EU Strategies to Manipulate People's Opinion

The example of Ireland: How a referendum on abortion is used to divide those opposing the Nice Treaty

by Diethelm Raff

In Europe, a small number of people are attempting to centralize power within the European Union and to subordinate the EU to superpower interests by making use of all sorts of means and methods. To this end, the power of citizens to take political influence needs to be eliminated to a large extent and their self-determination abolished; ultimately, all opposing citizens are to be sworn in to the militarization of all areas of life. These are the conditions under which the Nice Treaty must be considered. Thanks to the efforts on the part of the single citizen a few years ago, the Irish are the only nation within the European Union able to vote on each treaty that transfers sovereignty rights to other institutions. Nevertheless, it came as a great surprise to the governing elite in Ireland when on 7 June 2001, 54% of the Irish voted against the EU's Nice Treaty. Using 'half-truths, arrogance and blackmail' (Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, 11 June 2001) the government had tried to force the Nice Treaty upon its citizens. What the government did not tell them was that the treaty ultimately serves to extend the EU's despotic powers in favour of superpower aspirations and wars—all of this at the expense of its citizens.

The European Union is despotic because its structure does not include a separation of powers, the countries' elected representatives to the European Parliament are not even allowed to initiate legislation, and to date citizens across Europe have yet to express a common will to govern themselves within the borders of a European Union. Among other things, the Nice Treaty transfers the so-called 'Petersberg tasks' including wars of aggression (crisis intervention) to an army of the European Union, which has not been placed under any democratic control whatsoever. This EU army is expressly intended to wage wars all over the world, among other things, in order to secure capital interests (of multinational corporations).

The present treaty would therefore abrogate Ireland's neutrality. The Nice Treaty likewise abolishes citizens' sovereignty rights in 30 areas, starting from the structure of the Commission to the Regulation of asylum and immigration laws. By abolishing the principle of unanimity in these areas, a majority of ministers will be able to force their decisions upon the other countries, thus also upon the elected representatives of those countries. In the name of 'enhanced cooperation', only seven states will be able to deprive other democratically structured nation states of their ability to make their own decisions in the future, transferring them to the control of the despotic European Union; and concomitantly, the influence of small states will be substantially weakened.

The rulers of the EU want to bring the Irish into line with their policy

To attain their goals, the EU rulers need the Nice Treaty, which will be replaced in 2004 by a further treaty, a procedure reminiscent of Trotsky's idea of a permanent revolution. After the Irish 'No', the Ministers at the European Union summit meeting in Gothenburg in June 2001 explicitly stated that the (Irish) citizens cannot prevent them from implementing the Nice Treaty—despite the fact that under existing EU law the agreement of all Member States is required. They will not let themselves be stopped from extending their despotic rule.

Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister, was instructed to conduct a second referendum, which will be voted on in October of this year. This time round, they will not make use of the same surprise tactics—i.e. setting the date of the vote three weeks after the first announcement and wrapping it up in a package with three (!) other issues. The Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung of June 11, 2001 clearly states how little the European Union is ready to take the doubts of its citizens seriously. Instead of entering into an open and straightforward dialogue, the government is deceiving its citizens: 'The government seems to concentrate pragmatically on a clearly identifiable group of opponents [...] By "neutralizing" this opposition group, and by a higher turn-out of voters a positive result is to be reached.'

On June 12, 2001, the Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported as follows on a meeting of EU foreign ministers: 'The Irish authorities want to work "calmly and confidently" towards ratification, Ahern explained [...]. In its second attempt to take the hurdle, Ireland can count on the assistance of its European partners. The ministers agreed that first a comprehensive analysis of the motives must be made.' The German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, explained how the tricky issue of the citizens' will is to be dealt with; it must be moulded by the political elite, i.e. the 'progressive forces'. 'Fischer put the Irish "No" in the tradition of the dialectic process of crisis and progress typical of the European Union.' (Neue Zuercher Zeitung, June 12, 2001). Fine Gael's Director of Elections, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, explained how the new strategy will target specific groups as part of a positive campaign.

How unwanted critics are sidelined

In a despotic structure, all means are allowed to eliminate the citizens' power of exercising political influence. Such strategies have, for instance, been defined in the former GDR's state security guidelines No.1/76.

For example:

2.6.1. Objectives and range of application of measures of subversion

2.6.2. Measures of subversion are to be directed toward causing as well as utilizing and reinforcing such contradictions and/or differences among hostilenegative forces, by which they are divided, paralyzed, disorganized and isolated and through which their hostile-negative attitudes, including their effects, are prevented, substantially limited or completely eliminated [...]

2.6.3. Effective forms of subversion are: [...] Causing distrust and mutual suspicion within groups, groupings and organizations.

How have these measures been applied to the Irish situation?

One block of opponents to the EU, is made up of Pro-Life or anti-abortion groups, who are very strong in Ireland. A closer look at how they were treated by their opponents serves as an example to illustrate how efforts were made to weaken opposition.

Under no external pressure and months in advance, Prime Minister Ahern announced that a referendum was to be held on 7 March 2002 on the issue of a ban on abortion in the constitution. This issue was intended to split opponents of abortion and at the same time make Ahern and his party popular with those voters who are most likely to be against the Nice Treaty.

As was to be predicted, opponents of abortion were split and a huge controversy arose on an issue that carried great emotional weight with a majority of the opponents of EU despotism. A coalition between the largest opposition party Fine Gael, the Green and Labour parties, which wanted to liberalize abortion, rejected the constitutional referendum with a tiny majority of 50.42%.

The fact that this referendum was only submitted as a strategy and that the government was not concerned about preventing abortions can be clearly seen in a statement made by the Irish Minister of Health, Michael Martin. He explained that the fact that an estimated 7,000 women a year travel to Britain to have abortions is not Ireland's concern, since the British have a different legal situation allowing abortions. (SWR, Europa-Magazin, March 2, 2002 at 4.35 p.m.) www.swr.de/europamagazin/archiv/2002/03/02/p3.html

Particularly striking is the fact that no objective reasons existed for the referendum on abortion. Instead, it was merely intended to weaken opponents of EU despotism or to sow discord on an issue of particular importance to many of them. Was this part of the assistance promised by Ireland's EU superpower partners in the fight for votes? In any case, as an initial success of this strategy, Ahern gained an absolute majority in the last parliamentary elections.

The crucial point, which has been concealed by Mr Ahern and all those who want to push through the Nice Treaty, is that the acceptance of that treaty automatically entails the acceptance of the EU Charter on Human Rights, which has been signed by all the EU countries and will be binding for all its signatories by the year 2004. This Charter is in many respects different from the Human Rights Convention, and in particular with regard to the protection of human life, which is considerably weaker than the protection guaranteed by the Irish Convention. Mr Ahern and other EU politicians will, however, not hesitate to point out that the protection of human life is not subject of the Nice Treaty, which is, however, not true as the treaty is connected with the EU Charter on Human Rights.

In the fight for the vote on the Nice Treaty referendum currently gearing up, many Irish will trust Ahern since he presented himself as conservative in the referendum on abortion—unless the Irish citizens are informed about the whole ploy and can assess what is really being done to them.