Posts Tagged ‘guarantees’

Sinn Féin’s claims to be pro-European

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Talking about the European Treaty, Sinn Féin wrote in a pamphlet:

The objective is a United States of Europe with a European army. Irish people will be compelled to fight whatever wars the European super-powers decide to wage. Neutrality will go and compulsory military service for our youth will be introduced.

This was not in reference to the Lisbon Treaty, though. This is a from a pamphlet from 1971 (PDF), in reference to the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which were to vote on our accession to the European Economic Community in 1972.

Sinn Féin has never been pro-EU, whatever its claims, this year or on other occasions. Each Treaty we have voted for was in Sinn Féin’s terms the last stand for Irish neutrality and independence. Unless we believe that they were right on every occasion since 1972, warning of militarization again in 1987, 1992, 1998 and 2002, why should we credit their fears on this occasion?

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What Declan Ganley is not addressing

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Over the weekend, I looked back on the points Declan Ganley made at the launch of Libertas’s campaign two weeks ago.

As I watched this, I found that nearly every point he made could be disputed, if not refuted. Below is a critical analysis of his case.

He begins by stating that this is the same European Constitution that the French and the Dutch rejected, and that we rejected last year, ignoring the key symbolic changes made to the Constitutional text to remove the statelike trappings which were of such concern, and in the Irish case, it ignores the European Council of December 2008 to agreement to keep our Commissioner and the June 2009 agreement with the legally-binding guarantees.

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The facts: Abortion and the EU

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Despite the clear guarantees which we have secured on successive occasions, Cóir have persisted with the pernicious deception that Ireland’s position on abortion is being threatened.

It is helpful then to outline precisely what protections exist in Irish Constitutional law on abortion, and what European Union provisions protect this measure.

Article 40.3.3° (more…)