Ireland to hold
Referendum on EU
Austerity Treaty :
VOTE NO CAMPAIGN BEGINS
IMMEDIATELY: For the third time in four years the Irish people will vote in a Referendum on a EU Treaty. the Irish Government announced the holding of the referendum in parliament yesterday following a Cabinet meeting where the State's Attorney General, Ms Mary Whelan, S.C., advised that a referendum would be required as the treaty did not have the authority of Article 29 of the Irish Constitution which covered previous EU treaties approved by the people.
For months now the Government has pussy-footed around the issue of whether a referendum would be required and has been making desperate efforts to collude with Brussels Eurocrats to manipulate the wording of the Treaty in order to avoid holding such a referendum in the middle of the worst financial crisis in the history of the Irish state.
Following the announcement, NO campaigners declared the start of their opposition to this further tightening of the austerity programmes being imposed on the Irish people since 2009 and which led to the downfall of the previous ruling party Fianna Fáil in the 2011 General election. The NO Campaign issued the following statement:
"CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE AUSTERITY TREATY
PRESS RELEASE – Wednesday February 29th 2012-02-28 Dublin, Ireland.
The economy of our country
is going through a most severe recession, as the numbers of citizens unable to
pay their mortgages and even cover their electricity bills grow daily, as
unemployment continues to remain at 450,000 and many people are forced to search
for work abroad. In the midst of this crisis, citizens have to deal with issues
such as health cuts, education cuts, increased household taxes, lower incomes
and even septic tanks. The reason there is such a massive funding crisis in
this State, with the combined debt in the hundreds of billions, is precisely
because of the activities of speculators and banks and the reason we have a
regime of cutbacks is because of the austerity being imposed to rescue their
financial markets system from its
self–generated crisis.
In the midst of all this
deluge, the Fine Gael / Labour Party Government is considering signing a new
Treaty requiring tougher deficit and debt rules, greater powers for the EU
Commission and the European Court of Justice and arrangements that will mean
austerity budgets and impossible targets for the foreseeable future. The Treaty
states that these arrangements would be binding, permanent and preferably
constitutional. The word preferably was inserted to enable the Government to
avoid a referendum which they are likely to lose in the present climate as a
Red C Opinion Poll published a couple of weeks ago showed 72% in favour of a
referendum.
This Government has been
hiding behind the referral of the agreement to the Attorney General, attempting
to give the impression that the final decision rests with her office and that
an opinion by her that a referendum wasn’t required by the Constitution, would
be the end of the matter. This is false. The Attorney General only advises, it
is the government that is supposed to decide. The charade has now ended with
the Attorney General’s announcement today.
To counter this
undemocratic situation, several
political organisations and individuals have organised a Campaign
against this Permanent Austerity Treaty; The United Left Alliance, the Socialist Party,
the Socialist Workers Party, the Communist Party, the Peoples Movement, the
Workers Party, Éirígí, PANA-Peace and Neutrality Alliance and the Irish Anti War Movement have all affiliated
to the Campaign Against the Austerity Treaty.
The first Public Meeting of
the Campaign will take place on Monday,
March 5th, at 19.30 hours in Liberty Hall, Dublin.
Speakers will include Soren Sondergaard a Danish MEP from the Danish Peoples Movement, our MEP Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd Barrett TD and Jimmy
Kelly, National Secretary of the UNITE
Trade Union".
PANA- Peace and Neutrality Alliance issued the following statement:
PEACE AND NEUTRALITY ALLIANCE
(PANA)
PRESS RELEASE 28/2/2012
Perpetual Austerity; Perpetual War;
The Peace and Neutrality Alliance
welcomes the decision of the government to hold a referendum on the EU
Austerity Treaty, even though they did everything to avoid asking the people
what they thought of the treaty.
Since 1996 PANA has campaigned in
favour of Irish Independence, democracy and neutrality and against the
political elite that supported the destruction of our independence, democracy
and neutrality and the integration of Ireland into an emerging EU Superstate
which was committed to a neo-liberal militarist ideology and which offers
nothing but perpetual war and now perpetual austerity. The drive for oil
sanctions against Iran, the closure of the Irish embassy in Iran, are a key
part in the drive to perpetual war, and the new EU "Fiscal Treaty" is
the road to perpetual austerity. They are opposite sides of the same coin.
PANA advocates a Partnership Europe,
A Europe of Solidarity, a Europe without a military dimension, a Europe that
rejects it's imperial past.
PANA will campaign for a Europe of
Solidarity and sees this referendum, not as an Irish Battle, but a European
Battle fought on Irish soil.
PANA has helped to win every second
referendum on the emerging EU Empire and are confident with the help of our
allies in Europe that we will achieve a major victory for peace and social
justice in Ireland and Europe by ensuring a NO vote.
The NO Campaign Platform was also published today :
CAMPAIGN AGAINST AUSTERITY TREATY(CAAT)
SPONSORED
BY CAMPAIGN FOR SOCIAL EUROPE
PLATFORM
www.campaignforsocialeurope.org
No to Austerity Europe – No to the
Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance-The Permanent Austerity
Treaty!
The
proposed new Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic
and Monetary Union – in reality a permanent Austerity Treaty – is an undemocratic attempt to institutionalize austerity across
Europe. Its 'Fiscal Compact' would deny the right of Member State
governments to run a 'structural' budget deficit of more than 0.5%. This would
remove the democratic right of national parliaments to decide national budgets,
with that power shifting to the unelected European Commission and European Court
of Justice. This would be a fundamental transfer of power away from elected
governments. We demand a referendum on any such proposition; and we call for a
'No' vote in that referendum.
The
demand for “balanced budgets”, and fines of hundreds of millions of euro for
countries which breach EU targets, is an attempt to impose austerity regardless
of what government is elected or what mass movements against austerity develop.
This attack on democratic rights is part of the same process that has seen elected
governments in Greece and Italy replaced by ex-bankers, who represent the
interests of the powerful and wealthy.
The
proposed Austerity Treaty will not revive the economy or reduce unemployment.
It would result in a Europe where millions are out of work for years; where
welfare and other benefits are driven down; where education, health and other
essential services are cut. It would exacerbate the differences between rich
and poor, and between the wealthy core and indebted peripheral countries - shifting
the burden of the crisis onto ordinary people.
The
proposed Austerity Treaty is a means to compel governments to reduce public
spending so as to pay public debt. But public debt has grown because banks have
been given €billions to stop them collapsing or because the rich paid little or
no tax – not because of excessive spending on public services. Yet the banks
and financial markets now insist that governments must become more
“credit-worthy”: spending cuts are demanded - to ensure that the state can pay
debts that were taken on to bail out the banks in the first place.
Cutting
public spending on health, education and welfare will only make the current
crisis worse. The economy is in recession, yet €billions of accumulated profits
are not being invested productively. Instead, money has gone into financial
speculation, which is at the root of the financial crisis and has fuelled the
growth of huge debt on the part of households, businesses and states.
In
the past, recession and a refusal to invest profits were addressed by state
investment in public works. But the Austerity Treaty would prevent states from
running deficits to fund public works; it would further reduce economic demand
and risks turning this recession into a long-term depression.
The
decision on the Austerity Treaty is about the kind of Europe we want: a Europe
for the millions or for the millionaires. The real issue in a referendum will
not be the euro or membership of the EU. It will be a choice between accepting
an EU Austerity Union, with protection for the wealthy and poverty for ordinary
people; or struggling with others across Europe for a People’s Europe, where
the priorities are democracy and equality, full employment, social protection
and sustainable development.
REFERENDUM:
We call for a 'NO' vote in the
referendum announced
Today, 28 February 2012, by the Irish
government:
As an
alternative to the Austerity Treaty, we call for:
Democratic control of decision-making
at national and European levels – especially of economic decisions.
The bailed-out banks to
be put under public, democratic control – to serve interests of the majority
rather than the super-rich minority;
An end to cuts in
education, health, social services and welfare benefits; and that cuts made since
2008 and those imposed under the EU-IMF deal be reversed;
The EU and its member
states to immediately prioritize both national and trans-European programs of
public works to provide employment and sustainable development.
VOTE NO TO
PERMANENT AUSTERITY
FearFeasaMacLéinn
Baile Átha Cliath/Dublin
29 Feabhra/February 2012
