We will try to pinpoint some of the moves from the YES side that have already almost secured the rejection of the Renamed EU Constitution (REC) on the June referendum by the Irish voters:

1. Disregard of the basic democratic values (ignoring the Dutch and French rejection in 2005; practically the same document on the shelves again; fast-track approvals by the National Parliaments that revealed many cracks between the voters and the elected ones). Disrespect of the public results in the disrespect by the public.

2. Dirty Bertie affair (he received a series of payments from a property developer in the 1990s when he was Finance Minister).

3. Irish MEP Proinsias de Rossa’s fake beating. Official press wanted to smear EU-critical protesters as violent and brutal.

4. Problems on the right flank - Future EU plans on Tax Harmonisation (This is not, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel has suggested, about Ireland setting a tax rate which undermines our European neighbours. This is about our right, enshrined in existing treaties, to adopt a low-tax environment as a matter of political principle).

5. Problems on the left flank - Social structure of Europe under tectonic shifts due to the ECJ decisions in favour of social dumping (Viking, Laval-Vaxholm, Rüffert).

6. Transparency issues during the preparation stages of campaign:
   Case 1 - Leaked e-mail regarding the Irish campaign.
   Case 2 - MEP Jo Leinen’s similar approach within the EP (sweeping the dirt under the carpet until 12th of June)

7. Logical thinking by Unions in Ireland: The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union on Monday (5 May) urged its 45,000 members to vote against the treaty in the referendum next month. General secretary of the TEEU Eamon Devoy took the stance on the back of recent judgements by the EU’s highest court which he said had shown that the pendulum had “swung against workers’ rights and in favour of big business. “In the circumstances, it would be foolish to provide the institutions of the European Union with more power,” he added, according to the Irish Independent.

8. Survey shows 80% do not understand Lisbon Treaty. So why would they vote positively on something so badly presented to them by the elected politicians and public officers.

9. Movements within the body of voters are already in favour of protection of the present Irish Constitution.

We are sure the list will get longer in the following 6 days and a month.

There you go:

l 0. Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso has been misleading the participants of public meeting in Ireland on the issue of taxes. Not to forget the unavoidable War on Climate Change.

l l. Farmers actually don’t like it. There are fears regarding consequences of WTO trade talks. (Sinn Fein’s opinion, EU Commissioner Mendelson’s opinon, opinion of farmers).

l 2. REC goes against Irish neutrality (The end result of a consolidation of military capacities must be an European army, said Mr Steinmeier, according to German news agency DPA.)

I 3. They intend to disregard the laws on election campaigns - no campaigning on the day of the elections. European Youth for an Irish YES will campaign in Ireland between 11 - 12th June. To JOIN US, email toni.giugliano@jef.eu. This can be seen at JEF webpage.

I 4. ‘Cause even the “official side” says something like that but not precisely the same… Bad omens loom over Irish referendum by Hugo Brady; February/March 2008 - CER BULLETIN, ISSUE 58

I 5. This one will be tricky but still somehow more likely to make EU more emotionally distant from the Irish people: Dustin the Turkey. It’s much easier to explain that EU’s enlargement failed because of the turkey, not because of Turkey.

Taken from the TwelveStars own web-page:

In the mid 1990’s, Nicolas was asked to assist in the brand and marketing re-launch of the European Movement, a European think tank founded in 1950 by Sir Winston Churchill. Following the successful launch of this project, which was noticed by MEPs and the European Commission, Nicolas was called on by the European Parliament to help the EEC (now the EU) to better understand how Europeans perceived the European Community, its institutions, enlargement and its future currency, the ECU (later renamed the EURO). Nicolas undertook a series of large scale research projects which identified the difficulties Europe faced in engaging with its citizens.

Nicolas found that citizens did not understand the European project, the EU institutions or their mission. Most importantly, the symbols of the EU, like the European flag, the choice of Beethoven’s 9th symphony as the EU anthem or the fact that the 9th of May was Europe’s day, failed to resonate with most Europeans.

Nicolas presented these problems along with his radical recommendations to define a future vision of Europe that would clarify the project’s purpose to millions of citizens and engage them emotionally. The project required the agreement, cooperation and collaboration of several EU institutions but due to internal EU politics and bureaucracy the project proved impossible to implement. Most of the issues Nicolas’ project addressed are still as important today as they were back then and the EU is still dealing with the difficulties Nicolas identified; as recently as last year(2005!) the European Constitution was rejected by EU citizens.

As part of his work with the EU, Nicolas privately funded Captain Euro, a superhero character used to research how people felt about EU identity and citizenship. The project became an overnight sensation and made the cover of the Wall Street Journal and was featured in global TV news media. Simple Minds dedicated their City Lights theme to Captain Euro. The Captain Euro project continues to engage people from around the world and the website receives thousands of international visits to this day.

And here is our up-to-date redesign of this magnificent piece of art:

Incidentally, did you realise you were living in an era of Brand Wars?

Many unclear and foggy manoeuvres will remain the trademark of this year’s ratification process.

Due to diverse legislation procedures in all 27 EU member-states it is hard to keep track of specific ratification in one member. In this manner Austria only yesterday legally ratified the REC (Lisbon Treaty) when their President “Heinz Fischer on Monday (28th of April) signed the Lisbon Treaty “after conscientious examination of all the factors,” thus formally finalising the ratification process in Austria.

And EUobserver continues with logical conclusion that “ten other countries have ratified the document.”

What is more worrying is that it’s so hard to find any news on the status of specific ratifications - in Czech Republic and in Germany ratifications are legally and practically still far from finalisations. In Slovenia the Constitutional Court still has not found the time to investigate possible breaches of Constitution regarding holding a referendum. We have seen news from Hungary that individual court cases have been raised.

However if it’s Ireland we have to be worried about - apparently the skies are becoming clearer by the day: “Polls are narrowing”. Also people in Ireland are measurably (62%) under-informed over the gargantuan treaty.

Fact is - we have to prepare ourselves for “the day after”. It will be Friday June 13th and it will be a good day for Europe and the World if this monster of a treaty is stopped.

NEWSFLASH: Quite a charming news came from the Great Britain yesterday (2nd of May). Namely millionaire Stuart Wheeler has succeeded in gaining leave to appeal from the High Court over the government’s refusal to hold a referendum on the EU (constitutional) Lisbon treaty. The proceedings started last month and now two judges have ruled that there is an “arguable case” which warrants of full hearing. This, we are told, is likely to take two days, scheduled for 9-10 June.

Although Mr. Wheeler is considered by many as a man of good fortune it would not go well in the history of the Great Britain and Europe in general if he would be stood out alone with quite enormous litigation costs on his own back. Therefore he did make space for his kinsmen and other European activists to help him in the legal quest for justice, democracy and freedom.

Interesting - on 9th and 10th of June mr. Bush of USA comes to Europe and on 12th of June Ireland tosses the dice.

It must be that Wallstrom’s Ze Plan for more democracy includes further half-secretive ratifications. Yesterday and today we were pleasantly surprised by the Portugese and German ratifications:

However in Germany there are certain legal(constitutional) and political questions to be resolved before the ratification will be official - we’ll have to wait at least until the 23rd of May when Bundesrat will decide the fate of REC.

NEWSFLASH: Danish parliament has also fallen to the temptation today - 90 MPs in favour, 25 against, 64 have not taken place at the vote.

Hence: Ireland, here we come!

At the EUDemocrats website this news broke out:

A new scandal was revealed today, Thursday April 24th. Twenty eight (28) leading multinational companies have had their own lobbying office in the European Parliament, with Parliament’s telephone number and address.

Members of Parliament have been involved in a special board for this secret lobbyist activity. Their group leaders have known nothing about their involvement. The MEPs have been handpicked to serve business interests under the leadership of the Spanish Vice President, Vidal-Quadras, Chairman of EBPS, assisted by a Parliamentary board including John Bowis (EPP-ED), Lena Ek (ALDE), Angelika Niebler (EPP-ED), Edit Herczog (PES), Manuel Medina Orterga (PES) and Dirk Sterckx (ALDE).

Big multinational companies, namely, Gas de France, Telefonica, Thalys, British American Tobacco, Unilever, Ericsson, Microsoft and others are involved.

The European Parliament and Business Scheme (EBPS) were set up by former President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox. He is now a leading business consultant and President of the International European Movement. He is also campaigning for a Yes to the Lisbon Treaty in the Irish referendum foreseen for June 12, 2008.

The scandal was revealed during the Conference of Presidents meeting today in Strasbourg. Green party leader Monika Frassoni informed her colleagues, and they decided by a majority vote to ask the College of Quaestors to end this lobbyist activity.

The European Parliament shall decide about lobbyism in the mini session in Brussels on May 8. This is also the last voting day for the President of the Group for Independence and Democracy, Jens-Peter Bonde, who was recently elected president of EUD –a political party at European level aimed at improving democracy and transparency in the EU.

Bonde was quoted as saying: “I have asked the Parliaments’ leadership to establish a full investigation on how this secret working group could be established behind the necks of all group leaders”.

In future we will list all the flaws from the YES side in Ireland (fake media reports on the assault on the MEP, deceptions by Barrosso and others, problems with taxes and farmers). Today’s story will definitely add to the swing of many Irish voters towards rejection of the Renamed EU Treaty.

What will be after the Irish referendum? Friday the 13th. Good Friday mind you, get ready.

4th of March 2008

“France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting No. It would happen in all Member States if they have a referendum. There is a cleavage between people and governments…There will be no Treaty if we had a referendum in France, which would again be followed by a referendum in the UK.”
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy, at meeting of MEP Group leaders, EUobserver, 14 Nov. 2007

List has been refreshed on April 24th 2008

Estimated dates of ratification procedures:

DECEMBER (2007):
ratified in Parliament —————-Hungary (325 yes, 5 no, 14 abstained)
JANUARY (2008):
ratified in Parliament —————-Slovenia (74 yes, 6 no) - Constitutional Court case ratified in Parliament —————-Malta (unanimous…)
FEBRUARY:
ratified in Parliament —————-Romania (387 yes, 1 no, 1 abstained)
ratified in Parliament —————-France (332 yes, 52 no)
MARCH:
ratified in Parliament —————-Bulgaria (195 yes, 15 no, 1 abstained)
APRIL:
ratified in Parliament —————-Poland (384 yes, 56 no, 12 abstained) - not signed by the President yet
ratified in Parliament —————-Austria (155 yes, 28 no)
ratified in Parliament —————-Slovakia (103 yes, 5 no, 1 abstained)
ratified in Parliament —————-Portugal (208 yes, 21 no)
ratified in Parliament —————-Germany (515 yes, 58 no, 1 abstained) - Bundestag, lower chamber
ratified in Parliament —————-Denmark (90 yes, 25 no)
by late April ——————————Great Britain
unknown ———————————-Greece
unknown ———————————-Cyprus
MAY:
by May —————————————-Estonia
by May —————————————-Latvia
by May —————————————-Lithuania
JUNE:
by June —————————————-Ireland => RR **
by June —————————————-Belgium
by June —————————————-Finland
by June —————————————-Luxembourg