Listen to NEAR fm's half-hour summary of the debate>>
View photos of this session via Forum's Facebook page>>
THE SESSION COMMENCED ON THURSDAY, 6TH MARCH 2008 AS FOLLOWS:
Concluding remarks from Chairman
Before we start today's business, I have to report to the Forum the sad news of the death of one of our colleagues Mr Dick Humphreys, who represents EU Reform who has been a very assiduous attender at our meetings and at the public meetings we have had around the country. It was a great shock to all of us to hear of his sudden death. I'd ask you to pause for a moment of reflection. (Short pause)
Well thank you very much. I will convey your sympathies and the sympathy of the Forum to his family, and particularly to his sister, who is with us here today. Thank you.
I am delighted to welcome back an old friend of the Forum Jens‑Peter Bonde, MEP. Mr Bonde is Co‑Chairman of the Independence/Democracy Group in the European Parliament. He was elected to the European Parliament in 1979 and I believe he is the youngest of a very small group of veterans who will have served 30 years in the European Parliament when elections are held next year. He is a co‑founder of the June Movement, which has played a key role in European Union issues in his native Denmark. He was a member of the Convention which drafted the European Constitution. When Mr Bonde addressed us last, the European Union was engaged in the period of reflection which followed the No votes recorded in France and the Netherlands.
Last month, Mr Bonde, the Taoiseach told us he believes the Forum will play a critical role in ensuring that the Treaty of Lisbon receives a fair hearing. He was referring particularly to the series of public information meetings which the Forum is organising around the country. To date, we have had seven meetings in this series and we have found a very lively interest around the country in the Treaty and the forthcoming referendum. We will hold two further meetings next week in Ennis and Tralee and I will talk about our plans for the coming weeks at the end of the session.
The Forum has also published a summary guide to the Treaty of Lisbon, which is intended to support the public debate. Everyone here recognises the pressing need for reliable and readable information and the guide is as factual as we could make it, but we welcome other points of view, views from any other party and we are facilitating Forum participants who publish documents on the Treaty, such as Sinn Fein, by making those documents available at our public meetings and by putting links to these documents on the Forum's website. The Forum's aim is to get people to look closely at the Treaty, to ask questions so that they understand the implications when they come to vote.
This morning Mr Bonde will address us on a very theme which is relevant to Ireland: What does the Lisbon Treaty means for citizens of smaller countries? It is now my pleasure to call on Jens‑Peter Bonde to address the Forum.
Unfortunately, this is not the way they plan to debate Europe in the other Member States. We had a meeting in the Conference of Presidents last year with Sarkozy, the French President. You know, there were twelve candidates, eleven were in favour of a referendum, number twelve was not. He was in favour of getting rid of the Constitution and instead established a little practical handy mini treaty and the people preferred this mini treaty instead of the Constitution. But what do they get in the end? Not a mini treaty. But Sarkozy was very honest in his dishonesty with the group leaders of the European Parliament. He said that France was unlucky because it was the first country to have a No, but a lot of other countries would have a No as well if it was put to a referendum. Then his conclusions should have been: well then we have to go back to the drafting table and find a text which can be approved by the citizens of Europe. No, this was not his conclusion. His conclusion was that we need to get rid of referendums. And there was a political agreement among prime ministers to get rid of referendums. They tried to do that in Ireland as well but they saw immediately there was no possibility to get rid of the Irish referendum, so they had to accept one referendum and 26 national verifications without referendum. They should have brought the European Union closer to the citizens everywhere, as you do in Ireland.
Then the instruction was to produce a mini treaty, but when they came back from the drafting table from having had the Constitution and put it into the Lisbon Treaty, there were 7,000 more words. Then the Council Secretariat was instructed to use a smaller font so it could be presented as a practical mini Treaty. They were creative. They took away all the lines, all the spaces between the lines and then they had 7,000 more words in 55 less pages. That was the way they behaved in the Council Secretariat. Then they took a decision in the Inter Governmental Conference to forbid the publication by the Institution of a consolidated version. So, what we were presented was an assembly of amendments which no‑one could read. You have made a consolidated version in Ireland and Peadar Ó Broin has done a very good job, come to the second edition where you can see in bold what would be the amendments and then you can read it for the first time. This consolidated version cannot be read. You can only read it when you can see where do we have the additions, the changes according to the Nice Treaty and he will prepare that, I was told. I got it electronically already. Thanks for that.
You have done it, but the Council have decided to forbid that to be done. There was a decision in the IGC that no‑one shall be able to read it before they have signed it. It will only be done in a consolidated version after verification in all 27 Member States. This is, in my view, dishonest. It is also against the principle of transparency and democracy that you will not give to MEPs, for instance, the text we are asked to approve.
In Hungary they approved the text on 17th December, even before they had the Lisbon Treaty circulated to the members of the parliament. Before it was circulated they approved it. I think you need to go through it carefully, line by line and see the changes. It is a dramatically big job. By next week we will have our reader friendly version of the Lisbon Treaty ready, with 3,000 alphabetically organised words, so you can go from abortion, subsidiarity, religion, et cetera, then you can find the paragraphs in the Lisbon Treaty and then you can find the comparable paragraphs in the Nice Treaty, then you have a possibility to compare the text. But it is a very big job and I found a lot of changes I hadn't been aware of during the hundred meetings we had in the Convention when we prepared it. A lot of small amendments making very big changes.
For instance, there is an additional citizenship instead of the existing text of a complimentary citizenship. A complimentary citizenship in Nice. This means that you have your Irish citizenship and then you get complimentary rights in Europe. Now instead, this little word has changed into additional, it means that you have a double citizenship and a competition between two citizenships and the European citizenship will prevail over the national one. It is one little word which has been changed, brings a big change, a possible big change in the real world for citizens. This little change is not even translated into the Danish edition. They simply forgot it. Not forgot it on purpose because we have a derogation from European citizenship, they just managed that in the translation.
Another important change in one little word. In the Nice Treaty Ireland and the other Member States will propose a new Commissioner every time they produce a new Commission. The process starts with a proposal from Ireland who should be your representative in the Commission. This little word proposal is now changed into suggestion. There is a very big difference between proposal and suggestion, because a suggestion, when you come with different proposals to the incoming head of the European Commission and he decides who shall represent Ireland in the period when Ireland is represented in the Commission. He decides. You don't decide. You haven't got a proposal any longer.
It is a dramatic change. We never discussed it in the Convention. We never discussed the addition of citizenship in the Convention, it was just inserted by the way, and I only found last month that there was those changes.
But it is easy to find out the change in the power structure and I think this is a core of the Lisbon Treaty. It will change power from small nations to big nations. First, we will lose our own Commissioner in the Commission. We will no longer have our own representative there. For small nations, in my view, this is a disaster because our own Commissioner, with his cabinet around him, is the practical entrance to what is happening in the European Union. A small county in Ireland, a small company, a medium sized company in Ireland with no presence in Brussels on their own, they can phone a guy around McCreevy and he can phone and talk in French or Italian with another guy in the Directorate responsible for not sending the money for this company or this county. It is what the brings the EU to work day‑to‑day particularly for the small nations. The big nations can always find a civil servant of their own nationality and get the information they need in the European Commission. Small nations cannot. I find it is a disaster. But it is also easy to amend. A unanimous decision can amend this system in the Lisbon Treaty so we could keep a Commissioner from each of the small Member States. It doesn't even need a change in the Lisbon Treaty text. A unanimous decision could do it and I hope that is what we could gain from the referendum debates.
The Commission has a monopoly of initiating laws, proposing laws. No‑one else can do it. It is a condition for influence in the European Union that you are not accountable and not for elections as a Commissioner. This is, in my view, a bad way of having a European Commission, but so much more it is a necessity to be represented in the motor room. I have known all Irish Commissioners and it is clear there is in the Treaty a rule that they should be independent. I have not known one who haven't been in daily contact with Irish counties, Irish Government, Irish companies. It is clear McCreevy is able to represent Irish interest in the Commission. When they discuss taxation he can explain why you have your low corporate taxation and other specialities in a small country, for such purposes you need a person of your own in the motor room. I think this is the most important change, dramatic change. But then there is a change in the Council which people are not aware of and that is the change in the composition of the votes from 2040.
When you entered and we entered, Denmark and Ireland are the same size, the same influence in the EU Council. We had one-third of the German influence in the Council, three votes to us, ten to Germany. With Nice it was changed to one to four, seven to twenty‑nine. Now it is dramatically changed. We will more than half our influence, Germany will more than double theirs. So instead of one to three, it will be one to fifteen between Ireland and the UK and one to twenty between Germany and Ireland. This is one dramatic change, small Member States lose, big Member States win.
But it is even worse if you look at the threshold for taking decisions. It will be much easier to take decisions in Brussels. The blocking minority, the Irish share of blocking minority today is 7.7 per cent. It will fall to 2.4 per cent. Your presence or your participation in the Council, your vote in the Council will fall from 2 to 0.85per cent. But the important thing is that you will get rid of the veto right in 68 new areas, plus (inaudible) what the governments, prime ministers could decide with the self amending clauses, which would mean that the whole culture of consensus we have until now in the Council may disappear because now the 7.7per cent part of the blocking minority, they need to ask you. They need to ask the Irish representative, Bobby McDonagh and his friends. They need to ask the Danish representative because they need you tomorrow. If you have a sensitive issue on the table today, they have to discuss with you and find a comprehensible solution because they need your support tomorrow in another case. This is what I am really afraid of, that the culture of consensus, which means that even if you could decide most laws by qualified majority already now, they could do that, but they are only 50 votes a year. Why? Because they find the solution in the 300 working groups in the Council they find a solution you can live with. You will not have your will all the time, but they find a compromise everyone can live with. This culture of consensus will break away if you establish a system where half of the Member States can outvote the other half of the Member States in an easy vote. For countries having special problems it may be a disaster. In Denmark we have our summer house protocol. You have your protocol on abortion. You have your low taxation on corporations. Some countries have very special conditions and they need a strong defence for those in the decisionmaking structure and I am afraid that this is what we are going lose from the smaller Member States when we have this new working, this new decision making system in Brussels.
There are some other additions in the Treaty I have not been aware of before. We have never discussed them in the Conventions, in the meetings.
If you go to Article 206, for instance, on commercial policy, they insert direct foreign investments. For my country it is not a problem. For your country it may be a problem. If I was you, I would try to safeguard some Irish specialities in the protocol. If you look into 130 on harmonisation of taxes, then you will see that they add a rubber mark called distortion of competition. If I read the expression "distortion of competition", I read low taxation on corporations in Ireland and similar hindrances to the free movement of everything which can be moved, and hindrances for equal competition between Member States. This is what I read in that work. We never discussed it in the Convention. This was a word which has just come along.
But if you look through the Treaty carefully and compare it with the Nice Treaty, then you will find a lot of such changes. My advice for you, there is a long time before the referendum, my advice for you is to try to take some of the sensitive Irish interests and bring them to the European Summit on 14th March. There Bertie has a chance to get what he wants. Why? Because the other prime ministers need an Irish verification, that is what they go for and, therefore, since you are the only country having a referendum, you can get it exactly your way because the others will have to facilitate you.
For some topics where you would change everything for everyone, it may be difficult to reopen negotiations. But in areas where you only touch specific Irish interests I think it is possible. And that might be the Vaxholm Laval case where we had a court case 18th December changing the rules for salaried workers, trade unions’ possibilities to go on strike, easy to amend in a protocol because the problem ‑‑ you became aware of the problem after the signature of the Lisbon Treaty ‑ easy. But also when you find out that words like distortion of competition, foreign investment, direct foreign investments, that those additions can give a different interpretation of the existing treaties. When you find out that now, go to the summit and have the explanations put in a legally binding protocol, then you are sure that the Irish interests are taken on board when it will come to a conflict at a later date when it should be verified by everyone.
I am not here to advise you on voting Yes or No. I have my wishes but I keep them in my head because I think it is up to the Irish to decide on your own. Read the Treaty. Find out what is the content, is it good or bad for small nations, for citizens. Make up your own mind.
I will just say if there is a No, it will not stop Europe. A lot of things could be amended in very easy ways. Some things with my constitution, my simplified constitution, 47 articles which could be printed in one page in Irish Times that will not be on the agenda after an Irish No I am sure on that, but that would be a much better solution for everyone, particularly those who shall explain how decisions are done in Brussels. But you could easily make small amendments to the existing text with dramatic values for you.
On the Commissioner I said it is just a unanimous decision, it doesn't need a change in the Treaty. On the voting system, Poland have the existing system granted until 2014. It is just to take one word away then you could keep the system as you have it, which is at least much better than the system based on population.
On the sensitive issues like tax, health, social standards, it would be easy to add a protocol that Member States having a vital interest could raise them in the summit, not to block in every Council meeting with a veto as a Luxembourg compromise. No, a specific veto right only to be raised in summits by prime ministers. I think for sensitive areas like low taxation in Ireland, where you have 26 Member States with other interests, if you don't safeguard such things with a veto right by protocol, you are bound to lose it because you cannot argue your case against so many. There you need protocols to safeguard or a veto right on sensitive issues.
In technical terms that would be three very small amendments but they will have a dramatic effect if they were approved.
I am looking forward to having a good debate with you. My core criticism, I have not used so much time for today, this is from the citizens' point of view. Is it a bad treaty from small country's point of view, but it is even worse from the citizens' points of view. First there is an improvement. In 19 areas the European Parliament gained co‑decision where we have no influence today. This is an improvement ‑ 19 areas. But then in 49 areas we have parliamentary democracy today. It means that in democracy you go for elections, you have a new majority and then a new law. It works in those 49 areas today. Irish citizens have democracy. It is now changed into this Brussels system where 85per cent of all laws are decided in secret working groups in the Council and the 15per cent is decided in Council meetings where elected members of parliament have no access as well, not even to the document they are reading. Then the European Parliament gained co‑influence, co‑decision. It is a real influence we have expended over the years but it is not democracy. What we can do is to propose amendments for the non elected in the Commission. If they then approve our amendments, then they have a chance to be approved in the Council. If they are not elected in the Commission, say no thanks for our amendments, our amendments have no chance to be approved in the Council. So, we have not parliamentary democracy in Brussels. We lose out of our parliamentary democracy at home without gaining parliamentary democracy in Brussels, thereby the democratic deficit will increase dramatically.
If this system was good for Europe then it should also be good for Ireland and what you should then think about is to amend the Irish Constitution and then forbid the Dáil to make laws. Say from now on the Dáil can only make amendments from what has been proposed from the heads of departments and the ministers, then the heads of departments and the ministers meet behind closed doors and then they decide whether the amendments from the Dáil are good or bad and only if they approve them, they then have a chance to be adopted in another secret meeting by director generals from the different ministries. This is how it works comparably in Brussels. It is not parliamentary democracy. I don't doubt members of the European parliament have gained a real influence in European legislation. We have. When Christian Democrats, Socialists, green and blue can unite behind amendments we have a real influence, a much bigger influence than the Dáil on the daily life of the citizen. People are not aware that this is a truce, but it is not parliamentary democracy.
So, my overall judgement of this Lisbon Treaty is that it increases the democratic deficit and, therefore, it should be redrafted with democracy as the aim. That is one of my seven, eight important amendments. It is a democracy principle where we, where I did it together with John Gormley at the time, proposed that behind every single law in Europe there must be a majority of elected members of a Parliament. It can be an elected majority in the Dáil or it can be an elected majority in the European Parliament, but no longer decisions on laws behind closed doors from civil servants not accountable which we cannot vote upon in the next election. I think this is an important amendment.
I think one Commissioner each is also a very important amendment. There I make the proposal in the Convention together with Dick Roche and other good members of the Convention. We collected 123 signatures behind the proposal on keeping a Commissioner each, 21 of the 27 government representatives supported that idea but in the end our holy master Giscard D'Estaing said there was no consensus on keeping a Commissioner each, even if there was a 60per cent majority in the Convention for doing that. So, such amendments had, unfortunately, no chance.
On transparency it was even worse. We inserted a little change with dramatic effect if it had been approved, simply turn around the procedure so that everything would be open unless you close it, instead of everything is closed until you open it. This little amendment was signed by 90per cent of all the delegates in the Convention, all elected members of national parliament with no derogation, all representatives from the European parliament with one derogation, they signed. Twenty‑tree of the twenty‑nine governments in the Convention they signed this proposal. It was not a part of the consensus.
So I think there are a lot of areas for improvement where the vast majority of elected members of parliament would be behind if you were to raise such issues. You have a chance until 29th May or the date you decide for your referendum. When you have your referendum it is gone, then it is difficult to change things afterwards.
I have to say that for me, after the French and the Dutch No, I have never ever in my life had so good possibilities to gain success in reforms in the European institutions. We have gained a lot of reforms on transparency in the Commission. I made a whole book, 15, 16 victories on transparency. We gained that because the Commissioners listening after those two Nos, much more than in the Council.
On environment we gained a lot as well, having minimum rules instead of total harmonisation in the cases brought forward. So the fact that there was a no in France and the Netherlands have established a much more open mood in Brussels where you have possibilities to serve yourself and the citizens of Ireland by raising your problems now.
So that would be my advice to you. Whether you vote Yes or No, we have a joint interest in safeguarding the interests of small nations in Europe. Because if this new system will enter with no safeguards, then we will have too many occasions where too many small nations will be out voted in Brussels and will feel bad with the decisions in Brussels because they will be out voted too often. If we can't bring back this or keep this consensus culture, then it may be bad for Europe because people will, or the European Union will disintegrate, people will not be happy with the decisions and that is not good for Europe. We need a strong Ireland, a strong Denmark, strong small nations in Europe. Thank you. (Applause)
CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Bonde. We will now take comments or questions from Members of the Forum. I will take seven or eight or nine of these and then I will bring Mr Bonde in and then we will take another tranche. A lot of people are asking to get in, so if people could be reasonably succinct it will be a great help. So Mr McGrath, please.
DEPUTY McGRATH: Thank you very much, Cathaoirleach. I would like to welcome Mr Bonde to the Forum. The National Forum is one of the unique features in the debate on Europe in this country. I mention this because it has been a consistent point of Mr Bonde and other critics of Europe over the years that there is something akin to a conspiracy to hide the working of the Union from the public. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever the position in other Member States, this Forum has discussed at great length and in great detail every part of the process in the open. No public policy initiative, either domestic or for the Union has received more public attention.
In terms of popular legitimacy, the fact is that in Ireland, as in the majority of countries, the EU is more popular than national institutions. We do not accept that there is a trade off between the nation state and Europe. In the case of Ireland, it is true to say that we only achieved real sovereignty through the Union. Sovereignty includes being able to provide a future for your own people in their own country and we could not have achieved this without the EU, especially as it has developed over the last twenty years. I would like to challenge you on what is a new and, I think, a cynical tactic by people who have attacked the EU for decades, having opposed membership in the first place and then opposed every single treaty, we are now being told by opponents that you are pro EU and yet anti this Treaty. The fact is that if we had listened to the critics over the years the EU would not exist or it would still be a six nation group concerned with coal and steel markets.
Every serious study that has been done about the development of Ireland has indicated that our success would have been impossible without our role in the European Union.
The question then arises should we put our faith in a process and a body which has given us so much or in the arguments which have, since 1972, tried to push us on a different course. I would like to address the issue of complexity. It can be used to support all sorts of conspiracy theories about dark threats being hidden in the text of the Lisbon Treaty. First of all, most national legislation is often as or even more complex. However, and more importantly, the fact is that it is precisely because the Union is being limited in its powers that such complexity is required. The interests of 27 Members have to be respected in different ways and it is exactly because national sovereignty is being respected that we have treaties and they set out so many qualifications and powers.
If this Treaty is rejected, who are we take to as being the spokespeople for the people who voted No? Will it be those who say that Europe is to social or those who say that it is too business orientated? This Treaty is very much the daughter of the Constitution. It retains all of the positives of the Constitution. If the Treaty is ratified, Europe will be more democratic than it is now. It will be better equipped to handle the challenges that no single Member State can handle alone. It will have a clearer voice in the world stage. The rights of our citizens will be enshrined in a legally binding Charter. The relative roles and responsibilities as between the Member States and the Union itself will be better defined than ever. And the EU will be better able to assist Member States to combat important issues such as international crime, the drugs trade, human trafficking, immigration, the issue of asylum and collectively the issue of climate change. What is there in that vision that anybody but the most entrenched opponents of progress in the Union would oppose?
These are not just my views or the views of my party, they are the views shared from across the spectrum in the Parliament of which you are a member.
I want to finish with one question, Chairman, for Mr Bonde. The overwhelming majority of the members of the European Parliament feel that this is a Treaty that is right and that should be supported. The governments of the 27 Member States of the EU believe that this is good for Europe and their States. From the debates to date, it is clear that the overwhelming support from the national parliaments of the 27 Member States is assured. The Treaty has support from outside the field of politics. My question is what makes you believe that you are right on this and the vast and overwhelming majority of the democratically elected representatives of the people of Europe are wrong? Thank you very much, Chairman.
CHAIRMAN: Mairead McGuinness, please.
I need to deal with some points, Chairman, so bear with me and do cut me off if I wander. But on the first point about other countries having a vote, I believe that every country and the citizens of those countries have the right themselves to speak for themselves. We are very strict and clear here in Ireland we do have a vote on these issues and it is to that we refer specifically on this occasion.
In terms of the Commissioner and losing influence, I have to say that as a Member of the European Parliament I very rarely had to resort to Commissioner McCreevy, although his door is open to us. I go to the Commissioner responsible for the area, whether it is Mariann Fischer Boel or Peter Mandelson. I don't always get the answers I desire but they do listen and they do respect me as a Member of the European Parliament. I do not at all take your point that you need a fellow with an Irish, or indeed a lady with an Irish accent to listen. I have found Commissioners very willing to listen and very willing to respond.
And could I add, I think that it depends on the determination of the elected representative as to whether you get answers or not. Lest I miss this point, I believe this Treaty will make it a tougher job to be a Member of the European Parliament than it already is and make more demands on us as Members of the Parliament and I wonder will many of us be rushing to do the job after this Treaty is put in place. But I think that is a good thing and I think that needs to be said.
Let me deal with the issue of foreign direct investment, harmonisation of taxes. Ireland will not give up its veto on taxation. That is extremely clear. And if you were to get a small fee for coming here to give that advice I think you deserve it, but I don't think we needed it in relation to taxation. I read it very differently than you do and perhaps we could, over a coffee, try and resolve that conflict.
There are two issues I need to deal with and you mentioned them. I regret having to bring one of them up in particular. But let me deal with the first one, the Laval judgment. I read in a recent publication, and you were quoted quite extensively in it, that it will make slaves of workers. Can I just say that my reading of the Treaty is very much the opposite and I need to quote this. The Lisbon Reform Treaty in Article 2 says:
The aim of the EU is to achieve full employment and social progress to promote social justice and protection.
If there is a need for clarification around the Laval judgment and the ECJ, then Member States need to do that and I accept your point, but it will not make slaves of workers as was quoted in an Article.
The issue that I do not want to refer to, but I think I have got to is that about abortion, which you mentioned twice in your comments and I wasn't quite clear of the point you were making. But I think you need to be very clear about the Irish position on abortion, which is enshrined in Article 40.3.3 of our Constitution and which is attached to the Maastricht Protocol and I don't think I need to read that. But we are very clear on that issue here on abortion. I regret to say that I read an advertisement which wanted to collect money for the No campaign making some very outrageous claims on that issue. This Treaty will not bring abortion into Ireland and will not force us to do anything on ethical issues which believe and have different views on and very clear views on, may I say.
In that context, there is a suggestion of creating a Godless empire dictating our values. My reading of the Treaty is quite the opposite. In fact, it will provide for an open, transparent and regular dialogue with faith and church organisations.
Lastly, and I do apologise, can I quote yourself to defeat your own arguments, if I may. I do need to be fair, I used to be a journalist, so I will try and quote you absolutely correctly. If smaller Member States are out voted and feel bad, it will be bad for Europe and Europe will disintegrate and that is not good. So, therefore, in my view, who the hell would want that to happen? There is nobody in the European Union who wishes it to disintegrate, whether they are big or small, and I think that is very, very clear. Force will disintegrate the European Union, consensus will keep us going. After 50 years it has done a pretty good job, but thank you for being with us.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. (Applause) Mr Prionsias de Rossa, please.
MR DE ROSSA: Thank you very much. Welcome, Mr Bonde. We have crossed swords many times in the European Parliament and we will cross swords again today, I am afraid. I regard your remarks about abortion as quite nasty politics. You know, you are not a fool, you know that that is absolutely protected by the Irish protocol in relation to the Irish Constitution. You also try to make political gains out of taxation. You know that Ireland retains the existing unanimous position in relation to taxation. You know also that any individual Member State can, if it wishes, abolish corporation tax tomorrow. In fact, some Member States have already done so. There is nothing to stop any Member State at the moment from reducing its corporation tax to zero if it wants, or indeed to increase it to 100per cent if it wants, and that will continue to be the position so long as the veto is exercised by Ireland in relation to that issue.
With regard to the issue of the Commissioner, you say Ireland will no longer have a representative in the Commission. Ireland nor any Member State has never had a representative in the Commission. The Commission is absolutely committed to be being a European Commission, to defend the European Union and the European treaties. Once Charlie McCreevy or anybody else goes to Europe, they shed their responsibility to Ireland and they adopt their responsibility to the people of Europe as Commissioners.
The second point I want to make in relation to the Commission, and it is constantly made by you and others, that the Commission has absolute monopoly on the making of proposals. What is wrong with that? They don't have any role in the making of decisions. It is the Council and the Parliament jointly that makes law and makes policy, not the Commission. It is right and appropriate. From the foundation of the European Union, the Commission have had the responsibility to bring forward proposals. In fact, you are not quite right. The European Parliament, under the Lisbon Treaty, gains the right to introduce initiatives in three areas, and indeed the Council already has provision in the existing treaties for introducing initiatives if they choose.
Now I wanted also to deal with the question of the composition of votes in Council. When we joined the European Union there were nine members, so the proportion of our vote in the Union of nine was obviously larger in relation to a proportion of any other State in a situation where you now have 27. So inevitably the size of our vote relative to every other member will decline if you are in a membership of 27 States. What this new proposal does is rebalances that and brings back a degree of weight to the Irish vote as a result of the double majority population and number of States. And it is wrong of you to say that a majority of States can overrun all of the other States. That is not true. It has to be balanced by a population measure and also there is a blocking minority. Indeed there is also the option of, in many cases, of having a positive abstention, of saying whatever you do, we are not involved. So you know all these things and I am quite surprised that you come here and treat us like fools.
I want to say as well that you talk about the European Parliament not being a parliamentary democracy. What exactly is the definition of a parliamentary democracy, Mr Bonde? Precisely because the European Parliament has co‑decision with the Council, the Council cannot make the law without the approval of the European Parliament. It cannot do so. Indeed the European Parliament has actually rejected Directives which the Council has approved, have rejected them outright. And indeed because of the fact that we have this right to sink any Directive that is proposed by the Council, proposed initially by the Commission, amended by the Council, 80 per cent of the amendments put forward by the European Parliament are taken on board by the Council – 80 per cent. Now you compare that with the Dáil where less than 1per cent of amendments put forward by the opposition in any Dáil for any government, regardless of who they are, is adopted by government. And you tell me that in some way there is some weakness in terms of parliamentary democracy on the part of the European Parliament. It is nonsense and it is wrong for you to come here and this treat this audience as fools.
CHAIRMAN: Can we have leave it at that, please. Mr Killian Forde, please.
CLLR FORDE: Thank you very much, and welcome to Deputy Bonde. I thought the remarks from my fellow Members of the Observer Pillar have been interesting to date, particularly the Fianna Fail contribution which didn't actually address anything you said. It was read out from a pre‑approved script, and I think that is indicative of the debate that has taken place or the lack of debate on behalf of the Government party on the Lisbon Treaty. They have a refusal to actually debate the text of the Treaty and want to talk about historic Europe and what it has delivered to date. I think the sooner we get on the debate about the text of the Treaty and the sooner you actually address some of the points that Mr Bonde had would be a far more honest way to do this. Perhaps they won't debate it because they don't know where to find the text. If the party that continues to call the Lisbon Treaty the Reform Treaty have difficulty, instead of typing in Reform Treaty into Google, may I suggest you type in Treaty of Lisbon and you might actually find out what this is about.
Prionsias de Rossa mentioned that our Commissioner always wears the European jersey in Europe when he is over. Well I think again he should tell his fellow advocates for a Yes vote, because they are blue in the face from telling us that X, Y and Z won't happen on, for instance, corporation tax because Charlie McCreevy, our Commissioner won't let it happen.
I think one of the things I want to address with you is around the association that is taking place in terms of what would happen if there would be a No vote, and this has been again from the Irish government itself and all the main opposition parties, with the exception of my own which is actually the only parliamentary party advocating a No vote. We have been basically told that if we reject this Treaty we will be, and I quote, laughing stock of Europe. We will become isolated. We will become irrelevant. We will become economically doomed and facing hostility from our European partners. They are all quotes from members of parliament or ministers within this State. I would like you to comment on whether you agree with that. Bearing in mind that last week when we had Commissioner Wallström here, she claimed there would be no negative consequences on Ireland if there was a No vote and she said that in a TV interview.
Could you also comment on the issue of Ireland voting No and in reference to Denmark voting No in 1992 and the subsequent Edinburgh Agreement that secured a number of opt out and opt ins? Lastly our Taoiseach Bertie Ahern believes that anyone who is against this Treaty is insane and a loola. Could you address whether you consider yourself either a loola or insane in relation to this? Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN: Well the Royal Hospital might be the right place for that, you know! Mr Joe Higgins, please.
MR HIGGINS: Go raibh maith agat, Cathaoirleach. Cathaoirleach, I welcome any discussion, and there has been a lot of discussion on the general issues regarding the Lisbon Treaty up to now, but I think after today the Forum has to leave the generalities and get down to the particular because the discussion so far has really been like ships passing in the night hooting at each other without really engaging, and this is particularly from the advocates of Lisbon, engaging with the detail of the text of the Lisbon Treaty. We have had again today a repetition of that. There are questions that I have posed again and again to the advocates of the Yes side, particularly the Government, on critical issues regarding foreign policy, for example, and have not got answers. So I have written to yourself, Chairman, and I know that your Secretariat has been discussing in any case after Easter when we have in a date in mind, et cetera, perhaps if more detailed and particularised discussion on crucial issues where the meetings can be separated into an entire meeting on crucial issues like foreign policy, like common commercial policy.
But can I just finish by asking Mr Bonde one or two questions in regard to his view. In regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, Mr Bonde, it is being used by the establishment of the trade union movement and the Labour Party as a strong argument for Lisbon with the understanding that it would add significantly to the protection of workers' rights. Now, what is your view with regard to whether the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty would oblige the European Court of Justice to take a different view on issues such as the Laval judgment where they clearly spurned trade union negotiated agreements for construction workers insisting only on the legal minimum in Sweden in the Vaxholm school case. Could Laval happen? Does it significantly change the situation if Lisbon is ratified?
Second and last point, our question is, I have been trying to get an answer from the representatives of Fianna Fail and the government to Commissioner Wallstrom last week. I have not succeeded. Do you read from the text of the Treaty that if ratified not one, no one of the 27 Member States can hold or publically articulate an independent foreign policy different to what is agreed by the majority of the European Union? And do you read from the text that even if a Member State significantly disagreed and its population disagreed with either a policy or perhaps an action agreed by the majority, that the embassies, the diplomatic missions of every Member State would be obliged to publically back that policy even if their government or even their people significantly disagreed with it? Go raibh maith agat, Cathaoirleach.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ms Patricia McKenna, please.
MS McKENNA: Thank you. Jens‑Peter, I would like to welcome you here. I think the reaction, most of the reaction to date this morning is indicative of the attitude of the political establishment here. Week after week we come to Forum meetings, we have people presenting the Yes side and it was interesting to see the people almost foaming at the mouth at the fact that somebody was here giving an alternative view this morning. Some of the reaction to what you said, particularly, I think, Killian Forde brought it up in relation to the Government's pre‑prepared speech ranting on about these are people who wanted, voted not to join the EU in the first place.
I would just like to point out to the Fianna Fail representative that I have been involved in this campaign for many years for a more democratic European Union. I wasn't old enough to vote when we joined. My parents voted yes and if I had been old enough I would have voted yes. However, we have to recognise the fact that the European Union is not democratic. It is not accountable. Those, like myself, campaigning for years on this issue, being dismissed by people like yourself who don't even actually deal with the issues of what we are voting on is an insult to the intelligence of the people in this country.
Now the other issue came up, Mairead McGuinness mentioned about it is not up to us to decide how other countries will ratify this Treaty. I think it is a bit rich coming from a member of Fine Gael, promoting the fact that we have a referendum in this country. I would like to remind Mairead McGuinness, and indeed Fine Gael that it was the arrogance of Fine Gael and the Labour Party to ratify the Single European Act without a referendum that forced this country to have a referendum. Had it not been for one individual Irish citizen, the late Raymond Crotty, we wouldn't even have a referendum here and we would be like all the others telling our citizens this is the way it is, you don't have a say. So please do not use that argument. We are actually speaking up for other people throughout Europe as opinion polls show would like to have a vote on this and I believe should have.
I'd just like to ask a few questions of you, Jens‑Peter. More power to national parliaments is one of the issues that has been promoted in this debate. How is more power being given to national parliaments? If you could explain that. Climate change has been used as an issue and it was interesting to hear the government Fianna Fail member saying about how climate change was so important. The European Commission in January issued its position on climate change, requesting that the Irish reduced their CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Bertie Ahern has said that Lisbon is necessary for Ireland to lead the way in climate change. Only two days later we have the news that the Irish Government is challenging the EU Commission's proposal, even though environmentalists say it is not enough. A bit rich. On the issue of climate change I would like to ask you, Jens‑Peter, what you think the Treaty means for climate change.
The issue of the EU is made more efficient and Margot Wallström said this last week. She used this as one of her arguments that we need this Treaty; that this Union was set up for more or less six and we need the Lisbon Treaty to make the EU more efficient because we have now 27 members. I would just like to ask you what is your reaction to that.
On the Commission, I would like to take a number of people, including Prionsias de Rossa and others on this issue about, you know, the Commission works for the EU. I know from my own experience and the reality is the Commission, even though I would have major problems with how the Commission operates and the fact that it is the sole body with the power to initiate all EU laws, the fact that Ireland and all Member States currently have a member there is, as Garrett Fitzgerald himself says, very important to small Member States. But the reality is they do look after national interests and I have taken them up on this. David Byrne as Commissioner lobbied extremely hard for the vested interests of one businessman, the late McHugh who owned the Altantic Dawn. The reality is there. The Commission does look after the interests of Ireland.
I just want to ask you one thing about, you mentioned Article 206 about the Commercial Policy and Direct Foreign Investment and 130 in relation to harmonisation of taxes to distortion of competition, and then you say that we can look for changes now while we have the power because we have not voted and that this could have an impact. To those just who would argue some countries have already ratified this, it would not be fair now for Ireland to look for any kind of guarantees, what would your reaction be to that? Thank you.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Ms Deirdre de Burca, please. (Applause)
SENATOR DE BURCA: Thank you, Chairman. Chairman, I would like to welcome Jens‑Peter Bonde to the Forum today and just to say that I have great admiration for Jens‑Peter for all of the work that he has done over the years in terms of trying to promote greater democracisation of the European Union. I think he has produced an awful lot, many texts of treaties that have made them much more accessible to ordinary members of the public and I know he is fully committed to seeing the European Union becoming a more democratic political entity.
I also admire him because I know it is difficult being on a side where maybe you are raising criticisms of a project that has so much political support across the European Union. I know from the Green Party's point of view we were in that position certainly on previous treaties and it is very difficult to be that voice and it is very difficult when you experience the backlash when people don't like to hear the criticisms you are making and maybe find fault with it. I think it is an important role. I think the European Union is a very developed political project at this stage, but it is continuing to evolve and I think we do need critical voices to point to some of the deficits. I don't think anybody would argue that the European Union is a perfect political project at the moment. It definitely needs to reflect on areas in which it can become more relevant to its citizens, more democratic, more transparent in its operations. So I think your voice and the voice of people like you is incredibly important.
A number of issues I'd just to touch on briefly with you. You mentioned the issue of the difficulty you had with this idea of double citizenship. I would j like to say that I am surprised to hear you say that because my own experience is that, and I think it is in the Lisbon Treaty that there's a recognition that the national citizenship is the primary citizenship and that European citizenship is, and I can't remember the wording that is used but my understanding is it is complimentary to that. Certainly from an awful lot of younger people that I meet who have travelled and worked in Europe and feel very much European, they are very confident in their sense of being primarily an Irish citizen but also a citizen of the European Union. I would not necessarily see a conflict or an undermining of the national citizenship because of that acceptance of the European citizenship. So maybe you could comment on that again.
The whole issue of a Commissioner per Member State I would like to pick you up on that as well because I know the argument and the Green Party certainly made the argument in the past about the importance of having a Commissioner per Member State. But I think, first of all, there is the argument about the enlargement of the European Union and whether it will be possible to continue to have a functioning Commission with a direct representative on it from every Member State of the European Union. But there is also the question, I think people have raised this here, there has been a traditional perception of the Commission or the Commissioners from our own Member States as representing our interests out there. I don't think that was ever intended. I think the Commission was always intended to represent the European interest and Commissioners were to take an oath of independence and the idea that you could be giving, let's say, a Commissioner from Germany, a large Member State, a particular portfolio and then assuming that somehow that the Commissioner will be using that portfolio to advance the interests of his or her own Member State, I think it would be a dangerous one. So, in fact, the rotating Commission, the fact that Commissioners will be rotated and there won't necessarily be that direct link between Member States and the Commission portfolio I don't necessarily think would be a bad thing and I would just like to hear your comments on that. Thanks very much.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ms Mae Sexton.
MS SEXTON: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I would like, too, to welcome Mr Bonde here today. I believe it is incumbent on all of us who embrace true democracy to challenge and question the credentials of, honesty and indeed integrity of groups such as your own who purport to suggest that they have very good reasons to oppose any given treaty and indeed the EU project as a whole, and then proceed to use scaremongering and, quite frankly, sir, untruths in your arguments in relation to it. Now I don't intend to go into the arguments that have been raised very articulately by our two MEPs here Prionsias de Rossa and Mairead McGuinness because I fully agree with them and I think they have articulated them better than anybody here and they have experience of it at first hand. However, I do want to make two points.
First of all, the EU can only act in accordance with the competences conferred on it by the Member States. I think that is true democracy. I think the democratic deficit word that is constantly used by the No campaign is used dishonestly and it is being deliberately misused by groups such as yourself. The dictionary definition of democracy is a government by the people or their elected representatives. |Maybe my argument is simplistic but I would beg your indulgence on it. What I can never understand is how in using the term democratic deficit in your arguments against the various treaties which you have opposed since the very beginning, because you are a Euro sceptic self confessed, the anti European Movement never mobilises the citizens that you claim are opposed to Europe to vote in general and European elections. Over the 50 year history of the evolution of Europe, you have not, at any time, been able to mobilise in the various Member States or persuade these masses who you claim are opposed to various treaties to see your point of view. You take the opportunity of a treaty being put to parliaments, or indeed in our case in a referendum, to put your arguments in a vacuum, so to speak. You hope that domestic issues will drive the vote that then takes place or the decisions that are taking place. So, I think it is a very, very important thing that you are here today because we have to question your credentials and the credentials of the no vote. I think Patricia McKenna's outrageous argument about democracy not being seen to act in Europe is absolute bunkum nonsense and should, from here on in go out to the people of Ireland that it is total rubbish and you have always been opposed to the European project. Be honest about it. Stop picking little pieces out of the Treaty and scaring people to death with it. It just won't work. We are not a stupid people and I have great confidence in the voting population of this country that they will see through all of the nonsense that the Euro sceptics have talked about for years ad nauseam.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I am going to bring Mr Bonde in now, please, to respond and then we will take another round of questions.
MR BONDE: Well, I will have to try to defend my rubbish. For my part it is true I was an opponent of Danish membership. My argument was we should not join what we called the club of the rich countries. But then it was gradually enlarged with the poor countries in the south, it was enlarged with the poor countries in the east and the south, the Nordic countries came on board, those who wanted, and then I changed my mind and I defend Danish membership. There is a new book in Denmark explaining that the reason that Danes changed their position and accepted Danish membership was maybe my turn around. So you could be happy for that. I think we are bound to be in the European Union. There is no agenda on withdrawal, at least not in my country. So we are bound to reform it and make it a good place for our kids to take over.
Then, on the argument that all MEPs support the Treaty. Yes, we had a vote, 525 in favour, 100 and something against. There is a strong majority in the European Parliament for this Treaty. Not difficult to understand. For me this is a good Treaty. For Mairead, John if you'd come back, it is a good Treaty because it extends the area where we can have an influence to double, the double of what we have today, more or less. So for us as MEPs it is definitely good. But you are not an MEP, you are in the Dáil, for you it is very bad because you lose much more than I gain. For the citizens it is even worse because they can at the next polling day change you for another guy. It is their right to have a new majority and then new laws. The citizens lose this right.
That is the reason that John Gormley and I and the others in the minority group in the Convention proposed this democracy principle that there should be behind every law in Europe, there should be a majority, a positive majority in the European Parliament or in the national parliament. No laws any longer without majorities in parliaments. De Rossa is not right in his description of how laws are done. Everyone can read and consult the treaties.
Mairead, you made a splendid speech today and you did it the other day as well. I agree, serious MEPs can go to Commissioners and talk their case. But for a local county, for a little company in Ireland, I think it is a very good advantage to have particularly the cabinet around McCreevy and the previous Commissioners, it is what made it work. You phone them, you had a project approved, money never appeared. It happens not sometimes, it happens almost always that money does not appear at the time you expect, then you have to go to the bank. All those who have their structural fund projects they are in trouble all the time. They need these easy access points in the European Commission. If I was in favour of a smaller Commission as some argue, then I would at least safeguard them, that there was this contact point in the Commission. It could be a junior Commissioner. It could have a different position, but keep the cabinet where Irish citizens can speak even in Irish. This is, in my view, a necessity for small Member States to get it to work.
Then slaves of workers. No, I have not used this word. It is not an expression I would use. I have been criticised in the Vaxholm case, the Laval case, and this is also for Mr Higgins from the Socialist Party. The Laval case is, in my view, a revolutionary verdict decided by the court in Luxembourg after the signing of the Lisbon Treaty and this is what makes it very easy for you, your Prime Minister, to raise it in the summit 14th March. I have sent a proposal for a protocol which would simply outlaw the future effects of the Vaxholm Laval case. What is the drama in this case? It implements the Treaty of Lisbon, the Charter, the right to strike. It implements that and fully recognizes the right to strike. But then it says this principle the right to strike has to be balanced which another principle the right to free movement of services and commodities. Then they will say the verdict says on balance the right to strike cannot be used if it is in breach of the free movement unless you can prove it disturbs public order, public security or health. That is the only three derogations permitted by this revolutionary court case. The need for welfare, our social standards are not improved. It means it is illegal for an Irish trade union to strike against, let's say a foreign company coming to Ireland offering €9, I understood that is your minimum salary €9. If they offer €9 an hour, this is legal and you will not be allowed to strike against it. There my suggestion is that Dick should explain to Bertie this is a necessity, at least to win the referendum in Ireland, that you will have a protocol attached. This will not disturb the others because the problem arise after the signature of Lisbon. That is easy. It is much more difficult to go back on texts already agreed. It is much more difficult. It is a revolutionary verdict. It is a disaster for trade unions. And in Denmark particularly we have no minimum salary, you can work for five cents in Denmark but we have trade unions, we are 85per cent in trade unions so they arrange it is not very often people work for five cents an hours. So we have no real problem. We have it now and will have it. So Danish trade unions are very concerned, as are the Swedes, on this revolutionary court case.
On abortion, I did not use the argument on abortion. I never raised this argument. I just said when you have specialities in a country, like the Danish summer house protocol or abortion, 40.3.3, you have need to safeguard that it is accepted by everyone else and you have done that over the years in the protocol, but now you have a new principle on equality among citizens and the additional citizenship. I raised 746 questions, not polemic, not one polemic, only on the implementation on the different paragraphs. And one of my questions is simply can this principle of equality and the additional citizenship, can it overrule, for instance, the 40.3.3 protocol from Ireland? Or another example, the Danish summer house protocol, can it be overruled for the principle of equality? Yes or not. You need to have such questions of dubious interpretation clear before your referendum. Before your referendum you can have the answers you want. After the referendum you risk a hundred new Laval cases because it is not clearly stated. When you have free moment, free movement is one principle right to strike, it is another principle you don't know what would be the outcome when those two principles are seen together. From now until referendum day you have the chance to clarify. My 746 questions and a lot of other questions, so that you have the safeguards you need on such sensitive topics.
My good friend Prionsias de Rossa on taxation. When I read this addition ‘distortion of competition’ and I have a low corporate tax to defend, I would immediately safeguard that there is a protocol safeguarding your interpretation. For me this is the same as to say the low corporate tax in Ireland should be outlawed. This is what I read in this word. So I would make my safeguards. I would raise it and have an authoritative interpretation by the Council that this cannot be used to outlaw. This is my advice to you. If you see it, it is so unclear for some. For me it is very clear. Distortion of competition; what is that? Before you had the interventions limited to what was called cross frontier trade. Now you widen the scope to every problem. Every possible problem can arise under this distortion of competition. This is a rubber mark. So you need to have an authoritative interpretation. If I was you I would take a protocol, it is legally binding. It is safe. If you would not go with that, at least go for an authoritative explanation from the Council stating that by this we do not intend to overrule the Irish taxation law. That is my advice. If I saw such threats in the horizon I would work to take them away.
On 80 per cent of parliaments and implements being approved I don't recognise that figure. I think it is much lower. But I said explicitly that the European Parliament have gained a real influence on the life of the citizens. We have gained and we manage. I think the problem with our parliamentary democracy, as you call it, is that the two bodies Council and Parliament are not equal. It is a necessity to have adoption of the law in the Council. It is not a necessity to have Parliament on board. Parliament's influence is limited by absolute majority of members we can propose an amendment, but only by absolute majority. It means, to compare, that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have to agree if they can put forward an amendment. It is not the majority in the Dáil who put forward the amendment, it is the absolute majority of members in the Parliament which always require the support of both the Socialist family and the Christian Democrat Conservative family. If you haven't got those families on board, you cannot influence something. So it is not, it is not real influence.
Against that you come to the 80per cent, 80per cent of all laws under co‑decision now are done in the first reading so we are not really aware of what is being decided. It is a problem we have raised in the Parliament. We are reforming our system now to be aware before the decisions are finally made, we will reform our own way of organising the house for that. 80 per cent of the laws are done in first reading and in first reading there is only a simple majority behind Parliament proposal as a necessity, but the Commission they look at majority. If you have an absolute majority they take it sometimes. If we have no absolute majority they don't take it. So, the absolute majority the fact that both sides of the house must agree and cooperate to have the influence is what makes it very different from the normal parliamentary democracy.
Then on alternatives, Killian Forde from Sinn Fein. What would happen after a No? Yes, it is up to you to decide what should happen after a No. Let me explain what happened in Denmark, as you asked. In '92 we voted No to the Maastricht Treaty and set a new agenda on transparency, proximity and democracy. It is a night of my life, I have to admit; when I had this night and I came back in the morning and all the televisions stations were standing in my garden and we raised this agenda on transparency, proximity and democracy and we have won a lot from this little No in the referendum. At that time the telephone book in the European Commission was secret as in the Soviet Union. The minutes and the agendas of the Commission were secret and only in French. The Working Group of the Commission secret, non‑existent to our knowledge.
I made a whole book on transparency with a lot of reforms we want ever since. That was this little majority in the Danish no raising it for the first time. So we won a lot. Then we won some derogations; we are still discussing whether they are good or bad or should be reformed. I think they should be reformed. It is another topic but we changed the agenda of Europe with that No.
And what I said in my contribution before was that after the French and the Dutch No, the difference is I can now go to Barosso and say here you have a problem. It takes me one minute. Then I can go to the people behind Barosso and get it arranged. So we won that we can forbid pesticides in drinking water in Denmark, which has always been forbidden, which the Commission wanted us to forbid the forbid. Yes, we won that case. CF gasses destroying the climate. I went to Barosso, we safeguarded that. Transfat, the dangerous fat; went to Barosso, safeguarded a change. So it is clear the mood in the Commission is that as long as there is uncertainty on ratification, they need to that away. Even the metric, the metric machos in Britain won their case with Barosso. He is keen on winning the citizens back to believe in Brussels and not to give support away.
So I think you win from such referendums anyway, whether you vote or if there comes a No, you will win something. What you will win, I don't know. And what you will negotiate will be different compared to ‑‑ if it is a small No, a very small No, then they will try to overrule it and make you make a rerun. If it is a bigger No, as in France and the Netherlands, they will have to make some bigger exercise to change it. If you go to change everything and reopen the diplomatic compromises in the IGC, it is difficult. If you go for something which will only have effects in your own country it is very easy. If you go for a Commissioner each, it is easy because 21 Governments are strongly in favour of that. My good friend Dick from the Convention will remember that we had a strong majority in the Convention for one Commissioner each. So it depends on what you raise.
If you would raise the 68 areas of qualified majority voting, I think honestly you will run into difficulties because it is a very difficult diplomatic compromise established by the governments and no‑one would like to open it again. But if you would ask for let's get a general veto to be established only in the European Council by our prime ministers in sensitive issues like taxation, health, social standards, right to strike and what may appear, then it may be easy to get it. You see, it depends on how you manage a No. It can be managed and give you a lot of progress with small amendments and you can also run in big difficulties by raising everything again.
Then the workers' rights, Joe Higgins, I have answered to that. On the understanding of this Treaty compared to other treaties, you have to look at it carefully and find out. It is not like the other treaties. By Maastricht you added 26 or something new decisions by qualified majority; Single European Act, 12; Treaty of Nice, 46; Treaty of Amsterdam between 20 and 30. It was more qualified majority in some new areas but rather modest. If you take the new Treaty there are 68 areas, but plus (inaudible) because there is a self‑amending clause in Article 48 which, in my view, makes this Treaty the last one which can come to a referendum for European reasons, there may be Irish reasons, Irish Constitution presents amendments for a referendum anyway, but there is no necessity for future changes. This is the last Treaty where citizens must be answered in some Member States or national parliaments because from now own verifications can take place without consulting the people. So this way this Treaty is different from every one else.
On the Charter, it is already implemented. There were in the first year after the adoption 117 areas where it has been used by the Council, the Commission and the Parliament in adoption of rules. So it is already used. The court has already implemented it in a lot of areas. So it is, de facto, legally binding today.
On foreign policy I am not an expert on that, I have ‑‑
MR BONDE: Yes, I agree. The difference is that they will make the Charter legally binding by the Lisbon Treaty. I just say they have already started to make it legally binding, which is not to any surprise because when we drafted it in the Convention, I was a member of this Convention, the representative of the Court stated publicly when adopted they would start using it in the Court. So, it is already used.
On foreign policy I am not an expert on that. I read it as it is not a possibility to operate on your own if a joint decision is approved. I remember from the Kyoto protocol my Government asked the Norwegian Government to put forward the Danish position because even in that area we were not allowed to put forward our own position. But I am not an expert on that.
On Patricia McKenna's question on national parliaments, this is, in my view, a joke. We have already won a very big victory with the Commission. Since September 2006 the European Commission have sent every proposal for a new law for the Dáil and your Senate and all other national parliaments in Europe for consultation on proximity or subsidiarity and proportionality. We have had it ever since. And Barosso went even further and promised me ‑‑ it has been my case over all these years, it is a big victory ‑‑ he promised to take into account the positions of the national parliaments and, unfortunately, this is a victory with no content. There were 152 reactions until now and not one single reaction have amended one single piece of law in the European Commission, even if Barosso has promised to take care of the reactions. There I have to say by the principle of subsidiarity the mistake is not with the European Commission, the mistake is with you and you and you from the national parliaments who don't take it seriously. How many reactions do you think there have been from Ireland from both the Senate and the Dáil together? In those 16, 17 months that we have the new system there has been one reaction from the Dáil. One. There is an open invitation for the national parliaments to scrutinise for subsidiarity and proportionality and they don't open the e‑mails from Brussels and take the influence offered to them. This is the disaster, particularly for me who has been fighting fifteen years to have it.
On climate change I have to admit a mistake in my new book. It will be corrected in the next version. I thought that climate change would come as a new horizontal principle because it was how it was discussed and how it was inserted by the Danish Government. I have to admit now by careful reading of Article 191 it is not a horizontal principle. It is an obligation of the European Union to take climate change into account when we negotiate internationally but not nationally. So there we should also seek some clarification. It is very bad wording and I simply don't understand why I haven't found the bad wording in first reading.
Deirdre de Burca, I worked closely with John Gormley in the Convention and we agreed on a package of reforms which are not anti European, the opposite, they would bring the European Union much closer to the citizens.
On the Commission where you raise a problem or have a different position, I think we should go a step further. We should elect the Commissioner directly. When you have the European elections next time in June 2009 you should have a competition between parties to have the best person to represent you in Ireland. I think that would bring the European Union much closer to the citizens. Then there is not the problem of the monopoly of decisions, of making the proposals when the Commission is brought under democratic control. Then you can live with the monopoly, but as long as they are not accountable and not democratically elected and very often members of the Commission are sent for the reasons that they are not wanted at home or they cannot be elected at home any longer. This is maybe not the best argument to send a representative abroad. I think you had should not pick the one you want to get rid of, you should pick the person you want to represent you.
Maurice is very keen that I have to stop, so I will not answer the last Progressive Democrat, just say on the turn out when I was elected first time, was 63 per cent and they had absolutely no say in this. Then election after election we gained influence and every time we gained influence, the turn out fell. The last time we are 46 and next time we will below 46, below maybe 40, below maybe 35per cent. If we don't clean our own houses with the secretarial allowances, travel allowances and the travel and service between Brussels and Luxembourg and Strasbourg we could even succeed in having the turn out so low that it is only the nerds who will go and vote.
Thank you very much for a very nice debate. It is a serious contribution always coming here with a few derogations. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN: Thanks. The problem is I have is I have 20 people wanting to speak and I am not going to be able to take them all. I am going to have apply a guillotine in 30 minutes and some people seem to require a longer breaking distance than others. So I would appeal to people actually and some have a tendency to lap themselves, which is a bit self‑indulgent really. So if people could confine themselves to a minute I could get them all in, but otherwise, as I say, I am going to bring a closure down. So Minister Roche, do you want to set to a good example?
Just on a couple of issues, Jens‑Peter, you needn't worry on the issue of taxation we do have very good advice, unanimity will protect us there. Also on the issue of abortion, which I understand you touched on, of course there is a protocol and you have argued yourself strongly the case for protocols.
You are right on one thing and that is that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael very seldom agree on anything, but we all are agreed, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour that this is a balanced Treaty, that this is a good Treaty, this is a progressive Treaty and this will help Ireland continue with the progress.
I don't want to go through everything, but I do have one issue I want to pick up with you. I have several bones to pick up with you but I will just pick up on one.
You have been making the argument, and it has been slavishly followed by some of the parties here in Ireland, that the influence in the voting system, the new double majority voting system is, somehow or other, mystically halved. Now the double majority voting system, of course, has two elements. The first element is that you have to get 55 per cent of the Member States and the second element is that you have to get 65 per cent of the citizens. Rather cavalierly you are doing your calculation on the basis of the latter rather than the former. It is a little bit like going to an Irish football match or an Irish hurling match and deciding that you are going to discount all of the points that go over the bar. The reality of it is you can't make the kind of mathematical calculation you are doing between the new voting system, which has two elements, and the old voting system which we had, I think, the magnificent sum total of seven out of three, four, five votes. I would like to ask how in the name of goodness do you actually factor the second element, the element of Member States where every Member State counts for one vote into your calculation?
By the way, I did ask somebody to do a calculation and take both elements into account and they pointed out we have a marginally higher influence if you take both elements into account.
CHAIRMAN: Nora Owen, please.
MS OWEN: Thank you very much, Chair. Very quickly, I want to defend the Forum and, indeed, the work of the leadership of the Forum against what Patricia McKenna seemed to imply that somehow the No side, as it were, were always given a harder time and weren't given as much time. In fact, there are times when those in the bigger parties represented here think that your scrupulousness ‑‑
CHAIRMAN: I must say I didn't take that from Ms McKenna's remarks.
MS OWEN: Did you not? Okay. Well I felt that was what she was saying.
I just want to quickly ask a question, but before I say it, you forecast, and I admire your resilience, Mr Bonde, you forecast great unhappiness and dire tension arising out of the new areas of qualified majority voting. It is true to say there are many areas of qualified majority voting now but it not always used or not often used. I don't see that great unhappiness and dire consequences and tension between countries. And with the holding of Council meetings in public, it may be very boring television but at least it is in public and the Ministers know they will be watched as how to they take decisions.
I want to ask you a direct question about the situation in your own country. Denmark has, I think, about four or five opt outs to date and I would like to know what advantages they have brought to Denmark or what disadvantages, if any, in both categories, and I understand that the government is about to have a referendum to get out of the these opt outs. Could you maybe tell us why they are doing that? Is there a public wish to do that? And what way will you be voting yourself?
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ms Niamh Bhreathnach, please.
MS BHREATHNACH: Thank you, Chairman. I welcome Mr Bonde. I will say to you I am afraid all we will do is agree to differ because I think where you see a plot, I see a plan. We are looking at an organisation that began with six countries that now has 27 members and it really does behove on all of us to make sure that the working method of ensuring that the EU fulfills its promise to all the old as well as to the very new nations are streamlined.
I am glad you welcomed the Charter. It is very important to me as a citizen, as a member of the Labour Party, and particularly as a woman member of the Labour Party that our values are going to be written into what I think even you would agree are very readable parts of the Treaty; equality, social and economic justice, community and solidarity and freedom. So all I ask you is one particular question and I ask you to be fair. I think your reference here to abortion was appalling, Mr Bonde, and you know very much how deliberately you put it into the argument and I wouldn't like not to record, Chairman, how appalled I was at the level of which some the woes to the Ides of March that has come from other side.
So let me ask Mr Bonde one particular question. You have warned us that we will lose out on qualified voting. You have 30 years experience of watching Ireland watching Europe. I want you to spell out to us one, two or three instances, perhaps, where you really think Ireland lost out? Thank you, Chair.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Senator Fergal Quinn, please.
Let me just take you back. When I left university many years ago everybody emigrated from Ireland. When my daughter left university in 1987, 37 of the 38 in the class emigrated. In 1993 we had 60 per cent of income was 60 per cent of the European average, we are now 140 per cent. Now, in other words, we have done very well and the reason we have done well is because we have used the opportunities in Europe commercially to do well.
Now, I was very concerned about the danger that we might lose control of our foreign direct investment policy under Article 188 in this. I think it is the amendment 158. I want you to put my mind at rest and do you accept the points. I have been impressed by the argument that says we have used this in the past, we are holding on to the ability we had. I would like you to accept that the Treaty's common commercial policy will enhance our opportunity to continue the way we have done in the past and that we are not going to lose it. You have spoken so competently on so many arrangements in the Treaty I am not sure if it is fair to put that to you. But it seems to me it is a very important element in the Irish voters because our economy and our well‑being have depended so much on way we have used Europe. I would like to be assured by you that we are not going to lose that in the future.
CHAIRMAN: Daithi Doolan, please.
CLLR DOOLAN: Go raibh maith agat, Cathaoirleach. Delighted to be here again with Mr Bonde here. This is my second opportunity to hear him speak. I think his clarity and understanding enriches the debate here as we run up to the Treaty. Also, Cathaoirleach, I want to say I welcome the fact that Mr Bonde has clarified the fact that if we vote No, then it is up to us to decide what to do. Because much of the time when we debate the outcome of the Treaty, the Yes side spin and scaremonger.
To quote some of the responses, the Taoiseach himself at the Forum said if we vote No we will be reduced to the craggy margins of Europe. That to me sounds a very painful place to be and I certainly don't want to in the craggy margins of Europe. In fact, I don't believe we will be in the craggy margins of Europe if we vote No. I am glad to hear somebody of such standing as Mr Bonde clarify that.
We are also threatened that if we vote No, we will be back to the era of Culture Club and dole queues and emigration in the '80s and again that has been dispelled. We are not going to go back to the '80s of dole queues and immigration if we vote No because this country has moved on, the economy has moved on. The economy is strong and sound and we are not going to go back, the clock will not be turned back and I think that scaremongering needs to be nailed down and the truth needs to be heard. If we vote No it is a democratic outcome that needs to be upheld.
I was shocked and surprised to hear that the European Parliament itself voted against upholding the outcome or respecting the outcome of a No vote here. Indeed Dublin MEPs voted not to support or respect the outcome of a No vote in this State, and it was an absolutely appalling attack on democracy.
The specific question I have for Mr Bonde is in relation to neutrality. Again there is much spinning from the Yes side about neutrality. Neutrality is not lost overnight, it is not lost at one minute to midnight. There is an erosion over years and years. If I had sat here ten years and said that there would be thousands of American troops being flown through Shannon to an illegal war in Iraq for resources, people would have dismissed me. They would have said I was scare mongering. That has now become the reality. Now again we are faced with a further erosion of neutrality as contained in the Treaty and again we are told that ‑‑
CHAIRMAN: I am anxious to get other people in, please.
CLLR DOOLAN: But the reality is, Cathaoirleach, that that is the truth. So I am asking specifically, Mr Bonde, what is the impact for neutrality, for the military neutrality of this State if we do vote yes? Go raibh maith agat and I appreciate your time.
CHAIRMAN: Mr Blair Horan, please.
I don't think there is much doubt that for citizens the Charter of Fundamental rights is one of the most important things in the Lisbon Treaty. It is of symbolic importance in that it encapsulates in one document the whole range of civil, political, social and economic rights. And, increasingly, the concept of human rights is evolving. It is evolving into the social and economic sphere in terms of conferring rights rather than just principles. So, I think it is of enormous symbolic importance in that regard.
We do know that in terms of EU institutions and EU law that the Charter is directly applicable. In that context, with its full legal standing in the Treaty, it will impact and it will impact positively in the area of Laval that has been referred to because it makes the right to strike a fundamental right incorporated in the Treaty. Now, there are concerns about Laval. I don't share the Doomsday scenario, Mr Bonde, that you have outlined, but there are concerns. I expressed them here to own Taoiseach some weeks back. John Monks, the General Secretary of the Trade Union Confederation expressed them to the European Parliament recently. We do know that it will impact on the Nordic model because it is a collective bargaining model without any legal effect. That is not case here. Apart from the minimum wage, there are a number of areas, including construction, where wages and conditions are legally enforceable in the Irish context, so the impact is certainly not going to be the same in the Irish context. Yes, there will probably be the need for change in the Postal Workers' Directive. It still has to be determined precisely what the impact will be in an Irish context. We are concerned, but the Treaty, with the Charter of Fundamental Rights, can only improve things. It certainly can't subtract from things.
Now the other area of the Charter is will it impact on domestic law? The reality is that the European Court of Justice has traditionally been an integrationist institution, its decisions in a whole range of areas. That is partly why they put the thing in the Laval. But the question is, if it applies in a domestic context, the very concept that you have a problem with of EU citizenship coming in on the Lisbon Treaty could well be the window that the European Court will use to apply the Charter, not just in an EU context but also in a domestic context. Ultimately, in my view, the Charter will have wide applicability, that is probably why the UK exercised the opt out.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr Seumas O'Brien, please.
MR O'BRIEN: Chairman, in order to avoid the shaking of the pen I will be very brief.
In terms of democracy Mr Bonde talked about the European Parliament. I just wondered very briefly the positives or negatives of co‑decision?
CHAIRMAN: Declan Ganley, please.
MR GANLEY: Mr Bonde, thank you for your very competent and distinct presentation of the facts relating to the Treaty. I think it is interesting that Dick Roche, who joined us at 12.20, issued a statement at seven minutes past eleven this morning, before you even opened your mouth in this room, and in that statement he sent out a press release attacking your comments, the comments that you had not even made at the Forum, and called them confused, inaccurate and unconvincing. He also called your calculations on voting weights crude, misleading and wrong and went on to say that your comments were, I quote, an insult to the intelligence of Irish voters. Now either Dick Roche has received the gift of prophecy this morning or he is insulting the intelligence of Irish voters.
I want to move on to an issue brought up by an earlier speaker with regard to tax and the tax veto. Dick Roche has said that Ireland's low corporate tax rates are 100per cent secure. In other words, they are inviolable, they cannot be touched. Is that correct or not? Thank you.
CHAIRMAN: Mr Thomas Byrne, please.
MR BYRNE: Go raibh maith agat, Cathaoirleach. I think we have welcomed Mr Bonde here as a welcome guest but I think really he has been a very ungracious guest. He has come in and he has stated falsely here to the Forum that Ireland tried to prevent a referendum. That is simply not the case, Mr Bonde, and I would be very grateful if you could clarify that because I think it was rather disgraceful to make that comment.
MR BONDE: I didn't say Ireland tried to, I said the others tried to convince Ireland.
MR BYRNE: No, that is not what you said, Mr Bonde. Also, Mr Bonde, I've a question for you. Our Sinn Fein colleagues will say that there was 105 competences moving to qualified majority, you say 68, the Robert Schumann Institute says 35. Who is right and who is wrong? You also stated in the previous treaties that there was modest application of qualified majority voting, yet at the time your cohorts were stating that we were giving away swathes of our sovereignty and it is the same argument you are making now as you were making then and you keep changing your mind.
You are also, I think, very disgracefully putting doubt into the pro life issue in your book where you don't about equality, which is what you justified it on here today, you are talking about the Charter and abortion could come in there. You are consistently ignoring the actual wording of the Treaty and I think you owe it to people who will be reading your material to give them the wording of the Treaty, what is written there.
Mr Bonde, I would also ask you one specific question and it relates to the abortion issue. What is your view of what His Holiness Pope Benedict has said? He has said that:
I am following attentively the new phase which began with the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon. This step gives a boost to the process of building the European home.
Mr Bonde, what is your view of His Holiness' remarks?
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr John Cushnahan, please.
MR CUSHNAHAN: Jens-Peter, you are very welcome and I am always enthusiastic about engaging with you. We have always done so in a position of mutual respect and, as you know, in the Convention I defended your right against my colleagues to have a different view. I have never questioned your integrity or your commitment. I have certainly questioned your arguments and your judgment. I would like to remind you of the positions you took up in previous treaties.
During the debate in the Parliament on the Treaty of Amsterdam, and I am quoting directly from the minutes, you said about the Amsterdam Treaty:
It is the principle of supremacy of Union law over national constitutions which is now being written into the Treaty and that is why it is a new written constitution.
You were calling the Treaty of Amsterdam a written constitution. During the debate on the Danish referendum on entry to the single currency you said:
We know you can't run an economy without money and we know you can't have the single currency without a single government to control it.
As you well know that has been proved totally wrong as well. In your very lengthy work, and people should at least recognise the amount of work you put into putting forward your argument. I respect the hard work you put in, but in your lengthy work in the Nice Treaty you said - and once again I just want to prove your predictions are wrong - you said that negotiations with Poland will flounder, that only three countries would join the European Union in the enlargement process Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, and you doubted if any of the rest would ever join the EU envisaged in the Treaty of Nice. Now, once again, that was fundamentally wrong.
As regards your arguments on the big versus the small, let me disagree with you on that. Under the double majority voting, even if all big Member States voted for a legislative proposal, it still requires the support of nine small Member States. That is a very effective balance between large and small Member States. On the question of the reduction in Commissioners, the die is already cast in that one. This is not a new proposal - it was already agreed under the Treaty of Nice. All that the Treaty of Lisbon does is actually put the detail on it in relation to numbers and once again re‑enforcing the principle of equality and rotation. We are being treated equally with large Member States. The people who have a grouse in that are not small Member States – it is in fact the large Member States.
On taxation, both the Commissioner and the Taoiseach before this committee have reaffirmed that it is a matter of where Ireland has a veto and you have reaffirmed that today. I welcome that and I respect what you are saying is we should copper fasten it in negotiations before the referendum.
One point I think I would also like to mention is the Commission does not have the sole right of making legislative proposals under this Treaty. There are two exceptions in the area of judicial cooperation and criminal matters and police cooperation where Member States can follow.
If I can finally make one final point, because nobody else has answered the point made by Joe Higgins with regard to Member States riding roughshod over a dissident voice on common, foreign and security policy. Every decision on common, foreign and security policy has to be made unanimously, so how can you take a different view when you unanimously agreed with it. There are two exceptions and let me repeat what those exceptions are. Where it is previously decided at a summit or if it is about details of implementation, but even then a Member State can, for stated reasons of national policy, veto it. And the second exception once again requires unanimity to transfer decisions from unanimity to the QMV category. So it is a lot of rubbish to say that a Member State will be ridden rough shod over if there is a different view. It is actually part of the decision and if they are not part of the decision there is no common, foreign and security policy decision on a given subject.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr Michael McLoughlin, please.
MR McLOUGHLIN: Thank you, Chairperson. Just in case I'm accused of frothing at the mouth, I think I will start with the areas that we agree, and there were a few. I agree with you that it is easier to make decisions under Lisbon. I agree with that point. I think it is a good thing. I am glad that you admit it. I do agree with you when you say that national parliaments perhaps have been remiss in not using current and existing policies, it would be all the more reason to put it on a treaty basis, but I don't think it is the fault of the European Union itself that that has happened but I agree with you on the point.
I agree with you on the point that the members of the European Parliament have more power, it is a directly elected parliament of the citizens, it doesn't exist anywhere else in the world and I think it is a good thing. But, most of all, I agree with you on the point when you mentioned in passing that we will continue to have referenda in this country under this Treaty. You are saying maybe some other Member States will lose the opportunity and we could debate that point, but I do agree with you on that point. I think you should have drawn it to the attention of the no side in this country who have been saying it since day one that this is our last referenda, but it is good that you have made that point and now it is clear to everyone on all sides.
I do think when it comes to the Commissioner argument we need to be clear. You have said that we need more transparency in the European Union. I think most people agree with that. And it is a good thing, for example, that the Council of Ministers now will legislate in public. You didn't actually mention that. I think we all agree it is a good thing. But you also said that having a Commissioner mans you have the cabinet and you can ring up so and so and you have the Irish person. I am not totally in favour of ringing up so and so behind closed doors and then having transparency at the same time. I think decisions of politics should be made in public and should be accountable and transparent. I think having the back door into the cabinet and into the Irish person and into the French person is not a transparent method and I am surprised that you think it is.
The Treaty is the outcome of complex and nuanced negotiations. You have advocated now reopening it. I don't think many people, many countries would feel it is good to reopen something that was agreed and tied down at the time. I do think we have secrecy in our own domestic system, it is called the cabinet, it is copper fastened in law.
CHAIRMAN: Could we leave it there, please.
MR MCLOUGHLIN: And the final point I echo, Thomas Byrne asked the point about the 68 or the 105 areas. I think we need clarity on that. I calculated it as 28. If you take the Schumann Institute's 35 and subtract the 8 areas under Justice and Home Affairs where you have an opt out you get the 8 areas, and maybe not every single area is against our interest.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Brendan Kiely, please.
MR KIELY: Thank you, Mr Chairman, and I will be brief. You are very welcome, Mr Bonde, on behalf of the Irish Alliance for Europe. I would suggest maybe that Patricia McKenna would provide with us a list of other No speakers who could come and visit and maybe circulate that list and not suggest that at our public meetings that no people are invited is a conspiracy by the yes side.
I would also like to suggest that I take, take umbrage to the fact of describing the passionate responses of some members of th
Jens‑Peter, you are very welcome and I am always enthusiastic about engaging with you. We have always done so in a position of mutual respect and, as you know, in the Convention I defended your right against my colleagues to have a different view. I have never questioned your integrity or your commitment. I have certainly questioned your arguments and your judgment. I would like to remind you of the positions you took up in previous treaties.
During the debate in the Parliament on the Treaty of Amsterdam, and I am quoting directly from the minutes, you said about the Amsterdam Treaty:
It is the principle of supremacy of Union law over national constitutions which is now being written into the Treaty and that is why it is a new written constitution.
You were calling the Treaty of Amsterdam a written constitution. During the debate on the Danish referendum on entry to the single currency you said:
We know you can't run an economy without money and we know you can't have the single currency without a single government to control it.
As you well know that has been proved totally wrong as well. In your very lengthy work, and people should at least recognise the amount of work you put into putting forward your argument. I respect the hard work you put in, but in your lengthy work in the Nice Treaty you said ‑‑ and once again I just want to prove your predictions are wrong ‑‑ you said that negotiations with Poland will flounder, that only three countries would join the European Union in the enlargement process Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, and you doubted if any of the rest would ever join the EU envisaged in the Treaty of Nice. Now, once again, that was fundamentally wrong.
As regards your arguments on the big versus the small, let me disagree with you on that. Under the double majority voting, even if all big Member States voted for a legislative proposal, it still requires the support of nine small Member States. That is a very effective balance between large and small Member States. On the question of the reduction in Commissioners, the die is already cast in that one. This is not a new proposal - it was already agreed under the Treaty of Nice. All that the Treaty of Lisbon does is actually put the detail on it in relation to numbers and once again re‑enforcing the principle of equality and rotation. We are being treated equally with large Member States. The people who have a grouse in that are not small Member States – it is in fact the large Member States.
On taxation, both the Commissioner and the Taoiseach before this committee have reaffirmed that it is a matter of where Ireland has a veto and you have reaffirmed that today. I welcome that and I respect what you are saying is we should copper fasten it in negotiations before the referendum.
One point I think I would also like to mention is the Commission does not have the sole right of making legislative proposals under this Treaty. There are two exceptions in the area of judicial cooperation and criminal matters and police cooperation where Member States can follow.
If I can finally make one final point, because nobody else has answered the point made by Joe Higgins with regard to Member States riding roughshod over a dissident voice on common, foreign and security policy. Every decision on common, foreign and security policy has to be made unanimously, so how can you take a different view when you unanimously agreed with it. There are two exceptions and let me repeat what those exceptions are. Where it is previously decided at a summit or if it is about details of implementation, but even then a Member State can, for stated reasons of national policy, veto it. And the second exception once again requires unanimity to transfer decisions from unanimity to the QMV category. So it is a lot of rubbish to say that a Member State will be ridden rough shod over if there is a different view. It is actually part of the decision and if they are not part of the decision there is no common, foreign and security policy decision on a given subject.
e Yes side as rants and foaming at the mouth and I suggest she consult the old adage pots and kettles.
Thank you for your historical monologue in relation to the Treaty that you opened up with, and I am sure you are willing to agree that another old adage that history is ‑‑
CHAIRMAN: If you have a question.
MR KIELY: I am getting on to the questions. …agrees or disagrees upon rings true. I am not going to deal with all the points that other people have dealt with because I have two questions that you could provide clarity on.
Firstly, I am slightly confused as to how you see your role here in Ireland on this trip, given that recently you are on the record as saying that I will not campaign for a No vote at your meetings in Ireland, and you said that in one of your e‑mails which I received and helps me to sleep from time to time.
Also, to be fair, whilst your arguments don't stand up to a lot of scrutiny, you do bring a measured element to the debate on the no say and you are chair and co‑leader of a group ‑‑
CHAIRMAN: Look, if you have a question would you put it, please.
MR KIELY: This is my final question, Chairman. As co‑leader of your group, do you stand by the comments of your party colleague Mr Ken Bloomfield when he said that no self‑respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child bearing age. Now a member of your party, of which you are a co‑leader said that. I put it to you, Mr Bonde, is that your vision of Europe? Is that your party's vision of Europe? Because it certainly not my vision of Europe.
MR BONDE: It is not mine.
CHAIRMAN: Ms Maire Ni Bheaglaoich, please.
MS NI BHEAGLAOICH: Máire Ní Bheaglaoich ón National Platform. Fáilte roimh Jens Peter Bonde, go Baile Atha Cliath. Teastaíonn uaim labhairt mar gheall ar an Treoir Seirbhísí Eorapacha, EU Services Directive agus an géirchéim atá i gcóir sláinte na hÉireann faoi láthair. Tá cuireadh ag comhluchtaí príomháideacha chun ospidéil príomháideacha a thógaint ar thalamh poiblí. Tá sraith maorlaithis, is é an H.S.E. curtha ag déanamh an Roinn Sláinte, ar thaobh amháin agus othair agus pobal ar an dtaobh eile agus gan aon freagracht d’aon duine. Má tharlaíonn tubaist san ospidéal, cuireann an HSE an mileán ar an gcóras, ar na h‑úirlisí, nó ar lucht agóide agus MRSA go forleathan. Tá an glanadh curtha ar conradh, lasmuigh de na h‑ospidéil agus ba mhaith liom ceist a chur ar James Peter Bonda, an bhfuil an príomháidiú sa chóras sláinte ar siúl i dtírthe eile? An bhfuil an córas sláinte á scrios ar mhaithe le brabús. Uimhir a dó, an mbeidh ceangal dlí ar na príomháidiú seo go léir má scaoiltear le Conradh Lisbon? Go raibh maith.
CHAIRMAN: Go raibh maith agat. Ms Susan Phillips, please.
MS PHILLIPS: Thank you, Chairman. It is an honour to speak on behalf of Mr Dick Humphreys, who was the chairman, the thinker and the energy behind EUReform. He was a pro European who favoured subsidiarity. He wanted decisions to be taken closer to the ground and he didn't want the nation states to lose their impetus.
Just speaking on from that, on the brief subject of citizenship. Citizenship in the new union is definitely a different step forward with the additional rather than complimentary and we are becoming citizens of a super national state and, as such, it would behove the European Union, as it still is, before it becomes the Union, to suggest to the leaders that every single of the 27 countries, we get one, but the other 26 should have a referendum. We have spoken today a lot about spreading it out to the people, seeing what the people of Europe think. Why are the leaders so frightened of actually saying let this be a European referendum for all the inhabitants? Because if it is going to work, the citizens of Europe must feel empowered, they must feel that they are the glue that will hold the Union together and they must have consensus that this is a Union that is worth fighting for. Now we already had a situation where the French and the Dutch said no.
CHAIRMAN: I think you have made that point, thank you.
CHAIRMAN: I am trying to get other people in, please, and I think you have made the point, please.
Mr Michael Geary, please.
MR GEARY: Thank you, Chairman. Mr Bonde, it is apparent from the debate on the Treaty to date that many spokespersons and organisations appear to be speaking from a perspective of misinformation or misinterpretation according to protagonists. Such a perspective was advocated here by Dr Vike‑Freiberga, the former President of Latvia in addressing the Forum last December when she said:
We see it as a mechanism for making the EU work so that does not become too unwieldy while others look for hidden implications and emotional connotations of certain words or phrases.
So I would like to ask you if Ireland were to vote no in the referendum, how can the EU interpret any coherence or rationale for such rejection, given the reasons being advanced for rejection are many and varied? What is your solution to such a problem given that there was no plan B? I am afraid I cannot accept as logical the proposition that the Taoiseach should try and renegotiate aspects of it beforehand. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ms Bronwen Maher, please.
MS MAHER: Thank you, Chairman. Welcome Jens‑Peter to Dublin.
I just quickly want to take issue with the statements, repeated statement of people who have concerns and challenge aspects of the Lisbon Treaty are anti Europe. I have concerns for the Lisbon Treaty, but if there was a vote tomorrow on us leaving the EU, I would vote against that. I am proud to be a European and I think there has been a lot of positives for Ireland. But my main concern is around the whole issue of defence and what we will lead into when, if we adopt the Lisbon Treaty. In particular, I would like Jens‑Peter to voice his opinion on what the mutual defence clause, what implications this would have for Ireland as a nonaligned so‑called neutral state.
Also I just want to pick up one, I agree with you that Member States have, a lot of us have been very lax in examining and scrutinising and debating EU law and I would like to see us taking a more robust role here and, for example, using Seanad Eireann to discuss what is being passed in the EU and I think this would be a positive move for us. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN: T‑Ollamh O Maolchathadh, please.
PROFESSOR MULCAHY: Thank you, Mr Bonde, your challenge is useful to make us think. I have always advocated that I like the perfect not to be the enemy of the good and I think all the treaties that came along have been successfully good. They are not perfect and if we do examine every little detail we may find questions. But they are not perfect but they have made progress and that is the whole thing in a complex system.
When you appeared with us before, you mentioned on one occasion about those who vote no at referendums, which almost produces a category of people who make a life song thing out of voting no, and that is in your last contribution to us.
Will you agree with me that you are wrong on a couple of things. You were very jaundiced about the EMU system. It has worked very well. The Euro is now almost a reserve currency. You were wrong about that. You said the big bang wouldn't work when we were discussing the early part of Nice. Would you agree that you were wrong on both those? Thank you, Chairman.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr Michael O'Reilly, please.
MR O'REILLY: Pass.
CHAIRMAN: Mr Raymond O'Rourke, please.
MR O'ROURKE: Thank you. I would like to welcome Mr Bonde here. And I think it is always interesting to get a different perspective and he certainly knows the Treaty article by article. I want to highlight a little bit about this issue about independent foreign policy, and I have often said this before. The Berlin declaration; everyone clapped their backs and said that Europe had created peace in Europe in the 50, 60 years of the European Union. But in actual fact it hadn't. It had failed in a part of Europe, which some people called the backyard but I actually believe is centrally in Europe and that is in the Balkans areas. Don't forget we had a President Mitterrand who flew to Sarajevo, walked along the streets and said Europe will not forget you, when in actual fact that is what Europe went and did. And it did that because its foreign policy structure was very inflexible. And you know, along my colleague John Cushnahan on the Convention, part of the reason for the Lisbon Treaty, or the Constitution before it, but the Lisbon Treaty was to try and strengthen the foreign and security policy so that actions could be taken at a European level to deal with these crisis.
Just take the example of President Mugabe, he actually shares my birthday unfortunately. But the European Union has constantly tried to stop him coming into the European Union because of unanimity, because Jacques Chirac says: oh, come to Paris and we will teach you about democracy, and he sits and drinks wine and kind of deals with his bank accounts. You know, let's get real about this kind of issue about a common foreign policy.
Equally I read in the newspapers today that Serbia now wants to decide, because of different things, wants to decide that it will not go the route of the European Union. The western Balkans are all countries that could come into the European Union and, like Spain, Portugal and Greece, encourage democracy. And now because of split decisions with different Member States we are going to have one country that doesn't want to go there and who knows what could happen. We could another Balkan crisis. So I just feel that people should really get real about this common foreign and security policy. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I am grateful to members for their assistance in that everyone who has asked to speak has now been given the opportunity to do so. You might take ten minutes or so if you wish to reply.
MR BONDE: To Dick, the Minister had to leave for a telephone call and who had a press officer who could make some spin and comment on my remarks even before they had been made. We agreed heavily in the Convention and I have to admit Dick and I worked together and a lot of other members in the Convention to safeguard the interests of small nations. It was clear in the end he had to oppose it. He had to oppose my view and I had to continue our joint fight at that time. But I am rather sure in his sleeping room he will very happy if there would be a change where you would gain a Commissioner again. I am sure on that. I am sure that 21 Member States, prime ministers and foreign office guys would be very happy if you got that changed because this is a crucial revolution in the way the EU works if we don't manage to keep our Commissioner and the cabinet around him.
Then on the population, he said why don't I take into account that the majority of Member States have to approve as well. Well, it is so today. The change with the Lisbon Treaty is that you introduce size of population. This is a new element and there you go from one‑fourth of German voting power today to one‑twentieth of German voting power tomorrow. There is a dramatic change between what happened in the past.
In the past all of us lost relatively when new Member States were taken on board ‑ clear. We have to lose weighting, we have to lose power in the Council when new Member States take part, then we have to share our votes with them. That is clear. But here the price is something extra and not marginally extra, it is a dramatic change where you go from more respect for the smaller Member States into a real power structure of the European Union. What you would see is what you see in the Home and Justice Affairs. Every time the ministers meet in Home and Justice, there is a breakfast meeting. This is where Sarkozy got his idea. There is a breakfast meeting between the five big. They meet and decide in advance what the others are going to decide. And this way of taking decisions is dangerous and that is what I call this makes a risk for disrupting a lot of European confidence in smaller Member States if that would become the tradition in all Council meetings that the big Member States meet in advance and make our agenda and decisions. This is dangerous. You need to keep the balance between small and big. And, in my view, the best to be said about the European Union until now, this is exactly the culture of consensus in the 300 working groups in COREPER and the Council. They need to agree on most. And why do they do so? Because they need the support of the others the next day. Therefore they need to take everyone's demands into consideration when they make the final compromise. And there, I fear, a revolution. I may be wrong, then I will be happy. But I fear that the new system will give automatic voting instead of agreement on a consensus basis.
Then for Nora the QMV, today the threshold is 74 per cent of the Member States in the Council in the voting systems need to agree – 74 per cent. It means that they need to ask Ireland too many times or a lot of times. You have your 7.7 per cent of the blocking minority, you need to be taken into account. Now it falls to 55per cent of the Member States and 65per cent of the citizens, which means that the big Member States gain so much that if I was employed by the Commission what would I do? If I should launch a new proposal what would I do? I would start to phone Berlin and London and Paris before I draft my proposal. Today they need to take many more on board. I think it is a dramatic change and I think you underestimate the effects of it.
On the four Danish opt outs it is on citizenship and the Euro and no‑one will touch that. Denmark has the best economy of everyone in the European Union. When we had our referendum on the Euro at the time, it was said that we would go bankrupt and everything would disappear, all the advantages would disappear if we voted No. We voted No and in every area the opposite happened. The employment should go down for a No, then it increased. The interest rate should increase and then it fell. So everything went opposite. So I don't think any government in Denmark would Dare to bring the Euro for a referendum in Denmark.
But on defence and justice and home affairs, there will be a referendum when the ratification process is over, if it ever will be over, then there may be a referendum in Denmark on defence and justice and home affairs. And that may look a little ridiculous. We are a NATO country but we are not part of the defence. You are a neutral country but you are in the battle groups where we are not. You have your generals in Brussels, we have not. You are the (inaudible) agency we have not. So there there may come discussion in Denmark and I am not sure on the outcome of that referendum.
Then for Niamh Bhreathnach on the Charter. I do not campaign on abortion. I have to repeat. I just, I mentioned the protocol as a speciality for Ireland and when new principles appear, the principle of equality, the principle of additional citizenship, I just give the advice. Then you have to look into the protocol and see is it then still valid or do I need to safeguard this protocol under the new circumstances? It is one of my 746 questions. My suggestions to those in the Dáil are put those questions for the Minister. Ask the Minister to get the answers authoritatively in the interpretations from Brussels and then you have no problems with your abortion or us with the summer house protocol if it is approved before. But there is a risk, just like the freedom of right to strike contra the principle of the free movement, there are always those risks if you don't make the safeguards in good time.
Then you asked me examples of bad consequences from QMV in the EU. No, I will not give you any examples. This is Irish topic to discuss whether you have good results or bad results. I will just say when you change the system of qualified majority from the 74per cent clause to make it much easier to reach QMV, then there are more Member States in danger. What you have been talking about in the past may come in the future.
Then Fergal Quinn asked and Declan Ganley as well on foreign investment, on the joint commercial policy the foreign investment will be included. They will widened the scope on that and the same on tax with this new word on distortion of competition. I would, if I was Irish and was in favour of the low taxation and the special rules you have on foreign investments, then I would safeguard them. I see the text as an invitation to the Court to outlaw it or as an invitation to the Council to amend the existing laws. And it is clear, you have a veto right on deciding laws on taxation to harmonise laws, there you have a veto. If you have 12, 13 per cent of what is your corporate tax I don't know, if you would have that as a general taxation everywhere, then you would need unanimity. But to outlaw the Irish low corporate taxation you only need a verdict by the Court and with those words you have much more than an invitation.
So, if you are interested in that, I am not because you compete against my country on the lower corporation tax rate. But if you are interested in it, I would safeguard you if I was you.
On neutrality I think you should make a meeting with people who are experts on neutrality and defence. I am not an expert on foreign policy and neutrality and defence and I am not an expert on justice and home affairs. John is right, there you have the initiative right of one‑fourth of the Member States as well. It is complicated issues, you could write full books on that on its own. I am in an expert in the other areas but I am not more expert than I know but most of it I don't know. I know enough to know what I don't know.
746 questions, I have not tried to do many. I have just gone paragraph by paragraph and not on justice and home affairs and not really on foreign policy and defence, only in the areas I know about. I posed the questions simply on interpretation because I don't know the answer. This is an open lottery book where you don't know the answers before the Court has legislated. I say the Court has legislated because the most important law changes in Europe come from the Court and not from the elected members of parliaments.
On our friend from the Irish trade unions. Yes, I got a clear minute of what Monks said and I am in contact with them as I was with the Danish TUC to have a protocol already in the Convention. At that time I foresaw what would happen. I made a protocol; we did not succeed in having it. Now the Court has decided and now we need a protocol to outlaw the consequences and I am not confident that we can safeguard the standards in Scandinavia, Ireland and other high salaried countries unless we have a protocol to outlaw the consequences of particularly the Laval court case from 18th December, but there is also the Viking case from 11th December. So you should look at the details I am sure you do, and if you would safeguard the interest of Irish workers I think you need to have this protocol. And the time is now. It is 14th March the Prime Minister's meet and I am sure Bertie can get everything he asked, everything. He is the only country having a referendum. He should just say: well if I don't get this protocol, then you take over the task to convince the Irish people to vote Yes for this Treaty. Then he can get exactly his way, clear. And no precedents for others because this problem arise only after, after the signing of the Lisbon Treaty.
On the Charter, more questions on that. The Charter is legally binding today according to the Court and the European institutions have used it many times. In the first year 117 times for making Regulations and Directives. So it is already part of the European law de facto. The problem is that all those nice words in the Charter can fall out always. You have the right to life. Yes, it's nice the right to life, but does it start nine months before ‑‑
MR BYRNE: There you go again, there you go again.
MR BONDE: ‑‑ or the birth, it is up to the Court to decide if it is not clear in the interpretation in advance. And you can go through all of that, all of the articles and you will find ten different interpretations of every single paragraph and if I was you, I would make it clear. I am not against abortion myself, so for me it is not a problem. I could live with the outcome of the Court, I just say it is very unclear what is in the Charter.
On O'Brien from agriculture, Irish Farmers, co‑decision will apply to the Lisbon Treaty to the rules around agriculture but not to the figures. There is a derogation inserted by the French that the figures cannot be touched by the European Parliament, so can the rules around agriculture.
John, on primacy of community law, my previous prognosis about what would happen. Yes, already in the Amsterdam Treaty there was in a declaration mentioned this principle of primacy of community law. It is fixed by the Court in 64 in a court case and then it has, it has not really been approved. Most Member States have not approved the principle of community primacy over national law. If it comes to a real conflict then it has not been accepted.
MR CUSHNAHAN: The question, you had said that the Treaty of Amsterdam was a written constitution.
MR BONDE: Yes, it is according to the Court. There's two concepts. According to the European Court in 1986 they decided that the legal system of the European Union is a constitutional system. It is a court case '86. It is called the Greens, Les Vertes, that is the name of this court case, and it was repeated in '91 in opinion number 1 from '91 where they went further and said it is a real constitutional system. So we have two different concepts. We have the Court in Luxembourg saying we have already a European Constitution, and then you have majority of Member States saying no, we have no constitution, it is the Member States' constitutions which has primacy. Then they settle it with the Constitution in Article 1‑6 they inserted the principle that if there was a conflict between Irish law and European law, then European law should prevail. If there was conflict with the Irish Constitution the European law should still prevail. That is the principle for the Court accepted by everyone in Article 1‑6. Then they wrote it very clearly so everyone could read it and then they run into trouble and then they changed it. They didn't move it as people think. They didn't get rid of it as people think. They moved it to declaration number 17 in more complicated words you can now find the primacy of community law principle inserted. So it is a part of the Lisbon Treaty, this primacy of community law as it was amended from the court.
On the currency, I am strongly in favour of a common currency but not a single currency. And on the EMU did it work or not? No, it did not work. Why didn't it work? Because they had the 2per cent clause on inflation, for instance. And what happened? They breached the rules and allowed 3per cent inflation, more inflation in France, more in Germany. It didn't work with the rules from the EMU and that was what I said. I made a very good book on the economic and monetary union. It only in Danish so I have been very precise on that and I have nothing to regret on the opposite.
I have to bring it to a conclusion.
So do I campaign for a No? No, I don't campaign for a No, because it is simply not my task. My task is to make books on the European Union. I have made 60 of them up to now. I publish a reader friendly edition on the Constitution, which the Council have decided not to do. I publish a popular read about the Constitution. It is done in Danish. It will come in English in three weeks, four weeks, I guess. I published a guide with all the tools you need to read it. This is ridiculous that this guy who is elected to oppose the Constitution is the guy who shall produce the results so that you can read this Constitution you are so strongly in favour of. I shall produce it. I shall circulate it, for all of those, for all of you who are in favour of it. And I simply don't understand if you are so happy with this Lisbon Treaty, why don't you make a consolidated version and send it to every household so everyone could see it and judge it and be happy every time they fins a sentence ‑‑ (applause)
CHAIRMAN: I think it would be a good challenge.
MR BONDE: I wish you, anyway, a very good referendum. You are only one to have it. You will vote for 495 million citizens.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Could I ask you to express your appreciation to Jens‑Peter Bonde. (Applause)
Well my thanks to Jens‑Peter Bonde and to all the Forum members who participated and gave us a lively debate.
It was mentioned that the Bill for the 28th Amendment to the Constitution to permit, if it is approved, for the referendum is available to the public in the Government Publications Office where we are making efforts at the moment to get a link on our own website, so it should be available through that.
I am also grateful to Joe Higgins for his suggestions in relation to the structuring of future plenary meetings. This is a subject the Steering Committee has taken up and we will try and have a few thematic meetings after Easter. Thank you for that, Joe.
On Monday we had the National Finals of the Public Speaking Competition in Dublin Castle. 150 schools from all over Ireland participated and I would like again to thank Members of the European Parliament for their support. The winners were St Catherine's Community School in Killybegs. We will have two public meetings next week in Ennis on 10th March with Timmy Dooley TD and Patricia McKenna, and 11th March in Tralee with Martin Ferris TD and Alan Dukes.
And we will shortly publish our list of public meetings for the period after Easter and these will be on the website and will be communicated to Forum Members as soon as we can. We have also advertised seeking submissions from individuals and organisations and there is copy of this advertisement on your seat. We will be particularly interested in submissions from members of the Forum. The deadline is 3rd April and we will hold a special hearing on 15th April to hear some of those.
And it only remains for me to thank you for your participation, to again express our appreciation to Jens‑Peter Bonde.
Go raibh mile maith agat. Slan abhaile. (Applause)
THE HEARING CONCLUDED
National Forum On Europe, Fóram Náisiúnta um an Eoraip © 2010