Lisbon defeated what happens next ?

michaelm said:
Rather that a 'Why?' response, 'I stand corrected' might have been more appropriate.
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You have not explained why it's more important to have a high fertility rate than have more people born per head of population for growth. You are just claiming to be right. And I don't believe you are (see Harchibald's post)

It's the EU were talking about, rich western countries have a problem with population replacement. If EU countries want to encourage an increase in population they need to promote family friendly policies.
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Well in that case, Ireland has the second most family friendly policies in the EU. Way ahead of family-hating individualistic countries such as Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and all the other European countries. Yah for us!!!

That or your metric for "family friendly" policies is total bs
 
diarmuidc said:
You have not explained why it's more important to have a high fertility rate than have more people born per head of population for growth. You are just claiming to be right. And I don't believe you are (see Harchibald's post)
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BTW I was just pulling your chain with the 'I stand corrected' jibe . I'll try to explain it, Total Fertility rate is the average number of children born per woman over her lifetime. On the basis of a population with a 50/50 sex ratio (male/female) then we need an average Total Fertility rate of 2.1 to achieve replacement levels, i.e two new people to replace the woman plus one man , the .1 is to allow for infant mortality. It's actually as simple as that, at less than 2.1 the indigenous population is not sustainable and will fall over time. Still with me Harchi? So Birth Rate is a crude measure which does not really tell you what you need to know about population replacement.

Now I'm simply suggesting that if EU governments want to boost Total Fertility rate then they will have to introduce family-friendly policies to encourage this. France has done so in recent years and this has shown results.

If you're being sarcastic in relation to Swedish policy, I'm not entirely sure, I'll just say that IMHO institutionalised childcare is not a family-friendly policy.
 
Michaelm, the math works if everything else is stable, in particular the population exactly represents the mortality curve. But if the population, for some other reason, like immigration or previous high fertility, has more younger females than a stable population then the birth rate can be higher than the ultimate stable position.

Bottom line is that Birth Rate - Death Rate +- Immigration equals population growth and so an increased BR the other 2 being equal must be increasing the population.
 
Ratification process is continuing...Britain ratified the Lisbon Treaty last night. I voted Yes and am very interested in how this will all pan out.
 
Uiop. This is how the world sees us and you can call them all the names you like. The NYT is not gutter tabloid press.

Did you see the IT front page today. 6 MEPs fronted by Kathy Synnott staged some sort of stunt at the European parliament, wearing green jerseys saying "Respect the Irish No". There are a lot of people in the European parliament. Who do you think Kathy was able to round up? 4 British Independent Party looneys and an Orangeman. Are these the new friends of Ireland? We have seriously lost the plot.:mad:
 
"It has catapulted itself in a few decades from beer-soaked backwater...Biting the hand that feeds you does not begin to describe this act of bloody-mindedness....what the Irish did was unconscionable...."

Whatever about the merits or otherwise of the article, using inflammatory language like this only serves to undermine the integrity of the writing. Tabloidism at its best.
 
uiop said:
This isnt how the world sees us. Its how one biased stupid person unworthy of the title of journalist wrote some silly unresearched article.
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It was a New York Times Op-Ed piece not "gutter press". Written by a distinguished foreign affairs journalist.

Whether you like it or not, this article is fairly reflective of the general consensus in other countries regarding the Irish No vote. Whinging won't change this.
 
looks like biffo's trip to cut you a better deal isn't panning out too well, more like a repeat of the Nice mess, with another chance at the referendum to say yes, or to perhaps decide whether to keep you in Europe at all. Too bad I couldn't vote on this one, instead me and 500 million others have to depend on this country to let the EU move forward. This should have NEVER have been put to referendum to be hijacked but anti-abortionists, far right xenophobes and people who didn't understand the question.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/19/lisbon.ireland
 
 

I saw her on the TV last evening and wasn't one bit impressed by her. I am amazed to read she is now one of the leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party.

Eurosceptics in the European Parliament
In 2004, 37 MEPs from the UK, Poland, Denmark and Sweden founded a new European Parliament group called “Independence and Democracy” from the old Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD) group. The main goals of this group are to reject the Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe and to oppose further European integration. Some delegations within the group, notably the United Kingdom Independence Party, advocate the complete withdrawal of their country from the EU.
The group’s leaders are Nigel Farage of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) (10 MEPs) and, since May 2008, Kathy Sinnott from Ireland South [1].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroscepticism
 
cole said:
"It has catapulted itself in a few decades from beer-soaked backwater...Biting the hand that feeds you does not begin to describe this act of bloody-mindedness....what the Irish did was unconscionable...."
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Its the biting the hand that feeds us argument that gets thrown out there by people that is beginning to really annoy me. The EU has played a large part in Ireland's economic success story. It wasn't the only reason for it but nobody can deny it didn't play a large part. Should we be grateful? Of course we should. Ireland is the perfect example of why the EU was formed and all that is good about it. The problem is how we should be expected to show this gratitude. Should it by never challenging anything that comes out of Brussels? Should it by remembering what we were before we got EU money and continue to show gratitude for eternity? Should it be by never standing up for our Soverign rights and rejecting changes to our constitution that the Country fought hard to get in the first place just in case we annoy the big Countries?
I prefer to think that we have showed our gratitude by using the EU money to turn our economy from a practically bankrupt state to one of the strongest in Europe and to get into a position where Ireland is now in a position to be a net contributor to the EU and be in a position to help other Countries just like Ireland was helped.
 
It is very hard to know what to say here. On one hand we have the only nation in which there was a vote saying NO to the treaty for a variety of reasons. These reasons must be explored. We hear that Holland and France would probably vote NO if asked. The UK would probably be the same. Germany would vote yes. Because the treaty has to be accepted unanimously, it isn't democracy. It is a unanimous decision.
The fact that other countries had no vote isn't necessarily undemocratic - the people voted their governments to run their countries on their behalf. Most of these governments took the position of ratifying the treaty. Would those governments sign something which adversely affected their counties? The principle of self interest would suggest that they would not.
If there was a referendum here where we were asked if we wanted the North to be part of Ireland, and Laois/Offaly had a referendum and voted NO, would the rest of the country respect that decision?
And yet, we have to have pride in the fact that the Irish stood up and voted NO - probably not to Europe, but to THIS Europe. A Europe which makes decisions behind closed doors. A Europe with little connection to it's people. A Europe, that may in future turn into a surveylance society. A Europe that may follow what the Elite in America have made out of that once great nation. A Europe that rules by fear?
So maybe if the Irish vote causes Europe to pause for a short while and think about where it is going, maybe that's a good thing.
 
Well put.
 

i agree..great post, plenty for our politicans to think about here!
 

Are you serious? And what exactly is survey lance? Ireland voted against this because it longs to be back as one of the cozy 10. It hates enlargement, always has. It hates all these Eastern Europeans coming here and taking our jobs? This was a most selfish vote; I have no problem with that, but it was misguided for the selfishness will surely backfire.

To answer OP it is pretty clear what will happen next. All 26 others will ratify. The Treaty will be changed to allow 27 Commissioners. The ref will be held again next spring. Ireland will vote Yes for by that time the penny will have dropped, we cannot stop change and we need the EU far, far more than it needs us.

Sinn Fein will claim we got a better deal. Prima facie, yes, we will have a permo Commissioner. But all goodwill will have been blown. Our CT rate advantage will be gone in a couple of years, and we can forget moaning about anything else or ever daring to use our veto, in fact ironically we probably should then vote No and get out, for we have greatly diminished the advantages of Irish EU membership.

We have blown it, big time, but I doubt whether Ganly, Dunphy, Gaybo, Dana will be on the dole!!:mad:
 

Well said
 
Harchibald said:
Are you serious? And what exactly is survey lance?
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I know how to attack his points - attack a spelling error! That will show him

I am not celebrating the no vote. But I don't share your views on the nature of the Irish public. Certain sectors may feel this way, but I believe a good number of people who voted NO did so for positive reasons. Let's see how Europe deals with that. It will tell us more about them than it does about us.
 
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