendment on EU harmonized taxes which has not been publicly mentioned so far in Ireland's referendum debate. Article 2.79 of the Lisbon Treaty would insert a six-word amendment -"and to avoid distorton of competition" - into the Article of the existing European Treaties dealing with harmonising indirect taxes. The significance of this short but important amendment is that it would enable the European Court of Justice, which adjudicates on competition matters, to decide that Ireland's 12.5% rate of corporation tax as against Britain's 28% rate and Germany's 30% is a distortion of competition which breaches the Treaty Articles dealing with the internal market - Art. 26 and Arts.101-9 TFEU - in relation to which qualified majority voting on the Council of Ministers applies. The Irish Government's veto under Article 113 would be irrelevant there.
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Whether the Lisbon Treaty is accepted by the Irish public or not, one thing is clear - the Government campaign in its favour is already one of the most deeply dishonest in Irish history. The revelation that the Government has conspired with foreign politicians to deceive its own electorate speaks of profound betrayal. For months, ministers have been calling for a fair campaign based on the facts of the treaty itself. Now we know that all the while the very same ministers have been collluding in a campaign of deliberate misinformation. That the Irish people should be the victims of a dishonest alliance between their own govenrment and outside powers is something many will find very hard to forgive quickly. As for the Lisbon Treaty itself, voters will now find it very difficult to trust a single word the Govenrment says in its defence. At each stage, the aim has not been to inform the electorate but to deceive it.
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The Government has hatched an elaborate plan to deceive voters over the forthcoming EU treaty referendum, the Irish Daily Mail can today reveal. A leaked email shows that ministers are planning a deliberate campaign of misinformation to ensure that the Lisbon Treaty vote is passed when it is put to the public as required by the Constitution. Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern has even been personally assured that the European Commission will "tone down or delay" any announcements from Brussels "that might be unhelpful". Alarmingly, the email says that ministers ruled out an October referendum, which would have been better procedurally, because they feared "unhelpful developments during the French presidency - particularly related to EU defence". This suggestion will raise grave fears that the State's constitutional commitment to military neutrality could be undermined by the treaty - a rehashed version of the failed EU constitution.
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In respect of this report the Open Europe Bulletin reports on yet another disclosure from the admirable German reporter Hans Martin Tillack; "MEP expenses scandal: 58 million euros missing. Hans Martin Tillack has revealed that while MEPs are supposed to account for how they spent their 17,000 euro a month office allowance, for the years 2004 and 2005 receipts worth 58 million euros were not produced. Tillack commented that "we are not talking about a few black sheep but a flock which covers half the parliament." (Stern blog Waterfield blog, 17 March). Tillack was scandalously treated and still has not been compensated or fully accepted. That's the EU!
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A common corporate tax base would destroy the Irish economy. In a challenging economic environment, the stakes could not be higher. Why would we vote for a treaty that weakens Ireland's voice at the table at a time when there is a huge army of special interests lining up to try and deprive us of the one economic tool that we still have?
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A common tax base would be the first step towards harmonisation of tax rates
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The Treaty of Lisbon is an attempt to construct a highly centralised European Federation artificially, from the top down, out of Europe's many nations, peoples and States, without their free consent and knowledge. If there is to be a European Federation that is democratically acceptable and politically legitimate, the minimum constitutional requirement for it would be that its laws would be initiated and approved by the directly elected representatives of the people either in the European Parliament or the National Parliaments. Unfortunately, neither the Lisbon Treaty nor the EU Constitution which it would establish contain any such proposal.
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Today the 800-year-old British constitution has been fatally undermined, and the British Parliament, against the wishes of the true “sovereigns” (the voters) has delegated the government of Britain to others. Britons have become “citizens” of a European Union, with duties towards and taxable by that supranational power. The British courts now interpret very little of our law, the British people have lost their exclusively British passport and the British Parliament is no longer responsible for 70% of legislation applying to the British people. This emasculation of sovereign Parliaments was recently confirmed by a German Parliamentary Committee which found that 70% of German legislation is now decided by Brussels, not Germans.
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Germany's highest court is to decide upon a complaint brought by a German MP against the EU's latest treaty. Peter Gauweiler, who hails from the Christian Social Union (CSU) - part of the governing coalition, wants the country's constitutional court to decide on the legality of the Lisbon Treaty, currently undergoing ratification across the 27-member European Union. "This treaty weakens democracy in European politics, especially national parliaments' right to have a say," Mr Gauweiler's lawyer told this week's edition of news magazine Focus.
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The referendum bill published by the Government makes the Irish Constitution completely subject to the European Union, Libertas Chairman Declan Ganley has said this morning. Referring to a clause in the bill that states that no provision of the Irish constitution will invalidate any measure taken by the European Union, Mr. Ganley said that the Lisbon treaty did nothing to make the EU more democratically accountable while conferring on it absolute supremacy over Ireland.
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- ENDING IRELAND'S STATUS AS AN INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGN STATE
- TAKING AWAY FROM THE IRISH PEOPLE THE RIGHT TO MAKE OUR OWN LAWS
- MAKING THE EU CONSTITUTION SUPERIOR TO THE IRISH CONSTITUTION
- TURNING IRELAND INTO A PROVINCIAL STATE WITHIN AN EU FEDERATION

The two sentences below from the proposed 28th Amendment of the Constitution Bill, which was published yesterday, are the central provisions of what the Irish people will be asked to vote on in the Lisbon Treaty referendum in late May or early June:

"The State may ratify the Treaty of Lisbon signed at Lisbon on the 13th day of December 2007, and may be a member of the European Union established by virtue of that Treaty.

"NO PROVISION OF THIS CONSTITUTION invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by membership of the European Union, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the said European Union or by institutions thereof, or by bodies competent under the treaties referred to in this section, from having the force of law in the State."

Please copy these two sentences, forward them to others and make sure that you inform your friends and neighbours about them and what they mean for themselves, their children and future generations of Irish people.

Anthony Coughlan
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Responding to News that Irish MEP Proinsias De Rossa joined a large majority of MEPs in voting to reject a motion that committed the EU to “respecting the outcome of the referendum in Ireland”, Libertas President Declan J. Ganley issued the following statement: “Today’s vote is absolute confirmation that the EU Parliament is committed to ignoring the will of the people. By a majority of 499-129, the Parliament has sent a message to the Irish people to say “we don’t care what you think”. I condemn Proinsias De Rossa absolutely for this vote, and I urge him to give an explanation to the people who elected him. This Treaty is designed to remove as much power from the people as possible, and today’s vote confirms the mindset behind it.
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Local polls conducted in the UK have shown that 88 percent of voters would like a referendum on the EU treaty, according to campaign group I Want a Referendum (IWAR).
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Nick Clegg, leader of the British Liberal Democrats, the UK's third biggest political party, is calling for a referendum on the country's EU membership, in a bid to end a "crazy" debate on Europe and on a new Lisbon treaty among British politicians. He is planning to file an amendment this week to a Lisbon treaty bill currently before the British parliament, demanding an "in or out" referendum, UK papers have reported. Mr Clegg argues that in the ongoing parliamentary discussion in Britain, "pro and anti, Europhile and Eurosceptics [are] trading blows about the Lisbon treaty in grand rhetoric that obscures the facts." "If you're pro-European, like I am, you're accused of being a sell-out. If you're anti-European, like most of the Conservative party, you're accused of being a headbanger," Mr Clegg comments in UK daily the Guardian on Monday (25 February). He argues Britain should finally decide - through a popular vote - if it wants to be in the European Union or not.
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In a remarkable display of fiscal imperialism, the German government sent spies into Liechtenstein and bribed a bank employee to provide confidential records about German account holders. Unfortunately, this sleazy act of aggression was successful, leading to a series of high-profile raids by German authorities. This has created quite a kerfuffle in Europe, and it should come as no surprise that the bureaucrats at the OECD are using the controversy to push their anti-tax competition agenda.
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The French may have spurned the European Union's Constitution for the wrong reasons, but overall their instincts were sound. That the pro-free market Dutch have seconded the non vote with a resounding nee ought to give pause to the collectivist superstate's illiberal American supporters, the most notorious of whom are concentrated in the Bush State Department and National Security Council.
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Current European development can be described as an orchestrated political attempt to establish a European State. And the dreamt-of European state is to be based upon the same devastating public policies, regulation, taxation and inflation as national policies over the previous several decades known too well to everyone. The only difference between these devastating policies of national states and devastating policies of one supranational European state is in its degree not in kind. All problems stay as they are, only their magnitude will escalate enormously. A revelation of the fact that there are pernicious problems inherent in state policies - policies conducted now on the supernational level - may be postponed for some time, but solutions which would help to solve them will be, however, harsher than ever before. The "judgement day" cannot be avoided.
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The economies of Spain, Portugal and Italy are smaller and vulnerable to export sales and international credit disruptions. We hope they can hang on for a normal, negative recession but are expecting something much worse. The resources are fading fast with no growth and no economic engine of merit to pull them forward. Housing in the region was grossly over-built and the building continues to this day based upon months ago commitments. Southern Europe is often referred to ClubMed for it's southern weather drawing Europeans to warmer, extended vacations. Housing was largely over-built in this region as prices sky-rocketed with easy money for homebuilders and buyers alike. Now, sales have skidded, inventories are rising and the area's economy is grinding to a halt. For the fall of 2008, economic conditions might be worse and severely tested.
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The EU is no longer an ideological project; it's a racket: a mechanism for redistributing money to the people who work for it. If that sounds harsh, ask yourself when you last met a Euro-enthusiast who was not being indirectly paid by Brussels.
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In support of the case for a referendum the Bruges Group is exposing the damage that the Lisbon Treaty will do to our freedom, prosperity and democracy if it is ratified. The analysis clearly shows that the red lines are little more than a fallacy. It is also shown how the Lisbon Treaty, as well as being profoundly undemocratic, also threatens our civil liberties allowing the EU to take control over our legal system. The Treaty will also blow a hole wide open in Britain’s borders permitting the EU to take full control over our asylum and immigration policies. It is also shown in our analysis that the EU’s latest power grab will threaten jobs as it will undermine the last vestiges of Britain’s competitive free market, bringing to an end the reforms introduced by Margaret Thatcher. What is more, the Lisbon Treaty will allow the EU to further jeopardise the City of London and endanger UK control over our North Sea oil reserves. The Government’s claim that the Lisbon Treaty is markedly different from the EU Constitution is refuted by quotes from European leaders which show that the Treaty is essentially the same as the Constitution rejected in the French and Dutch referenda.
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The Treaty of Lisbon is a revamped version of the treaty which gave the EU its own Constitution over and above the constitutions of its Member States, but which the peoples of France and Holland rejected in referendums in 2005. Instead of accepting that decision the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents decided to give the EU a constitution indirectly rather than directly, but not to call it a constitution, and on no account to hold referendums on it for fear people would reject it again.
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I was struck yesterday by an observation of the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. He said: "The reform treaty gives Britain a bigger voice in Europe." That seems to me to be the opposite of the truth. The reform or Lisbon treaty gives Europe a much bigger voice in Britain. It follows the original constitutional treaty in giving the European institutions that are not democratically accountable important additional powers, while failing to repatriate any powers to the individual European nations. The original constitutional convention was supposed to reduce the democratic deficit of Europe. The Lisbon treaty has done the opposite, taking powers away from the nations and their electorate. The treaty is a defeat for the idea of a liberal democratic Europe; it is surprising that British Liberal Democrats are among its keenest supporters.
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This is a clear indication of the intention of the EU Commission and its employees to interfere in the referendum decision of the Irish people with the aim of ensuring that it, the Commission, can gain more power for itself at the expense of the citizens of this State. It is quite improper of the EU Commission or its employees to take part in the national debate on the Lisbon Treaty. It is probably unlawful under Irish law, in the light of the Supreme Court's judgement in the McKenna case, and it possibly unlawful under European law also as entailing an improper use of European Community funds.
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The leaders of 27 member states of the European Union met last month in Lisbon, Portugal, to sign a new constitutional treaty that will, they hope, replace the previous draft that was rejected in 2005. With his typical penchant for hyperbole, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso declared, "From this old continent, a new Europe is born." In fact, the planned ratification of the Lisbon Treaty smacks of old Europe - when the ruling elite got its way regardless of the wishes of the people over whom it ruled.
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Allowing for the special features of each case, all the classical Federal States which have been formed on the basis of power being surrendered by lower constituent states to a higher Federal authority have developed in a gradual way, just as has happened in the case of the European Union. Nineteenth century Germany, the USA, Canada and Australia are classical examples. Indeed the EU has accumulated its powers much more rapidly than some of these Federal States �" in the short historical time-span of some sixty years. The key difference between these classical Federations and the new European Union is that the former, once their people had settled, share a common language, history, culture and national solidarity that gave them a democratic basis and made their State authority popularly legitimate and acceptable. All stable States are founded on such communities where people speak a common language and mutually identify with one another as one people �" a "We". In the EU however there is no European people or "demos", except statistically. The Lisbon Treaty is an attempt to construct a highly centralised European Federation artificially, from the top down, out of Europe's many nations, peoples and States, without their free consent and knowledge.
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For our cousins the European people, the great question is whether they can keep their individual freedoms. The EU has shown no interested in individual rights, only group rights under labels like gender, class and race. Structurally and ideologically the EU has much in common with the old Soviet Union, as many observers have pointed out. Like the USSR, it is a creation of a power elite.
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