Madam, - Two letters about the Lisbon Treaty in your edition of July 1st include the kinds of half-truth and groundless suggestion which have characterised the No campaigns for over 35 years.
Anthony Coughlan claims the post-Lisbon EU "would have the constitutional form of a supranational federation - a state in other words". True, it would display some of the features of a federal state: for example, clear rules on the division of powers between the centre and the power-granting entities. To argue that this would make the EU a supranational federal state is, however, a gross exaggeration.
In no federal state today - eg, the US, the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Australia - is the "central" set of institutions so closely controlled by the power-granting entities as are the EU's central institutions.
Mr Coughlan's argument is akin to saying that, because a mouse has four legs, a tail and a mammalian anatomy, it is an elephant because it shares those characteristics with the elephant.
He claims the Lisbon Treaty would result in the EU having a "voice at the UN." This is even less than a half-truth. It is clearly intended to convey the impression that the EU would in some way have its own institutional presence at the UN. No such provision is contained in the treaty. What is there is a perfectly sensible agreement that, where the EU member-states agree on a position which is relevant to matters before the UN, they would promote that position at the UN. What else would they sensibly do? Remember, too, that the Lisbon Treaty maintains the stipulation that foreign policy decisions require unanimity in the EU.
Mr Coughlan claims that "If Lisbon were to be ratified our rights and duties as EU citizens would be superior to our rights and duties as Irish citizens in any case of conflict between the two. Such conflicts would be decided by the EU Court of Justice, not the Irish Constitution." This is more misleading hyperbole and invention.
The Lisbon Treaty contains a Charter of Fundamental Rights which would give citizens of member-states certain guarantees in the context of the implementation of EU law by the member-states. In practice, these rights are less comprehensive in these restricted areas than the rights of Irish citizens under our Constitution and laws. In cases where the charter sets out rights not envisaged in our Constitution (if such there be within the framework of the competences granted to the EU by the member-states), we would have to adopt laws to give reality to such rights. Conflicts are therefore unlikely to arise, to say the least.
The Lisbon Treaty does not enumerate any duties of citizenship (something which it actually has in common with the constitutions of a good many states). Conflicts over unenumerated duties seem to me to be rather unlikely. In any case, the only requirement that exists for accession to "citizenship" of the EU is that one be a citizen of one of the member-states. No new duty is attached.
Mr Coughlan goes on to claim that "this post-Lisbon EU would make some two-thirds of our laws each year". Where does that figure come from? It has been variously claimed that the EU accounts for 70 or 75 per cent of our legislation, but nobody has been able to back up that figure. Nobody on the No side of the argument has gone to the trouble of trying to check it up. I have.
On a quick review of Acts of the Oireachtas from 2000 to 2007, I can find no basis for a proportion anywhere approaching the kind of figures that have been bandied about.
Caitlín Ní Chonaill penned a polemic about reports of "joint training exercises" involving European and Israeli air forces". She links this with France, "ever Israel's friend", assuming the EU Presidency. She goes on to refer to the EU offering Israel "European air space to facilitate its aggressive aims" and not "punishing Israel". All of this is clearly intended to convey an image of malign EU activity.
Such a suggestion is groundless. The EU does not control military air space anywhere in Europe. The EU does not determine the activity of the Italian or Greek air forces (which were apparently involved in the joint training exercises). Nor does the EU have any mandate, either from the UN or from its own member-states, to "punish" any other regime. Why? Because the EU member-states give the EU no power or function in any of these areas.
Ms Ní Chonaill joins the long list of people who criticise the EU for things in which it has no role. I suggest that they would serve their causes better by arguing the case for the EU to be given the power and the instruments necessary to pursue the many laudable aims which they advocate, but where the EU currently has no mandate to act. - Yours, etc,
ALAN DUKES,
Tully West,
Kildare.