Até Mais, Lisbon

[Niall Munnelly]

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 09:47:28AM +0200, Peter Korsten wrote:
> Niall Munnelly schreef:
> 
> > Well, I guess the second referendum's right out.  Conor
> > Lenihan and Fianna Fail attributed the Nice revote to a low
> > turnout, and they reckon 53 or percent's too high to
> > second-guess.
> > 
> > I'd hate to be Brian Cowen right now.
> 
> So why is it that Ireland holds all these referendums, and politicians 
> in the rest of the EU anxiously await what happens on the Emerald Isle?

That's the way the constitution was written.  The Supreme
Court found that the Single European Act and the
constitution were incompatible, so the government put it to
a referendum to change the constitution.  The opinion here
is that EU law and Irish law may bear discrepancies, and
that the only way to resolve them is to let the public
ratify the changes.  It's been run that way for about twenty
years, now.

I consider it good governance for a small country like
Ireland, but a logistical nightmare for a seemingly
ever-expanding Europe.  For the second half of your
question, the Celtic Tiger's not what it used to be, and I
expect that our friends in Brussels won't be inclined to
feed it again any time soon.

-- 
Yours,
Niall.
.. .  .   .    .     .       .           .             .                 .
Aleph Null.                             A Simple Insinuation Around Silence.
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