Ireland and its people may yet defend the nearly 500 million citizens of Europe against the authoritarian putsch lurking beneath the post democratic, federal European Union.
It is worth noting, too, that of the 27 member states only eight have deposited their acceptance of the European Constitution with the Italian government in Rome, the final ratification stage. Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Hungary, Malta, Rumenia and Slovenia have sold out. Germany awaits its Constitutional Court decisions on the legality of ratifying the Lisbon Constitution. Cyprus, Italy, Spain, and Sweden have not even begun the procedures, zilch, not even a tilt at getting it through the lower house.
The rest have the Constitutional Treaty stuck somewhere in their democratic works, upper houses, head of state acceptance, constitutional challenges, failure to deposit the ratified Treaty in Rome despite all other procedures being completed.
Ireland or no, this is not over.
UPATE
Reports are coming in that Ireland has voted No. All the other national hesitations will be reinforced and confirmed.
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5 comments:
Huzzah for Ireland! Hip, hip, hip...
I have burnt the dinner, S, from looking at the news and not the stove.
Extremely extra crispy duck with a Guinness on the side sounds very nice..
Now watch the machinations begin (again).
The Czech constitutional court is currently considering the compatibility of te Lisbon Treaty with the Czech constitution. The German court was doing the same although the German president has signed off on it. Other member states have courts that will be asked to look at the validity of this treaty now. It's not every country that has the identity of state and governance the UK suffers.
Italy has a constitutional problem in that the Northern Leagues are pressing for a referendum but the constitution does not permit referendums on international treaties; so Italy has to decide the nature of the Lisbon treaty now, if it exists at all, and whether there should be an attempt to alter the Italian Constitution if it is ruled that the Lisbon treaty is still an international treaty. If it is not, then the Leagues can readily gather the required signatures for a referendum, and Italy could well vote it down even if there is an attempt to press on. Or they can bring the Berlusconi government down. Berlusconi is no great fan of the EU in its anti-American stance or its fiscal and monetary policies either. Italy has not begun any part of the ratification process.
I expect there are all sorts of issues at least as complex as this coming up now, as well as appeals to constitutional courts to halt the ratification and depositing processes.
There's a petition on the No 10 website that readers of this blog may be interested in :
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Abandon-Lisbon/
Hatfield Girl, I hope you don't mind me using one of your postcards to publicise this? Many thanks, Ruth
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