Press Statement by
People’s Movement - Gluaiseacht an Phobail
post@people.ie
www.people.ie

11/12/2008

Frank Keoghan, Secretary of People’s Movement – Gluaiseacht an Phobail, a group that campaigned for rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, has said that, ‘When the people of France and the Netherlands voted to reject the EU Constitution, their governments requested that ratification should stop because of the unanimity requirement for treaties to come into force. But the Irish government chose to ignore the democratic decision of the Irish people and immediately began conniving with other EU leaders in order to find a way of circumventing the referendum result’.

Speaking at a People’s Movement vigil outside the EU Commission building at Place Schumann in Brussels, where People’s Movement delivered a letter to Council President Sarkozy, he pointed out that, ‘This process has culminated in the Taoiseach travelling to Brussels today to be told by EU leaders how to solve the ‘Irish question’. It is plain, that irrespective of the rules of the EU, there is one rule for the big member states and another for the smaller ones and that all the EU leaders are now guilty of corrupting democracy in an increasingly post – democratic era for the European Union’.

‘People’s Movement categorically opposes any attempt to re-run the Lisbon Treaty’, Keoghan continued ‘and calls on the Irish people to defend democracy against the bullying of the EU elites and betrayal by their own Taoiseach and Government should that be the outcome of today’s summit’.

He concluded by pledging a more vigorous campaign than in the last referendum and called on the Irish electorate to ‘deliver an even more resounding rejection of the Lisbon Treaty’.

For further Information:
Frank Keoghan, +353 87 230 8330, Brussels
Kevin McCorry, +353 86 315 0301, Brussels
Patricia McKenna MEP, +353 87 242 7049 or 01 8300818 Dublin