Lisbon Treaty - Day 1.

So after reading the rather helpful referendum commission documentation on Thursdays upcoming lisbon treaty, it seemed pretty straightforward. If (and only if) you wanted a more integrated EU, reform of the institutions was necessary. If you aren't interested in tighter EU integration, then you should vote no on Lisbon.

Okay, first hurdle passed, I am generally in favour of more integration and would like EU-decision making to be reformed. So the next question is: Is the Lisbon treaty:

• going to help streamline decision making.
• be more democratic (it would be difficult for the EU to be less democratic).
• generally be in Ireland's favour.

Hmm. Tricky. I downloaded the Lisbon Treaty and tried to read it, but I and most of the country simply aren't qualified to have a real opinion on the basic text. Now I don't necessarily have a problem with that, I have probably never read the text of any legislation, it has never seemed necessary for me to do so in the past, relying like everyone on summary information - so I don't see this as a problem which negates one of the common memes circulating 'It's too complicated to vote on'. I don't buy it, practically everything is 'too complicated to vote on' - but that rarely stops anyone. Other memes I'm discounting are:

• There's no Plan B, Plan C. - Like I care.
  
• Our European Overlords will be deeply unhappy if we vote 'No' - scaremongering (plus at times it seems nigh impossible not to upset the French).
  
• The No lobby are a bunch of borderline crazies, US MilitaryIndustrialComplex Stooges, crypto-Catholics - Well would you want to marry into that family? I'm watching the Question and Answers debate and the tag-team of Declan Ganly (libertas) and Mary Lou (Sinn Fein) on the No side are frankly unnerving - Declan Ganly wins on mis-information terms. OK I admit it, I would probably have been guilty of a little of this sentiment - but actually lots of people are against the treaty.
• Corporation Tax will be raised (despite us having a veto). Senator Shane Ross uses this fear to encourage a No vote on the treaty. Now I'm no fan of Senator Ross, he is annoying, but he is not insane. His argument is that those trickster French are simply biding their time until the dullard Irish vote Yes and then they'll be raising corporate tax rates so fast it will make your little potato-shaped head spin. His argument is this, yes we have a veto on tax matters under Lisbon, but the French will use some Jedi mind-trick to to make us forget to use the veto when they propose harmonizing tax-rates. This doesn't make sense - we have a veto now and we will have one post-Lisbon, if the French have such Jedi powers, they can force us to do it regardless of Lisbon.
  
• Enhanced Cooperation will be a back-door to raising corporation tax - the "Your veto is useless" argument. No it won't. First-off enhanced cooperation doesn't directly involve countries that do not want to take part in the enhanced cooperation. Secondly enhanced cooperation has never been used (people mention Euro and Shengen, but these didn't actually use this facility). Thirdly, to use this procedure requires agreement from all members. Finally, this power already exists.
  
• We'll lose a European Commissioner for Five out of Fifteen Years - OK this seems like a good thing - have you seen Ireland's contribution so far? So we get exactly slice of this action as all other countries. Seems overwhelmingly in our favour.
  
• The Qualified Majority Voting - QMV of The Council (see below) will halve Ireland vote. Our vote will remain the same (7 votes), but larger states will get proportionally more votes (based on population size). This had led to a lot of commentators claiming that our influence will be diminished. This is mis-information. QMV involves a double-majority. Those claiming "halving" are conveniently forgetting that it requires at least 55% of votes and 65% of member states (this second part gives us equal status with other countries).
  
• SIPTU, the Farmers, The Union of Tap-dancing Plumbers are calling for a No vote - none of these groups is voting on what is contained in the treaty. They've ruled themselves out of consideration.
  
• All the other countries have already agreed to it - so if we reject it, we are rejecting the wishes of 26 other national governments (John Bruton's line). Tough - that is precisely the decision you are asking me to make.
  

So that all seems pretty simple, right. Onto the Forum on Europe - a non-directive counselling service for crisis voters. This was essentially an extended talking shop where people actually got to debate the Lisbon Treaty. Now it provides a much more comprehensive summary on Lisbon. So I started reading this and then realised that my total ignorance of EU structures was a hurdle. So here's a quick summary:

• Council of Europe - this is actually the oldest EU organisation and has 47 members (so a lot of non EU-members). It worriesabout human rights and has the EU court of Human Rights at its centre. This is not affected by Lisbon.
• Council of the European Union, a.k.a Council of Ministers, a.k.a The Council - This is one of the two legislative bodies of the EU (the other being the parilament). We will continue to have one minister from each country. This is the main body that will be affected by QMV (see above) the main additions are a new High Representative on Foreign Affairs (and a dip corp to support it). I think this is generally a good idea. The EU is a powerful organisation that consistently punches far below its weight on an international stage. It is time to fix this.
  
• European Council - okay at this point you probably think they are taking the piss - were they stuck for collective nouns for European politicians? The European Council is the highest body of the EU made up of heads of state/government and President of the European Comission. This has no formal powers, it is not even an official institution of the EU, but it defines the policy agenda and is arguably the centre of power. The rotating president will be replaced by a President elected for 2.5 years at a time (max 5 years).
  
• European Commission - this is the executive branch of the European Union - currently one comissioner per member state. They represent administrative areas, e.g. Charlie McCreevy is Commissioner for the internal market - which somehow involves proposing Software Patent Legislation whenever he's bored. This clearly is affected by Lisbon - but in a good way. The other alternative would be to invent some new administrative areas (Commissioner for Fun, Commissioner for decent Television, Commissioner in charge of investigating rigging of Eurovision voting) at tax-payer expense.
  

OK that is enough for Day 1. So far I think round 1 to the Pro-Lisbon camp, there seems very little that is scary (and quite a few useful things).