Letters on a Referendum
Monday, 9 June 2008
Letter to the Editor, 5 June
Dear Sir,
I have carefully read the new statement from your Referendum Commission.
I am shocked that the leader did not know one of the most important articles on delegation of powers to the non-elected Commission and I have found a lot of mistakes in their booklet.
In this article you can find 8 points. More could be added and I am prepared to debate the content with anyone.
You are welcome to contact me at +45 - 20 49 02 51, or on my fix line at + 45 - 44 49 02 51.
I might be in Dublin from Tuesday
Yours truly,
Jens-Peter Bonde
Former MEP after 29 years membership, member of the two drafting conventions, author to a readable version of the Lisbon Treaty at euinfo.ie (www.eudemocrats.org) and author to a lexicon explaining all words from the Lisbon Treaty at euabc.com.
President of the EUDemocrats
The 8 Points:
TAXES
The Lisbon Treaty directly invites the Court to outlaw the low Irish rate at 12,5 % by
- Art. 113 in the Lisbon Treaty is the legal base when the EU shall harmonise the rates for indirect taxes. For direct taxes they may use Art. 115 or the flexibility clause in Art. 352. There is no clear definition on indirect taxes. Corporate tax was normally seen as a direct tax. But the Commission has planned to harmonise the tax base for corporate taxes on the basis of exactly Art. 113. This is now Art. 93 in the Nice Treaty. The articles require unanimity in the Council when taxes shall be harmonised.
- There is no specific article for the harmonisation of direct taxes. The EU Court has included direct taxation in Case C-35/98 stating “although direct taxation falls within their competence, the Member States must none the less exercise that competence consistently with Community law”. Member States shall also respect the Convention of 23. July 1990 (revised 25.5.1999) on double taxation and the directive of 19 December 1977 about mutual assistance in the area of direct taxes.
- What really matters is the broadening of the concept of the Internal Market. The tax clause in Art. 113 TFEU will be radically changed. Taxes shall not only be harmonised when it is a necessity for the functioning of the Internal Market. Now, the Lisbon Treaty widens the scope unlimited by adding “and to avoid distortion of competition”. This concept is much broader. What difference does not distort competition?
4. This broader concept can also be found in the new Protocol no 27 widening the definition of the Internal Market which shall now include “a system ensuring that competition is not distorted”. The Protocol even invites the Council to use the flexibility clause in this new area if there is no other legal base. But this still require unanimity when the EU want to harmonise rates.
5. There is a much easier legal base for fighting distorted competition. This is Art. 116 TFEU allowing the Council to decide by a majority vote. The Commission start the process by sending a letter about the distortion to the Member State concerned. If the Member State does not change the distorting element the Commission can go to the EU Court or propose a law to be adopted by qualified majority. Here there is no Irish veto. This article has not been used for taxes, yet. But there is no guarantee that it cannot be used.
6. 17 January 2008 the EU Court overruled a Danish law on the taxation of Danes possessing secondary housing in Denmark or/and abroad. There was no connection to the common market at all.
Finland was forced to change their taxation of pensions in the Danner case. Denmark lost a tax case on pensions as well.
It is naïve to believe that the new Union could not reach the low Irish corporate tax by other means than direct harmonisation of tax rates.
7. The Commission has started the work for harmonisation of the corporate tax base. It is included in the annual program for 2008. The draft has been prepared and may make it impossible for the Irish state to gain revenue from Irish companies turnover in other Member States - if rumours are right. The proposal has been archived – until the Irish referendum…
8 . There is only one way to safeguard the low Irish tax, a clear Protocol stating: “Nothing in the European treaties shall hinder Ireland from maintaining its lower taxes on companies for their turnover in the whole of the world.”
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Letter to the Editor, 6 June
No veto for agriculture
Your government is misleading when they promise a veto in the negotiations on agriculture in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The Lisbon Treaty is carefully drafted to get rid of the vetos from the past. You can see it in the second part of the Lisbon Treaty called the TFEU-treaty.
Art. 3 define commercial policy as an exclusive EU competence where Member States are not allowed to do anything on their own.
Art. 207.2 establish majority voting as the normal procedure.
Art. 207.4 have some derogations requiring unanimity. Agriculture is not a part of that and I have found no item in the Doha round requiring unanimity in the EU.
Look it up yourself in the readable version of the Lisbon Treaty at euinfo.ie or www.eudemocrats.org and find the words explained in my lexicon at euabc.com
Jens-Peter Bonde
Former MEP, member of the two drafting conventions, President of the EU Democrats
jp@bonde.dk
webmaster@eudemocrats.org
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Letter to the Editor, 9 June
Thursday 12 June the Irish will vote on the Lisbon Treaty. The President of the EU Democrats, former MEP, Jens-Peter Bonde, can be found in Dublin in these days at +45 20 49 02 51. He will participate in the final debates in the state radio and television, RTE, tuesday morning and evening. He has followed the Irish debate through 6 visits and has made this final comment.
Bondes books on the Lisbon Treaty can be found here:
Reader-Friendly Consolidated Version of the Lisbon Treaty and
From the EU Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty
(Vote Thursday 12 June in Ireland )
IRISH CITIZENS VOTE
FOR ALL EUROPEANS
By Jens-Peter Bonde
Former MEP and member of the Convention on the Future of Europe , President of EU Democrats
Bonde is the editor of a reader-friendly edition of the Lisbon Treaty to be found at euinfo.eu and will participate in RTE debates on Lisbon on Tuesday 10 June before the referendum
Never before have so few voters had a chance of such a big say. The Irish are the only European citizens to be allowed a vote on the Lisbon Treaty.
After the rejection of the EU Constitution in France on 29 May 2005 with 55 % “Non”, followed by a 62 % Dutch “Nee” on 1 June, the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents agreed among themselves to move the full content of the Constitution into a different treaty and to avoid all further referendums.
Only an Irish referendum could not be avoided because of the Irish Supreme Court’s judgment in the 1987 Crotty case. The Prime Ministers were sure they would have a safe Yes anyway in the country that has benefited so much from EU money in the past.
But the polls now show a neck-to-neck vote. Already it can be said confidently that the Lisbon Treaty has no popular approval in any country. If there is a Yes in Ireland it will hardly be a whole- hearted Yes to the content of the Treaty. At most the Irish Government will be able to say that it won has a majority for not “marginalising” Ireland in the EU.
The Irish parties have not put forward arguments on the core content of the Treaty. They have mainly threatened people with being marginalised in the EU if they vote No.
· They have kept hidden the constitutional content of the Lisbon Treaty.
· They have used tax-payers’ money to finance Government and Referendum Commission booklets which contained misleading descriptions of the Treaty.
· They have promised a veto in the World Trade Organisation which definitely does not exist for agricultural products.
· They have had the Commission’s Dublin office confirm this misleading statement about a veto.
· They have induced Commission President Barroso to say that Irish voters need not be concerned about Ireland’s low company taxes even though the scheme for a harmonised tax base for assessing taxes is in the annual work programme of Barroso’s own Commission for 2008, and will be pushed by the French presidency when France take over on 1 July.
· They have asked the Commission and the Council to hold back all controversial proposals until after the Irish referendum and to stay quiet on documents which they would normally make public.
· The patients’ directive will come at the end of June and will establish health care as a free market item where poor people will be forced to pay higher taxes to finance health care abroad for the rich.
· The implementation of the Services Directive and the Laval case from last December is in train and will forbid trade union action to establish salaries for migrant workers higher that the minimum wage of €8.65 an hour.
· The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty has been secretly negotiated as regards 33 issues, including the salary and fringe benefits of the new non-elected European President, and these await publication after Ireland ’s referendum.
· The French and British have agreed on a joint European army but will only publish the agreement after the referendum.
The Irish Government has said they got everything they wanted in the Lisbon negotiations, so there would be nothing to negotiate after an Irish No.
May I remind my good friend from the Constitutional Convention, Minister for Europe Dick Roche, about our joint fight for a permanent commissioner for each country, transparency as the basic operating rule in the EU and a better position for small countries in the voting system.
One commissioner each
In the Convention 21 EU governments fought to keep the principle of one commissioner each. Three-fifths of the Convention members signed a petition calling for that, including all the Irish members - and Minister Roche.
In the event Dick Roche compromised and accepted a system of equal rotation. This compromise is bad for two reasons:
1. It is not sustainable. When France takes up a commissioner place after Malta , and Germany after Cyprus , everyone will realise it is not fair and the result will be permanent seats for the big member states and rotation for everyone else. This has already been called for and has been realised in the rotation scheme for governors of the European Central Bank.
2. Even if it were sustainable it would destroy day-to-day cooperation in the EU. Small Irish companies and communities need to be able to continue making easy phone calls to the cabinet of the Irish Commissioner to deal with local Irish problems.
3. The Commission will have extended powers to decide laws on its own through delegated acts under Art. 290 and implementing acts under Art.291 - these being the two articles that were not familiar to the Referendum Commission Chairman at last week’s press conference. The Commission can also be delegated to amend WTO agreements on its own. Such vital agreements could fall to be dealt with by a Commission which had no Irish presence.
4. The Commission has the monopoly of proposing EU laws. How can law proposals be legitimate if no Irish voice has been heard in making them?
Dear Dick Roche, do return to our joint position in the Convention if there should be an Irish No or a small Yes on Thursday. Most member states would be happy to support you.
Transparency as the rule
According to the European Ombudsman, the European Commission is currently proposing a step backward as regards transparency. All the Irish members and all elected members from National Parliaments signed a petition to organise disclosure rules so that everything would be open and transparent unless otherwise decided.
No other proposal had such support in the Convention. Even the French, German and British ministers supported it personally, but they were not allowed to call for it. Ireland should bring this proposal to the table again.
Twenty times the Irish vote is too much
Today Germany has four times Ireland ’s vote in the Council. When Denmark and Ireland joined the EEC in 1973 Germany had three times our vote. There had been an adjustment for the big member states in the Nice Treaty as a compensation for their losing a second commissioner. But under Lisbon Germany will have 20 times the Irish vote and 16 times the Danish. This is too much.
Let us go back to the table and find a fairer solution. In the Convention I proposed – together with Minister John Gormley – a much easier system with one vote for each Member State in the Council and that the support of three-quarters of Member States should be needed for an EU law, plus a majority in the European Parliament.
In the German federal chamber they give 6 votes to North Rhein- Westphalia, with its 18 million citizens, and 3 votes to Saarland with one million. In the USA California with its 50 million citizens has no more seats in the Senate that the smallest state with fewer than one million citizens.
It is not difficult to see where the Lisbon Treaty can be improved.
I hope for democratic improvements for all. I am sure this will happen if there is a solid Irish No. But I fear that there will be a small No and then the Government will come back with some nice words on specific Irish issues and have the Lisbon Treaty adopted in a second referendum.
Europe deserves a better treaty for our necessary and useful European cooperation.
Thursday 12 June the Irish will vote on the Lisbon Treaty. The President of the EU Democrats, former MEP, Jens-Peter Bonde, can be found in Dublin in these days at +45 20 49 02 51. He will participate in the final debates in the state radio and television, RTE, tuesday morning and evening. He has followed the Irish debate through 6 visits and has made this final comment.
Bondes books on the Lisbon Treaty can be found here:
Reader-Friendly Consolidated Version of the Lisbon Treaty and
From the EU Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty .
(Vote Thursday 12 June in Ireland )
IRISH CITIZENS VOTE
FOR ALL EUROPEANS
By Jens-Peter Bonde
Former MEP and member of the Convention on the Future of Europe , President of EU Democrats
Bonde is the editor of a reader-friendly edition of the Lisbon Treaty to be found at euinfo.eu and will participate in RTE debates on Lisbon on Tuesday 10 June before the referendum
Never before have so few voters had a chance of such a big say. The Irish are the only European citizens to be allowed a vote on the Lisbon Treaty.
After the rejection of the EU Constitution in France on 29 May 2005 with 55 % “Non”, followed by a 62 % Dutch “Nee” on 1 June, the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents agreed among themselves to move the full content of the Constitution into a different treaty and to avoid all further referendums.
Only an Irish referendum could not be avoided because of the Irish Supreme Court’s judgment in the 1987 Crotty case. The Prime Ministers were sure they would have a safe Yes anyway in the country that has benefited so much from EU money in the past.
But the polls now show a neck-to-neck vote. Already it can be said confidently that the Lisbon Treaty has no popular approval in any country. If there is a Yes in Ireland it will hardly be a whole- hearted Yes to the content of the Treaty. At most the Irish Government will be able to say that it won has a majority for not “marginalising” Ireland in the EU.
The Irish parties have not put forward arguments on the core content of the Treaty. They have mainly threatened people with being marginalised in the EU if they vote No.
· They have kept hidden the constitutional content of the Lisbon Treaty.
· They have used tax-payers’ money to finance Government and Referendum Commission booklets which contained misleading descriptions of the Treaty.
· They have promised a veto in the World Trade Organisation which definitely does not exist for agricultural products.
· They have had the Commission’s Dublin office confirm this misleading statement about a veto.
· They have induced Commission President Barroso to say that Irish voters need not be concerned about Ireland’s low company taxes even though the scheme for a harmonised tax base for assessing taxes is in the annual work programme of Barroso’s own Commission for 2008, and will be pushed by the French presidency when France take over on 1 July.
· They have asked the Commission and the Council to hold back all controversial proposals until after the Irish referendum and to stay quiet on documents which they would normally make public.
· The patients’ directive will come at the end of June and will establish health care as a free market item where poor people will be forced to pay higher taxes to finance health care abroad for the rich.
· The implementation of the Services Directive and the Laval case from last December is in train and will forbid trade union action to establish salaries for migrant workers higher that the minimum wage of €8.65 an hour.
· The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty has been secretly negotiated as regards 33 issues, including the salary and fringe benefits of the new non-elected European President, and these await publication after Ireland ’s referendum.
· The French and British have agreed on a joint European army but will only publish the agreement after the referendum.
The Irish Government has said they got everything they wanted in the Lisbon negotiations, so there would be nothing to negotiate after an Irish No.
May I remind my good friend from the Constitutional Convention, Minister for Europe Dick Roche, about our joint fight for a permanent commissioner for each country, transparency as the basic operating rule in the EU and a better position for small countries in the voting system.
One commissioner each
In the Convention 21 EU governments fought to keep the principle of one commissioner each. Three-fifths of the Convention members signed a petition calling for that, including all the Irish members - and Minister Roche.
In the event Dick Roche compromised and accepted a system of equal rotation. This compromise is bad for two reasons:
1. It is not sustainable. When France takes up a commissioner place after Malta , and Germany after Cyprus , everyone will realise it is not fair and the result will be permanent seats for the big member states and rotation for everyone else. This has already been called for and has been realised in the rotation scheme for governors of the European Central Bank.
2. Even if it were sustainable it would destroy day-to-day cooperation in the EU. Small Irish companies and communities need to be able to continue making easy phone calls to the cabinet of the Irish Commissioner to deal with local Irish problems.
3. The Commission will have extended powers to decide laws on its own through delegated acts under Art. 290 and implementing acts under Art.291 - these being the two articles that were not familiar to the Referendum Commission Chairman at last week’s press conference. The Commission can also be delegated to amend WTO agreements on its own. Such vital agreements could fall to be dealt with by a Commission which had no Irish presence.
4. The Commission has the monopoly of proposing EU laws. How can law proposals be legitimate if no Irish voice has been heard in making them?
Dear Dick Roche, do return to our joint position in the Convention if there should be an Irish No or a small Yes on Thursday. Most member states would be happy to support you.
Transparency as the rule
According to the European Ombudsman, the European Commission is currently proposing a step backward as regards transparency. All the Irish members and all elected members from National Parliaments signed a petition to organise disclosure rules so that everything would be open and transparent unless otherwise decided.
No other proposal had such support in the Convention. Even the French, German and British ministers supported it personally, but they were not allowed to call for it. Ireland should bring this proposal to the table again.
Twenty times the Irish vote is too much
Today Germany has four times Ireland ’s vote in the Council. When Denmark and Ireland joined the EEC in 1973 Germany had three times our vote. There had been an adjustment for the big member states in the Nice Treaty as a compensation for their losing a second commissioner. But under Lisbon Germany will have 20 times the Irish vote and 16 times the Danish. This is too much.
Let us go back to the table and find a fairer solution. In the Convention I proposed – together with Minister John Gormley – a much easier system with one vote for each Member State in the Council and that the support of three-quarters of Member States should be needed for an EU law, plus a majority in the European Parliament.
In the German federal chamber they give 6 votes to North Rhein- Westphalia, with its 18 million citizens, and 3 votes to Saarland with one million. In the USA California with its 50 million citizens has no more seats in the Senate that the smallest state with fewer than one million citizens.
It is not difficult to see where the Lisbon Treaty can be improved.
I hope for democratic improvements for all. I am sure this will happen if there is a solid Irish No. But I fear that there will be a small No and then the Government will come back with some nice words on specific Irish issues and have the Lisbon Treaty adopted in a second referendum.
Europe deserves a better treaty for our necessary and useful European cooperation.
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