Lisbon Treaty

Hi Ripo

while I think your views on Democracy seem credible, I am suprised that the web link is to a UK eurosceptic website.

in an ideal world yes it might seem good that all EU citizens would have to vote on the Lisbon Treaty, but we must accept different national traditions as to how to adopt such Treaties. Many European countries do this via adoption in their national parliaments so we in Ireland can't dictate to them how to adopt the Lisbon Treaty. In particular, Germany does not have referenda because of their experience of such votes under Hitler & the Nazis. So possibly you may say that the Gemans are being denied democracy, but even at this moment there is a court case before the German courts on the Lisbon Treaty, so democracy is not all about voting rather it is a mixture of various checks & balances.

you say that the Lisbon Treaty is an awful treaty & should be re-written - having taken 10 years to produce & gone through a Convention etc there is no appetite amongst European politicians to begin the process of framing a new Treaty. Indeed, the Treaty is the best balance that could be agreed amongst 27 sovereign Member States each concerned in different ways to protect their national interests. I personally would have preferred a more federalist Treaty, which would be especially useful in the present financial turmoil, but alas European federaliists are in a minority in Europe/Brussels despite the ill-informed views of many eurosceptics or organisations like Libertas.