Lisbon referendum, a personal view

Decision time is coming up for all of us with a vote, but the whole Lisbon Treaty thing has degenerated into a shouting match which makes it even more difficult to understand the already confused issues.

When obviously intelligent people on both sides of the divide come up with passionately opposing interpretations of various aspects of the Treaty, clearly there is something wrong with the whole thing?

And I'm just talking about the rational people. The ones who can make reasoned arguments, and don't have a hobby horse to flog to death. I don't take any account of faculties-challenged monkeys, or hijacked turkeys, or opportunistic naysayers like Sinn Fein.

I don't have a problem with many of the more hyped fears. I believe the neutrality issue is well copper-fastened, and anyhow I figure we should punch our weight in any defence of our EU neighbours that might conceivably be necessary. We could be asking them to come to our help. I don't expect the EU to be a belligerent in any conflict, and if it was we're already able to opt out of any involvement.

The abortion thing is a perennial local flag waved against any major EU-related vote. Again I think the situation is reasonably well protected, although even without Lisbon there are probably ways to try to change it. But why would the EU want to? If there's any challenge to the current situation, it will be from within Ireland, not outside.

Even the prospect of losing our Commissioner for five out of every 15 years doesn't cause me serious angst in principle. After all, we don't directly elect them, and anyhow once somebody goes to Brussels in that capacity, they are duty bound to serve the EU, not their own home country. Besides, every member state is being treated the same way. The 'yes' side makes the valid point that passing Lisbon puts off this change, already due to be implemented next year, for a further period.

OK, the Commission is only one side of a duality that actually gets laws made and implemented, the other being the European Parliament. But it is the place where policy is developed, and it is human nature that any Commissioner won't forget where he or she came from when ideas under discussion might advantage or disadvantage the folks back home. On balance, I'd like all member countries to have a permanent place at that particular table, but that's not going to happen.

This whole thing about Qualified Majority Voting is a bit of a mystery to me. And I guess to everyone else except the Machiavellian minds who devised it. Maybe it works. It must, because it is already used. The devil is in the detail of extending it, and nobody seems to agree on just what that detail is. But it isn't hard to believe that the larger countries in the Union can make the most hay with it.

I'm bemused about claims that we'll be 'unpopular' in Europe if we don't allow this one through. Politics is only a popularity contest at grass roots level. Once it gets beyond the people we can directly elect, it is all about deal-making in the corridors of power. And those deals will be made, one way or another, between people who don't give a fiddlers about how well or not they like the home country of the people they're making the deal with.

There's a whole bunch of other stuff making up what we'll be asked on Thursday next to say 'yes' or 'no' to. I've tried to read the full Treaty text, and failed to make any sense of legalese that is clearly designed to keep international lawyers in clover for decades to come. I've gone through the Referendum Commission's booklet several times, and find their effort almost too simplistic. Besides, that they had to hold a press conference for further clarification, and even then weren't able to answer all questions, is worrying to say the least.

I'm downright scornful of the various special interest groups -- farmers and some unions in particular -- which held out on backing for a 'yes' until they got certain promises from the Government. Everybody has the right to change their mind, but could I respect a call for a 'yes' from a group that was so definitely 'no' just a few days ago?

I have another uneasiness. The Government parties are the largest part of the political 'yes' camp. The dangling participles of the Coalition did a direct volte face on this issue when they managed to grab hold of the tail of the horse of power. I can't bring myself to trust their newly glossed lip-service to the 'yes' side. Besides, smelly stuff rubs off when you're so close to a horse's behind.

As for the Horse of Destiny itself, the way its various ministerial riders are urging 'yes' is quite nauseating, given that they are the self-same ministers who continually chorused their defence of Bertie Ahern's financial shenanigans when he was 'De Man', but now are remarkably busy elsewhere since they gave him the final hollow ovation on the steps of his resignation. They are also the ones who insisted that there were no upcoming economic difficulties for Ireland as we galloped towards a water-jump which was so obviously waiting to give us a very wet and chastening experience. Why do I think that they have their own interests at heart rather than yours and mine?

About the main opposition parties, I simply think they are mistaken to blindly clutch the coat-tails of a Government which just wants to strut on the Brussels vaudeville, to applause from technocrats and uber-politicos whom Ireland will have helped perpetuate ad infinitum, if not ad nauseam. Perhaps the recent drop in Fine Gael satisfaction ratings that has so surprised its leader, Enda Kenny, reflects how many of us think this way?

I consider myself a true European in the best sense of the word. I admire the experiment which the Treaty of Rome got under way, and I'm grateful for both the help that we received by virtue of joining the EEC and the long-term peace in Europe that followed from the development of a largely successful Common Market. I'm a firm fan of the Euro, and though we're outside the Shengen area, I'm comfortable with the relatively free way I can travel between the member countries of the Union.

I'm not so happy with the level of authority over our daily lives and businesses which an increasingly powerful bureaucracy in Brussels has been allowed take to itself. I don't think we should be heading for a United States of Europe, which is what those in charge of the EU are doing their best to convince us is the best course. It's a kind of 'a little more power is never enough' thing. Every little extra we give them only encourages an appetite for a bit more. Let it go on, however benign the whole monolith might try to appear, and we'll end up with the kind of centralised system that once was the Soviet Union.

Remember, that 'Union' was a forced together collection of formerly independent countries, and look at the shambles it became. The USA is a different animal altogether, as its component states were never independent countries in their own right. That said, the individual states guard carefully their own degrees of autonomy from the Federal Government, though even that has become increasingly difficult when the country has been led by an administration that shows more the attributes of an African dictatorship than a modern democracy.

All in all, I was of a mind for some last while to say 'no' to Lisbon. Not least because we in Ireland have the absolute constitutional right to vote on matters such as this. My 'no' vote was going to be as much for all those millions in the rest of the Union who didn't get a chance to have their say as it was for me.

Then the little information leaflet giving the actual wording of the Constitutional Amendment dropped through my letter slot last week. As I read it, I finally made up my mind.

I'm a communicator by trade. Have been for more than three decades. In large part my job is to make the obscure clear, to help give voice to those without the ability or the platform to so do, to tell the truth in as far as I can understand it. I hope I've done this all my journalistic career to the best of my ability.

That last little leaflet reflected perfectly the kernel of this Lisbon Treaty Referendum. What we are being asked to vote into our Constitution is absolute gibberish. Words from the topmost level of the fabled tower in Babel. No wonder what we've been hearing lately from the political rabble has itself become a babble.

I'm voting no. If they come back with something I can understand, I'll reconsider. I'm not looking for a 'Plan B', or a renegotiation. I just want it said like it is.

Like I'm saying it. No. Níl, if you like, in our other official language.

Or Ne, Nej, Nein, Õih, Ochi, Non, Nem, Le, Nee, Nie, Não, Nu, and Ei, as they might say in the other official languages of the EU if those who speak them had gotten the chance.

Brian Byrne.