Ark wrote:What I find funny is how many Irish people are loudly anti-EU...
It is one of the most ingrate and ridiculous things ever.
jesus you must be around a lot of idiots then. a majority of Irish citizens are pro europe, the euro polls will show this. never mind, shouting is all they can do, no substance when they are challenged about their ill formed views.
like any country they will pick and choose what is good for them and what is not, independently when it comes to voting on treaties on europe. any one who thinks otherwise is naive. if the people fear they will loose their power via loss of seats etc then they have a credible reason to vote no.
interference from Prodi or any other should stop, they did not do that to the dutch or frence during the consitution (much of which was dealt with during the dublin presidency)
the reality is, there is a need for overhaul in the institutions of the EU and hopefully this treaty will do so. the problems are that if you look at polls in europa not many people , at least in this country, know what exactly the institutions like the council or parliament really do. further, in light of recent corruption in the commission over the years and the failure of previous treaties which promised to deal with these structures, (eg amsterdam which lead to the requirement of nice) it can be very hard to trust these institutions.
no country in europe will want to loose its rights in important matter. the only thing is, our leaders need to spell out what is really contained in this treaty (most of it is good and badly needed) or else those anti europe idiots will successfully influence the no vote.
then again, this would not be the first time our government ignored the people when it comes to european treaties.
