LISBON IS a byword for dull, dull, dull in the same way as any mention of Maastricht in secondary school could have been used as a mantra to knock out chronically insomniac geography students. EU treaty debates are tedious affairs at the best of times, let alone when we have to go through the rigmarole of doing it all over again at the same time as we watch the bottom fall out of the world, writes NICK McGINLEY
When you are about halfway through the treaty and tiny droplets of blood are trickling from your eyes onto the page, you start noticing some interesting issues that no one’s arguing about. I believe there are 100 reasons to vote for Lisbon. Here are just a few.
SPACE EXPLORATION:Lisbon calls for the drafting of a European Space Policy. If the Russians sent up dogs, what sort of animal would best represent the EU in space? With all the talk of CAP reform, the animal most representative of Europe is probably the cow. An Australian or African space agency could send up some pretty wacky animals to keep the extra-terrestrials guessing, but we'd probably have to plump for intergalactic Friesians cunningly hidden Russian doll-like in Gateway computer boxes. Watch this space.
CHILDREN'S RIGHTS:Lisbon protects children's rights, which can only be good, as the thing about children is that they're so disorganised. Ask them to prepare a policy document for you and they're forever procrastinating with frogspawn experiments, colouring books and dressing-up sessions. In short, children are inherently unserious about defending their rights in an organised way. They expect us to do it. Lazy little gits.
MONEY:The European Central Bank is our own personal ATM and it's the only bank I know of that still keeps spewing out cash long after "insufficient funds" has flashed up on the screen. Whisper it: this is funded by German taxpayers and most of the Sabines, Wolfgangs and Horsts out there don't know the extent to which their money is bankrolling Ireland, so we need to preserve the tiniest soupcon of goodwill from these blithely ignorant everyday Germans with a modicum of co-operation on our part.
SEX:Carla Bruni wants you to vote Yes to Lisbon. She's never been denied anything before and we're kind of scared by her voracious appetites. Besides if she turned her back on us, we'd miss the golden sunshine of her smile, the sharp glint of her incisors, the steely gaze, those iron thighs – it's nothing to do with what her mini-Gaulle lover wants, it's all down to her wish to preserve her grand place at the heart of Europe and France, toppling Josephine in the minds of political love historians. Alas, no protocol prevents Carla from annexing the rest of Europe with her charm.
BRIDGE-BUILDING:A sort of two-for-the-price-of-one reason for voting Yes to Lisbon is that it'll annoy Sinn Féin and the British Conservatives in equal amounts: they've never had so much in common. Shadow foreign secretary William Hague and Mary Lou McDonald could be swapping fill-in-the-blanks speeches, they're so on-message. Ever since UKIP MEPs donned T-shirts and unfurled banners with "Respect the Irish Vote" in orange lettering on a green background in the European Parliament, we've been in strange, uncharted waters, where old enemies join forces to cling onto outmoded ideologies to preserve their own profile and power.
TRANQUILLITY:While strictly speaking Euronews has nothing to do with the Lisbon Treaty, apart from being thinly veiled propaganda for the EU, it's the least stressful way of keeping oneself informed about the debate. The faintest whisper of the theme music is Valium to the ears – there's no concept of time here – things happen in a haze somewhere in Mittel-Europe sometime last week. Social unrest, plane crashes and earthquakes are all filtered through the prism of how well the EU's agencies can cope with social unrest, plane crashes and earthquakes. It's reality for optimists, who like to learn three things an hour that'll make them feel better about humanity.
HUMAN RIGHTS:Any social legislation worth a curse has come from the EU. Equal pay for men and women, working time, parental leave and anti-discrimination legislation have all come from the EU's big cupboard of more-or-less decent ideas. Lisbon greatly enhances human rights and freedoms with the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. There are those who say there is nothing new in the charter. In which case, one has to ask why is its application being resisted so strenuously by Britain and Poland?
PUBLIC SERVICES:The Protocol on Services of General Interest guarantees states' ability to fund and run the education and health sectors as they see fit. As a result of Lisbon, there will be no fast-food-branded private schools with morning assembly replaced with a short message from our sponsors, no in-classroom infotainment screens and no teachers teaching an alternative history of Europe where the EU was founded by Nike.
There are many reasons for voting Yes to Lisbon II – in fact there are 100.
Nick McGinley, a Dublin-based author, comedy sketch writer and playwright, is author of 100 Reasons to Vote Yes to Lisbon II(Trashface Publications, €7), a collection of serious and not so serious reasons why, in his view, the treaty should be supported. Elaine Byrne is on leave