An appeal to SUPPORT THE NEW IRISH "NO TO LISBON" CAMPAIGN is
circulating through Susan George and others. I have just forwarded it to
the board of Attac Finland with a wish that it be translated into Finnish, too
(glad to see that a translation into Swedish, my first language, has already
been done).
Although I support the campaign against the Lisbon treaty, I stay convinced
that our YES TO EU must be clear and loud. Hence it feels good to read the two
sentences at the end of the appeal: "We share the same vision of a Europe
where the economy works to serve the needs of ordinary citizens - not corporate
power or military ambitions. We seek a peaceful, social, democratic,
demilitarised and ecological Europe."
However, the vision of a peaceful and democratic Europe was already found in
the manifesto of Ventotene from 1941 and in the draft treaty from 1984, which
introduced the concept of "European Union" and was approved by the elected
European Parliament, but rejected by the ruling European elites. We should say
so, and use the original Spinellian idea as a weapon against the Neoliberal
idea of the EU. Otherwise, we cannot break the hegemony of the Neoliberals and
take the lead.
To demand the "demilitarisation" of Europe, on the other hand, is not
realistic. The EU has to constitute itself independently of the other powers;
its military status could hardly be that of "a demilitarized zone" guaranteed
by international treaty, like the Åland islands. But a European conscription
army for territorial defence, in some respects resembling the Swiss army, is a
realistic alternative to the European military forces envisaged by the Lisbon
treaty, which in reality would subordinate them to NATO and the USA, and which
engages them in perpetual wars of the West against the rest.
Therefore, I would have written 'denuclearised' instead of 'demilitarised'. In
a world situation where nuclear weapons are proliferating and the nuclear
powers play their bilateral and multilateral arms control games while they all,
without exception, maintain and modernize their own WMD, it must be our top
priority to revive the movement for unilateral European nuclear
disarmament. Europe must be the exception!
The "ecological Europe", finally, implies a decision to successively dismantle
the nuclear power stations. Attac has already adopted that anti-nuclear
position, I think, and Ireland has no nuclear power plants. "The last thing
any country needs, let alone a beautiful place like Ireland, is Nuclear
Power", I read (on a website called "The good life - self-reliance in an
uncertain world"; see http://the-goodlife.blogspot.com/2007/03/nuclear-power-in-ireland.html).
So the Lisbon treaty should promise to keep Ireland nuclear-free. Does it?
Tag - Ireland
Saturday 11 July 2009
Support the new Irish "No to Lisbon" campaign!
By Mikael on Saturday 11 July 2009, 19:07
Thursday 5 February 2009
Declan Ganley and the Nationalist Right
By Mikael on Thursday 5 February 2009, 08:34
The Nationalist Right is rallying around Irish businessman Declan Ganley and
his Libertas movement. Ganley's supporters include MEPs Philippe de Villiers
and Paul Marie Coûteaux, both members of the Mouvement pour la France, and
Greek MEP Georgios Georgiou. Other politicians backing Libertas are Lord Alton,
a life peer in the British House of Lords; Finnish MP Timo Soini; Bulgarian MP
Mincho Kuminev; and Polish regional assemblyman Cyprian Gutkowski.
All the above-mentioned right-wingers have lent their personal support to Declan Ganley's applicaton for Libertas to become a European political party.
It seems that Declan Ganley is trying to sink the EU with the help of these and other conservative Nationalists. Ganley is in turn backed by powerful circles within the US military-industrial complex, who do not wish to see a united and democratic state emerge on the old continent. These are the same circles as those who oppose newly elected president Obama's plans to withdraw the troups from Iraq. For them, a united and democratic Europe, as described in the constitutional draft from 1984 ("The Spinelli Project"), is a nightmare, since they fear that it would spell the end of the political and military supremacy which the USA has had over Europe after World War II.
In my country, Finland, the chairperson of the "True Finns" Party, MP Timo Soini has until recently squarely rejected the European Union and Finland's membership in the same. He has only shown deep contempt for the European Union. Thus on 29 January, Mr Soini wrote in his blog that he will not run in the elections for the European Parliament, because "my morals and my conscience will not sink to the level of the EU".
However, yesterday Timo Soini came forth with a declaration to indicate that the the "True Finns" are no longer demanding that Finland leaves the EU. Could it be that Mr Soini hopes to get financing via Libertas for "True Finns" who are, after all, morally prepared to candidate in the coming euro-elections?
Within the Finnish electorate, the support for the "True Finns" Party is now bigger than that of the Leftist Union. According to a recent poll, only 7.5 percent would vote Leftist Union, while 8.2 percent would vote for the True Finns. Meanwhile, the support of the Social Democrats has fallen to under 20 percent.
It was the Finnish Social Democratic Party which led Finland into the EU in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the Social Democrats did not, and do not, have any vision of the future of the EU itself, if we except the now vanished Neoliberal pipedreams of Tony Blair.
What was "The Spinelli Project"? This is the question the European Left must now ask itself.
"Contemple-les, mon âme; ils sont vraiment affreux!" (Baudelaire)
All the above-mentioned right-wingers have lent their personal support to Declan Ganley's applicaton for Libertas to become a European political party.
It seems that Declan Ganley is trying to sink the EU with the help of these and other conservative Nationalists. Ganley is in turn backed by powerful circles within the US military-industrial complex, who do not wish to see a united and democratic state emerge on the old continent. These are the same circles as those who oppose newly elected president Obama's plans to withdraw the troups from Iraq. For them, a united and democratic Europe, as described in the constitutional draft from 1984 ("The Spinelli Project"), is a nightmare, since they fear that it would spell the end of the political and military supremacy which the USA has had over Europe after World War II.
In my country, Finland, the chairperson of the "True Finns" Party, MP Timo Soini has until recently squarely rejected the European Union and Finland's membership in the same. He has only shown deep contempt for the European Union. Thus on 29 January, Mr Soini wrote in his blog that he will not run in the elections for the European Parliament, because "my morals and my conscience will not sink to the level of the EU".
However, yesterday Timo Soini came forth with a declaration to indicate that the the "True Finns" are no longer demanding that Finland leaves the EU. Could it be that Mr Soini hopes to get financing via Libertas for "True Finns" who are, after all, morally prepared to candidate in the coming euro-elections?
Within the Finnish electorate, the support for the "True Finns" Party is now bigger than that of the Leftist Union. According to a recent poll, only 7.5 percent would vote Leftist Union, while 8.2 percent would vote for the True Finns. Meanwhile, the support of the Social Democrats has fallen to under 20 percent.
It was the Finnish Social Democratic Party which led Finland into the EU in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the Social Democrats did not, and do not, have any vision of the future of the EU itself, if we except the now vanished Neoliberal pipedreams of Tony Blair.
What was "The Spinelli Project"? This is the question the European Left must now ask itself.
"Contemple-les, mon âme; ils sont vraiment affreux!" (Baudelaire)
Sunday 15 June 2008
The Irish NO to the Treaty of Lisbon
By Mikael on Sunday 15 June 2008, 20:47
I would they had thought European. However, I am glad that the Irish voted NO to the Lisbon Treaty even if they only did it for the usual reasons.
With their NO votes, the supporters of the Nationalist Sinn Féin wanted to defend Ireland's sovereignty and military neutrality. Conservative Catholics feared that the Lisbon Treaty would break the Irish constitutional ban on abortion.
The majority of the workers and farmers and many middle class people felt they had nothing to gain but something to lose if they voted YES. The Irish said NO to the kind of development, liberalization and modernization that the EU represents.
Yet the main reason for the victory of the NO in Ireland, and earlier in France and Holland, is the fact that the Treaty of Lisbon (like its predecessor, the Constitutional Treaty of the European Convention) really does not change anything; it only continues the present catastrophic economic and political trends.
Interestingly, Ireland does not have a political party of the radical right of the type represented by Le Pen's Front national in France, or Jörg Haider's Freiheitspartei Österreichs. Sinn Féin, which collected ca 7 percent of the votes in the last parliamentary elections (2007), and which campaigned actively against the Treaty of Lisbon, is certainly Nationalist, but it is not xenophobic. The economic demands of the party. e.g. tax justice, are leftist. (1)
Sinn Féin also demands that Sellafield be closed down. Whether this is primarily because the British nuclear site pollutes Irish waters, or out of a principled and global opposition to nuclear energy, is not known to the present author.
Ireland is the exception that proves the rule: today the EU is not something which the citizens decide about, but something which is forced upon them. (The first, spontaneous reactions of President Sarkozy and other EU leaders confirm that the rule applies as usual in the case of the Irish NO to the Lisbon treaty.)
However, the situation is partly our own fault. The EU would not have to be what it is if its citizens dared to think in European terms instead of going ahead along the usual National and Nationalist paths.
Our first strategic demand as EU citizens should be the abolition of the weapons of mass destruction. The constitutional treaty of the EU should outlaw the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. For what purpose do we maintain and modernize atomic bombs now that the Cold War is over?
The EU-leaders would not contribute to the new arms race if they were serious about combating the man-caused climate change. Nor would they advocate the building of new nuclear power plants.
We the peoples of the EU-countries need to decide about the future of the nuclear weapons and the nuclear power plants.
The Treaty of Lisbon does not spell it out clearly. Yet what it means is that the governments of France and England may continue unhindered with their 'modernization' of their national nuclear arsenals, and that the EU will be committed to continuing the nuclear war planning of NATO and to embracing the current doctrines of nuclear deterrence, preemptive strikes and militarization of outer space.
Furthermore, the Treaty of Lisbon builds on the Euratom Treaty of 1957, the purpose of which is to further and increase the use of nuclear energy. The EU needs a new Euratom which guarantees an ordered and secure dismantling of the existing nuclear power plants.
For these two main reasons plus the obvious Capitalist bias of the Lisbon Treaty, I would also have voted NO , if I had had the chance.
Mikael Böök Isnäs, Finland.
Footnote:
(1) Based on: Eoin O'Malley: Why is there no radical right party in Ireland? Working Papers in International Studies. Centre for International Studies. Dublin City University. 2008.