Forum on Europe told No campaign is misleading

CAMPAIGNERS FOR a No vote on the Lisbon Treaty were accused of either not understanding the treaty or deliberately misleading people about it at a meeting of the National Forum on Europe in Dublin yesterday.

Former EU commissioner David Byrne said the No campaign was misleading people with claims that had nothing to do with the treaty.

"It is extremely important that the people of Ireland understand the issues," he said, adding that the majority would vote Yes if they understood the treaty.

However, Susan George, author and chairwoman of the Transnational Institute, said EU leaders had deliberately written the treaty in an obscure, complicated way because "you're not meant to understand what's going on".

Ms George said the treaty contained "enormous" economic detail. It was littered with references to the market and competition, but did not refer to unemployment once.

She also warned that Europe was in "a race to the bottom" because the new EU states in eastern Europe had not got the same structural funds as countries such as Ireland did when they joined the EU.

"Therefore they are being used, de facto, as a reservoir of cheap labour."

Ms George said she would advise a neutral country such as Ireland to look carefully at the military implications in the new treaty "which obliges us to, quote, progressively increase our military capabilities".

She also claimed that between 80 and 90 per cent of legislation relevant to this country would eventually come from Brussels and not the Dáil.

She said the European constitution provided for a "hugely powerful commission" with a very weak parliament "which has no right to initiate legislation, much less levy taxes".

However, Alan Dukes, former Fine Gael leader and director general of the Institute of European Affairs, said Ms George's arguments were "tendentious and unjustified".

He pointed out that no national parliament in the EU initiated its own legislation, governments did.

"Allegations of a democratic deficit in the European Union are entirely tendentious, misleading and without foundation."

He said the No campaign was "obsessed with this idiotic proposal that in some way the European Union is out to get democracy".

Mr Byrne said the rotation of EU commissioners was necessary because it would be unwieldy and inefficient to have a commissioner for every state.

However he added that in a 15-year period, Ireland would have a commissioner for 10 of those years. "I don't believe this in any way reduces the impact of Ireland in the European Union."