The Lisbon Treaty was about procedures, not policies.
I’m not going to try and explain the treaty because this site already does a good job of that.
In this post, I mean to analyse aspects of the campaign; it is not my aim to persuade anyone to adopt my opinion on the treaty. Anyone who has met their responsibility to inform themselves and who has exercised their right to vote deserves to have their choice respected.
As I see it, the issue we were asked to decide on is: “Are these proposals an acceptable way for the EU to be run in the future?”. Some balances of power change and the areas in which the EU can legislate are increased. To me, the proposals are reasonable and I don’t really see a better alternative.
Content vs Context
So much of the campaigning on both sides did not deal with the content of the treaty. What do you think of the EU? Is it becoming too powerful? How will Lisbon affect abortion, workers rights, sovereignty and our future Eurovision chances? Young Fine Gael suggested that a Yes vote would ‘Enlarge our opportunities’. (Aside: I wonder what inspired them to think that adopting a marketing pitch favoured by spammers would work?)
Many interesting issues did come up though. Some examples that I can think of:
- Why are we the only ones being asked to vote on this?
- If it’s a No, will there just be a re-run, just like with the Nice treaty?
- Why haven’t certain important people, like, say, the Taoiseach read it?
- Are we heading towards a more military Europe?
- Is Europe undemocratic?
These are all important issues that we should discuss and think about. Important, but they’re not what we’ve been asked to vote on. A Yes or No vote does nothing to fix any of them.
To do something about those matters is harder than choosing Yes or No. For that, we must either enter into politics ourselves or we must choose the kinds of TDs and MEPs who will fight those causes for us. These are the people who decide policies, not us.
We were asked to vote on the scope and procedures by which the policies are chosen (and enacted) but not on the policies themselves.
I voted Yes because I’d like the MEPs and TDs that we elect to be able to improve Europe. Acceptance of the treaty will increase their ability to do this.
