pouffie

Dear all,

I recently did an internship at the European Commission and I have suffered a severe disillusion.

I have studied European Union law during all my studies and have devoted a lot of time learning about the functioning of the EU.

I was a Europhile till recently, or should I say till the last big enlargement. I have felt that there was something wrong with Europe. It didn’t work as well as before. Then, all these people from the East came by hundreds to fill in positions in the European civil service. Not only these people do not care about the European project, but they also lack the sufficient knowledge of EU policies and EU law. Nonetheless, the European institutions have this quota policy that obliges them to recruit a certain number of people from these states, no matter if there are western European candidates for these positions that have more diplomas and knowledge about the EU.

European leaders unfortunately do not give a damn about what the "peoples of Europe". Have they asked us if we agreed with the 2004 enlargement that had the obvious consequence of social dumping? Do they understand what the “common people” are going through with the high inflation rates? Do they understand what is going on with the oil crisis? Do they understand what happens with all these OMG (organically-modified organisms)?

Yet, they refuse to lower the interest rates. Yet, they refuse to let the States give some support/aids to the local people (ie: fishermen recently). Yet, they allowed the import of OMG-based food from the USA.

These are not vague example. These are things I witnessed during my traineeship. They disregard totally the situation at local level and have the pretence to decide what is best for us while they spend all their days in a 4x4 office. I was literally horrified. I never expected things to be like that.

Did you know that the Commission has officially declared that there won't be any other enlargements till the entry into force of a new treaty? That is because we do not have the necessary structure in order to work as a union with more than 27 states. If you vote no, that means that Turkey and all the other Balkan countries won’t be joining the club anytime soon. By the way, I was told that if the Lisbon Treaty enters into force (in other words, is ratified by all 27 states), Croatia is due to enter the EU in 2010. Seems they haven’t understood a thing about the will of the peoples of Europe. When France and the Netherlands voted No, it was also because of the abusive enlargements that had been done.

Moreover, you have absolutely no idea how many infringement procedures against Ireland have been temporarily been put on hold till the end of the referendum. This is pure hypocrisy because they will continue as if nothing had happened once the referendum is over. They supposedly do not want to “shock’ the people of Ireland. Yet, this is a reality. Ireland has half a dozen lawsuits waiting for it. For your information, an infringement procedure is when the Commission makes a lawsuit against a State (in this case, Ireland) because it has considered that EU law has not been implemented correctly. The problem sometimes is that the Commission doesn’t take in consideration national priorities that have prevented a specific country from implementing the said law.

The European civil servants working for the EU are clueless. They just go their offices, get a salary that goes from 4000 euros up to 16000 euros and have no opinion whatsoever about what common people think about the policies they are crafting everyday. They are just bureaucrats who live in a golden cage, unaware of the problems of the world. You have also no idea how much money they waste for useless receptions and small promotional gadgets that are supposedly distributed to the wide public.

Last but not least, the Lisbon Treaty is 90% composed of articles from the ex- Constitutional Treaty. This proves that they have not taken into account the will of the French and Dutch people. They even found a way to bypass these obstacles by not organizing at all a referendum for this new treaty. Is that the example of Democracy that the EU is supposed to give?

I refused to believe these rumours until I decided to do this internship that opened my eyes.

Vote NO if you don't want to see further enlargements and if you want to make these eurocrats change their ways. They have to realize that they do not have the last say in how states should conduct their policies. They have become too arrogant and validating the Lisbon Treaty will give them more powers than ever. What will become of us then?

Please share this bit of information.

I do not like the way Europe is turning out. I want something else instead of an ultra-liberal project that, furthermore, disrespects national identities.

Help Europe change! Blocking twice the revision of the treaties will help everyone realize that something is wrong. The future of Europe relies in the hands of the Irish people.

Jonesy

What are the arguments for voting 'Yes'? Isn't it better to tentatively vote yes or no, give reasons why, then devise a compromise?

Disclaimer: I whole-heartedly apologize for any excessive rhyming.

Kanadesaga

Let us pray they do the right thing and vote no.