Nice – an ‘Almighty Transfer of Additional Power to Brussels’

Summary of Address given by MEP Dana Rosemary Scallon at Buncrana, Donegal, Ireland Friday 11th Oct.

“It seems sometimes as if we are fighting against a mountain falling on us…“

Regarding the repeat of the Nice Referendum Dana was highly critical of the Irish Government handling of this situation. They have shown themselves to be totally disloyal to the Irish electorate. They had totally ignored the democratic voice of the Irish people. Article 6 of the Irish Constitution declares unequivocally that all matters of policy are to be decided by the people.

Minister of foreign affairs Brian Cowen, had shown scant regard for  the interests of the Irish people when immediately subsequent to the ‘No to Nice’ vote he and his colleagues allowed EU heads of state to proceed as if nothing had happened. They had actually apologized for the way the Irish electorate had voted, and promised to handle the Irish problem themselves!

Dana began her talk by expressing her hope that the EU would continue to be a force for good in the world. There  were  many good people working in the European Institutions. What Dana was most concerned about however was the democratic deficit in the EU. And democracy was after all, a founding principle of the European Union. And there is indeed a great irony in the fact that a strict condition for entry of new states to the EU is that there should be absolutely no taint of totalitarianism or democratic deficit in the way that the applicant country conducts its affairs. In short would the EU itself be acceptable as an applicant today?

She stressed that Nice is not about enlargement. Commission President Mr Prodi, Convention President Giscard d›Estaing and others had stated loudly and clearly that Nice was not necessary for enlargement. An unlimited additional number of new entrants could be received on the basis of accession treaties such as the one Ireland herself had signed. Nice was not the door to enlargement but rather the door to a political Europe. The chief negotiator for the Chech Republic confirmed this when he said that an Irish No would possibly delay enlargement by a couple of months.

The peace enjoyed for the past 60 years by Europe had been achieved because the European project was founded on the strict principle of equality. Jean  Monnet, the brain behind the European project, declared many times that the fundamental principle of equality was veto the right to say No. This veto was to be accorded to all nations, big and small. The veto was to be the fundamental principle of cooperation and peace.. Nice now represents a huge departure from this foundational principle. Nice would bring about an ‘almighty transfer of additional power to Brussels’. We stand to loose the veto in an additional 34 policy areas. The harmonisation of European policies does not always suit small nations. ‘One size fits all’ can be disastrous, for example the policy of liberalization-privatisation of public services, which is happening all over Europe. Europe now depends on free market forces to deliver its goods and services. But this does not necessarily work in peripheral places like Donegal and the West of Ireland.  Again Europe will be ruined by the free flight of capital to where it will be most productive of profit.

Again Nice provides for the periodic loss of a commissioner for Ireland for five years at a time. This is very serious. A lot can happen in five years. Furthermore, the commissioner we get after Nice may not necessarily the commissioner of our choice. The commissioners will be chosen by qualified majority voting. If for example we chose a commissioner hostile to further EU integration he or she could be rejected. Furthermore the allotment of commissioner portfolios will be in the gift of the president of the commission. It is also in his gift to shuffle portfolios.

Enhanced cooperation allows eight or more member states to proceed with further harmonisation in areas such as taxation. If we choose to join this we would have to lose our low tax rate for corporate business. Or we may stand against it and remain on the periphery. It is an ideal of the European Union to have one uniform corporate tax regime. In fact the EU wishes to set both economic and foreign policy for all member states.

Now we come to the matter of a constitution for Europe. The next treaty after Nice is to be dedicated to the task of creating a constitution for Europe. They are presently engaged in preparing this in the Convention on the Future of Europe.(see declaration20 annexed to the Treaty of Nice).

There is a majority in all of the European institutions that wants a constitution for Europe. An essential part of this constitution is the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. So even though 44 European countries have already signed up to the European Charter of Human Rights, the EU wants its own charter of rights, which will be legally binding on all member states as the first pillar of the new EU Constitution.

            Our Taoiseach was been  advised by the former Attorney General John Rogers, that such a charter would have to go to the Irish people for ratification. If we vote ‘yes’ to the Treaty of Nice, we will politically endorse this EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Nice will enable the EU leaders to put enormous pressure on Ireland to make this charter legally binding in an EU Constitution. The process of acceptance of the charter can be stopped by Ireland alone. The EU is passionately and firmly set upon the path of creating a super state - greater even than America. To do this it must have its own Constitution.

The areas in which Ireland stands to lose the most in a European Constitution would be: legal protection of human life from conception, family law and protection for the family based on marriage. Some other sensitive areas covered by this charter are; habeas corpus, trial by jury, labour law, family law, euthanasia policy, drugs, prostitution laws .

Various suggestions are being put forward for the structure of this super state. It is President Prodi’s wish that the commissioners should become the ministers of the new state of Europe. The president of the commission should become the Prime Minister of Europe and that the chairman of the European Council should become the EU president. Different party groupings have different suggestions but all support an EU Constitution ( or as it is sometimes called a ‘Constitutional Treaty’) and greater powers for the Commission.

Another policy area, which shocked Irish people with its lack of democracy, was the declaration of Special Areas of Conservation (SAC’s) without right of appeal. Mam’s Cross in Galway was a case in point where the land on one side of the road was declared an SAC while identical land of the other side of the road was not.

Regarding Article 2 of the EU charter of Fundamental Rights, which states that ‘Everyone has the right to life’ Dana cited the legal case of a young man who took a case to the European Court of Human Rights, using the words of  Article.2  to prevent his girlfriend from aborting their unborn child. The Court rejected his appeal because in the Court’s opinion, ‘Everyone’ did not include the unborn child. During the 1st Nice campaign, Dana had brought the matter to the attention of Bishop Duffy, spokesman for the bishops of Ireland. He felt he could not help. Only Bishops Boyce and Finnegan had shown support. This was the background to their opposition to the Nice Treaty last time around.

Another example was that the Charter will provide for the right to found a family quite separately from the right to marry. This will have the effect of weakening the support and protection of the family in all member states in Europe. The present leaders of Europe require and call for ‘best practice’, in all policy dealing with  human life and activity except the most essential one - the area of family life. Infact, the EU consistently promotes an anti-family position.