The government and senior diplomats in the Department of Foreign Affairs are dreading the possibility of having to run another referendum on treaty changes that will allow Ireland and other countries who fail to meet the deficit GDP ratio targets to have their voting rights in the EU Commission removed as punishment.
The key driving force behind this reform is Chancellor Merkel who concerns herself that the Irish, Greek, Portuguese and other governments do not have the fortitude to apply cuts in the face of mass active opposition and future electoral annihilation.
After the con of the second Lisbon referendum which was sold to the people under false pretences by the entire political establishment, Minister Dick Roche knows he would have some job fooling people into supporting Chancellor Merkel’s amendments in a referendum vote.
Indeed, he and senior staff at his Department will actively seek to agree those changes without recourse to a referendum.
The point I, and others on the left, tried to highlight during the Lisbon Treaty debate that there was a general anti-democratic drift taking place with political and economic decision making powers becoming less the domain of governments we elect and more the prerogative of Brussels is unfortunately being demonstrated in practice.
The Socialist Party demands that any changes to the treaty that facilitate the effective further erosion of economic and political decision making powers should be put to a referendum which we will
