Cox says McCreevy claim on Lisbon 'groundless'

THE CLAIM by Ireland’s EU commissioner Charlie McCreevy that people in most EU countries would have voted No to the Lisbon Treaty was “sweeping, false and entirely groundless”, according to the director of Ireland for Europe, Pat Cox.

The former president of the European Parliament, whose independent people’s campaign is advocating a Yes vote in the forthcoming referendum, said that selectively pointing to negative referendum results in France and the Netherlands on the constitutional treaty in 2005 wilfully ignored the corresponding positive votes in Spain and Luxembourg.

“If one takes the Yes and No votes cast in the four votes by referendum on the constitutional treaty the overall number voting Yes came to 26.7 million voters, while the number voting No was 22.7 million, a popular majority of four million voters across borders,” Mr Cox told the Chambers of Commerce in Killarney yesterday.

“It certainly does not sustain the sweeping, false and entirely groundless assertion that 95 per cent of countries would have voted No. It is sceptical in tone, wrong in substance and populist in perspective.”

Mr McCreevy said after the No vote in last year’s Irish referendum on the treaty that the result in most member states would have been the same had the treaty been put to the people.

Mr Cox said yesterday that each EU state was free to choose how it ratified treaties, whether by representative democracy in the form of votes in their respective national parliaments or by referendum.

“However, as regards the Lisbon Treaty, all member states except Ireland have chosen to ratify the treaty through their national parliaments.

“Both France and the Netherlands held national elections after the constitutional treaty was defeated by referendum. The eventual winners indicated in advance to their electorates their intention to ratify the upcoming EU amending treaty by the parliamentary method. They won electoral mandates to do so.”

Mr Cox said the national parliaments of Ireland’s 26 partner states in the EU had voted for Lisbon. In three of those countries – the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany – final formal ratification was still being awaited.

“Almost 7,400 national parliamentarians have voted on the Lisbon Treaty...Of these thousands of elected representatives across the EU, 85 per cent voted Yes, 11 per cent voted No and 4 per cent abstained. If votes count this tells us something, something different to Commissioner McCreevy’s assertion.”