Madam, – While Breda O’Brien is “sick of hearing half-truths” in the treaty debate, (Opinion, September 12th), I’m personally tired of reading articles that illustrate a half-baked knowledge of the EU.
Let’s take, for instance, the claim that “it is wrong that the vast majority of Europeans have little or no opportunity to influence the direction that the EU takes.”
Before criticizing the EU for its alleged “democratic deficit,” one must first understand that the EU’s institutional architecture and decision-making process reflect the twofold legitimacy of the EU as a union of states and of peoples.
While the independence and powers of the European Commission allow it to function, not as a government, but as the effective guardian of the European interest, the association of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, in the adoption of EU law, perfectly embodies this dual legitimacy of the EU.
And how could the EU not be democratic when the European Parliament directly represents the citizens of Europe, and the member states are represented in the Council of Ministers by their governments, themselves democratically accountable either to their national parliaments or to their citizens?
To put it differently, the European rulers are all, directly or indirectly, selected by the citizenry and can be held accountable for their actions.
This is not to say that further reform is not required. There is a need to correct the asymmetry between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, and to favour a better involvement of national parliaments. Were the Lisbon Treaty to enter into force, these goals would be satisfactorily attained. Furthermore, and among other novelties, the Lisbon Treaty also contains a new mechanism that would enable EU citizens, if they number at least a million and represent a significant number of member states, to ask the Commission to submit to the EU legislature any proposal they consider necessary.
One must think twice, however, before arguing in favour of more direct democracy when it comes to selecting EU rulers or voting on new EU treaties. Indeed, the more democratic the EU becomes in the conventional sense, the more state-like it will become.
Accordingly, if you want the EU to remain an organisation controlled by the member states and which acts in an extremely consensual manner, you should logically refrain from criticising the EU institutional arrangements or those countries where referenda are viewed with (legitimate) suspicion. And from a pragmatic point of view, if one assumes referendum to be the most democratic instrument, we should perhaps consider holding one on Nama, a piece of legislation likely to have a more lasting and concrete impact on Irish lives than any of the (positive) reforms contained in the Lisbon Treaty.
Ireland could then emulate California, where the regular use of referendum has produced one of the most dysfunctional political systems in the Western world. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Saturday’s “Opinion and Analysis” section (September 12th) contained five articles in a row, all supporting a Yes vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum. (Noel Whelan’s article was an analysis of the campaign so far, but I think the sympathies of the author were obvious, and the headline chosen was: “Yes Campaign Must Sell Treaty As a Good Thing in Itself”).
These were followed by a “not sure yet” article by Breda O’Brien.
This is not at all unrepresentative of the Irish media’s coverage of the debate, which has been atrociously partisan, right down to the Dan Brown-style demonising of Cóir. It would seem that, to the editors, producers and journalists of Ireland, “balance” in this context means spending as much time attacking the No campaign as it spends promoting the treaty. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It fires me up that so much credence be permitted on the airwaves and in the national newspapers for the opinion that the Government are inadequate at selling the Lisbon Treaty to the people.
Aren’t we all grown adults here? Can’t we all just read the nine-page Referendum Commission’s guide which spoon-feeds in neutral and straightforward terms what the treaty is about?
Surely part of your duty as a citizen of this country is to be responsible enough to find out what is fact, and vote on that?
I call on everyone going to vote to do just that, and then when it is over, we can blame ourselves for the outcome on October 2nd. – Yours, etc,