Dear
,
Thank you for your query on my position on the Lisbon Treaty. I campaigned against the Lisbon Treaty last year. I attach an article I wrote then outlining some reasons why. please feel free to revert for any further points you wish to clarify,
sincerely, joe higgins
28 May. 08, Mail Column Joe Higgins
If the Lisbon Treaty were passed, would that mean that no EU Member State could veto proposals for market trading and encroachment, as of right, by profit seeking transnational corporations in areas such as Health, Education and Social Services ? The answer is ‘yes’, the veto would be lost, except in some exceptional cases.
The Government and the major political parties supporting the ‘Yes’ campaign are desperately trying to cover up this fact. It is vital that we clarify this issue for the sake of the people voting in the Referendum on June 12.
I thought I had clarified the facts beyond doubt in a major debate with former Labour Party Leader, Ruairi Quinn TD, at the National Forum on Europe in Dublin Castle two weeks ago and again in a debate with former Fine Gael Leader Alan Dukes in a ‘head to head’ debate on the Pat Kenny RTE radio programme this week. Yet, leading spokespersons of the ‘Yes’ Campaign continue to brazenly claim that Lisbon changes nothing in this regard.
It is unfortunate that some people continue to fly in the face of facts. Fortunately, however, we can depend on the written word, the text of the Lisbon Treaty itself. And every voter out there can clarify this for themselves by referring to the relevant chapters of the Treaty, without having to wade through the whole thing which is very difficult to do.
In determining what is being planned for a mandatory opening of our public services to private corporations, the key lies in the section of The Lisbon Treaty entitled, ‘Common Commercial Policy’ especially Articles 188c and 188N which should be read in conjunction with the Protocol On Services of General Interest. These proposals take up no more than three A4 pages of text and can readily be studied by any voter who will see there the truth of the matter.
This is how it would work. The EU Commission would enter talks with organisations like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) about having an international market in services such as Health, Education and Cultural and Audio Visual services. These talks could agree, for example, that multinational companies would have to be allowed as of right to tender for ‘business’ in the Health Services of member States. These corporations are piling on massive pressure for this to happen in the hunt for more profits and have a willing tool in the Commission itself.
Such proposals would then be brought before a meeting of EU Ministers for decision. At the moment any Member State could say; ‘We want to keep our Health Service completely as a public service and we will not be forced to allow ‘for profit’ corporations to take over any part of it’. No one could force any State to do otherwise. This is what is meant by exercising the Veto.
Lisbon removes this veto. Lisbon says: ‘For the negotiation and conclusion of the agreements referred to in paragraph 3, [e.g. with the WTO (JH)], the Council shall act by a qualified majority.’ Veto gone!
There are two exceptions where the Veto would remain: ‘in the field of trade in cultural and audiovisual services, where these agreements risk prejudicing the Union’s cultural and linguistic diversity; and ‘in the field of trade in social, education and health services, where these agreements risk seriously disturbing the national organisation of such services and prejudicing the responsibility of Member States to deliver them.’
These are exceptions written into Lisbon, not a continuation of the existing comprehensive veto which the ‘Yes’ side is trying to maintain. And no Irish government could convincingly argue in the EU that being forced to open up our Health Service to more corporate encroachment would be damaging when the current government has given substantial contracts for kidney dialysis and cervical cancer screening to major corporations which have been convicted of fraud in the United States and fined hundreds of millions of dollars.
It would be foolish to take the attitude that the government here is already privatising parts of our Health Service, so what does Lisbon matter? The fact is the Irish people can kick out a government and force a change in policy. But if the Veto is gone, a new government could claim that it had no option except to continue a privatisation policy.
This is also very relevant in the current WTO talks on agriculture. The Veto on agricultural policy was given away long sine. The only reason there is the possibility of a Veto in the current talks is because some services are involved as well and therefore, any Member State can exercise that Veto on the whole package. Should Lisbon be passed that could not happen again.
(...) I am opposed to any discrimination on the basis of sexual preferences. That means I am for equal rights of LGB community and individuals. as opposed to institutions such as schools where a church can impose its own rules, I believe that education should be in public hands and run democratically by communities, including parents, teachers, students at second and third level and there should not be discrimination on any basis. (...)
