The Irish never quit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080613/ap_on_re_eu/ireland_eu_referendum

Stick it to 'em.

 

Quite a stick in the eye of EU leaders who tried to backdoor a flawed constitution into law after it was rejected three years ago. Good for Ireland.

Be interesting to see what the fallout from this is. Wonder if the EU could kick Ireland out of the club.

 

According to the Constitution of the EU, all 27 countires must ratify the treaty or it's a no go. I don't they could unilaterally kick the country out.

Funny thing is (whether you're for or against the EU doesn't matter) no country has benefited more economically.from Economic Union than Ireland Whether that outweighs what the Irish see as an erosion of their independence and neutrality is a matter of opinion, I guess.

 

My guess is that if this were put to a vote in each country across the EU most would vote it down. Also be interesting to see what this does to the Euro. It's already taking a hit.

 

Yeah, I read that for numerous reasons (not all of them purely nationalistic), it ain't too popular in a lot of countries.

And there could be a domino effect.

Not good.

 

Good for Ireland.

 

I'm glad the Irish constitution requires that the Irish people get to vote on any EU treaty.

 

Nationalism is a phenomenon that's mildly benign at best, vicious and murderous at worst. I'm not a big fan of nationalism. So I'm not 100% in solidarity with all the anti-EU people. There are lots of wingnuts from the extremes of the political spectrum that are in that milieu...unfortunate.

But, I favor decentralized political structures. I think that it's best that the member states of the EU retain as much autonomy as possible. The potential for abuse in a centralized EU is too great. It'd be too easy for malevolent, multinational corporate interests to have their vampiric, wealth-sucking fantasies made into reality through a centralized EU. Better to leave governance in the hands of the governed.

A tangential point here- nationalism in Europe is a very touchy phenomenon. I think the centralized EU model is creepy, but all of the little angry nationalisms are creepy, too. The safe path is a moderate one, between the two extremes of One-Europe centralism on one end and fractious, xenophobic nationalism on the other.

 

Wi, I actually think most Europeans are much more attuned to the dangers of nationalism than Americans. The history of nationalism's pernicious effects are pretty ingrained. Just ask the Germans. There are a lot of anti-EU extremists, but I think their on the fringe of those who are weary of the EU.

I'm with you though--a moderate path is the best one.

 

The EU economic model could be a blueprint to copy around the globe. (I'd love to see the Americas do something similiar, even though it's not politically on the radar screen right now).

Political integration is much trickier than economic integration, and it's much more frightening to people (for very understandable reasons).

 

Good piece on the referendum from the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/2126627/EU-referendum-Ireland's-debt-to-the-EU.html

 

Especially Rudy.