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Originally Posted by Tchocky
Don't make the mistake of reading this referendum as a democratic statement of popular opinion.
Don't make the mistake of reading any referendum as such, especially one on such a messy issue.
No long-serving Western government will have their way this summer. Economic recession, ever-increasing oil and food prices, all contribute to bad feeling in voters' brains.
I'm actually disgusted, hearing about people who voted No because they didn't feel well-informed, or didn't understand the issue. That's a disgrace, and one of the many reasons I've been against tyhe idea of a referendum from the beginning.
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I am aware of the implicit problem with referendum, for the same reason Helmut Schmidt, if he would talk with me
, disagrees with me, for he also rules out referendums in principal, for the same argment you gave, Tchocky. However, I see this issue from a perspective of realpolitik: I wanted this madness getting stopped, and nthat is what the Irish have dleivered me. why they did it, in the end is not a serious concern for me, they stopped it nevertheless, and that is what counts.
However, we have had many polls in european nations over the past years, and the majority of them indicate that the EU is not really popular in general. Don't make the mistake that you would get a general agreeing if you would have a referendum Europe-wide and a fairy tale would make it that people really and indeed oinly vote over the issue the referendum is about. I would bet three of my financial monthly budgets that both Lisbon and the old constituition would be rejected by a majority of 60% or more. So, as I see it, the motivation of the Irish is not the big issue. Maybe they all were drunk and made their ticks in the wrong box. Nevertheless they created what I wanted, and what I consider to be the majority opinion in europe anyhow.
The doubt they have raised in the EU, seem to be limited anyhow, speakers of the spocialist and the conservative fraction in the EU parliament already said that now one should go without the irish and anybody not wanting the treaty, and that the other shsould adopt to the old cionstitution. No one seem to realise that the content of the constitution is the problem, and must be redone from scratch. They seem to be detemrined more than ever to impose their will on Europe against the will of the people.