If Ireland votes Yes to Lisbon, the door is opened to a more social EU that defends workers’ rights, but also Ireland’s right to its own laws on taxes, abortion, and defence remain intact and cannot be interfered with.
This is the view of Galway West TD and Labour Party President Michael D Higgins, who is calling for a Yes vote to Lisbon on Friday October 2.
Dep Higgins said a Yes vote will establish the European Charter of Human Rights as primary EU law for the first time.
“This would give a wide range of human and civil rights,” he said, “including workplace rights and the right to collective bargaining and collective action, the same legal status as existing EU laws, and treaties governing internal trade and the free market.”
Dep Higgins also argues that Lisbon will also improve the rights and prospects for further improving the rights of workers.
“The ‘solemn declaration on workers’ rights and social policy’ adopted by a recent European Council is regarded by European trade unionists as an important step forward in the battle for social Europe,” he said.
According to Dep Higgins, voting Yes will empower national parliaments within the decision making structure of the EU.
“If the treaty is passed, national Parliaments will have the opportunity to see Commission proposals before they are adopted,” he said. “If one third of Parliaments disagree with a given proposal, amendments can, and will, be made, and, if half the Parliaments disagree, the proposal can and will be withdrawn.”
Dep Higgins also said that Ireland has nothing to fear from the Lisbon Treaty as it would “distance us” from “dangerous groupings” like the United Kingdom Independence Party and segments of the Conservative Party in Britain.
“A Yes vote on Lisbon keeps us at the heart of the European project,” he said. “It helps to further construct a Europe which would be a strong body on the international stage. It continues to offer us complete access to a common market, the size of which was almost unimaginable just one generation ago.”
Dep Higgins described the EU as “an agent for progressive change and integration” since Ireland joined in 1973, such as in the area of social policy.
“In social legislation, also, the EU had has a highly positive influence,” he said, “be it in gay rights, environmental protection laws, laws seeking to end any view of women as second class citizens as regards their pay - the drive towards these hugely progressive ideas came from European partnership.”
In the areas of tax, abortion, and defence, Dep Higgins pointed out that these issues are “a matter for the Irish people only and nobody outside of Ireland has the power to tell us whether or not we should change our laws in this regard”.
He said: “Each state retains a commissioner. It has been confirmed that Ireland, and Ireland alone, sets Irish tax rates. Irish neutrality will, as has been the case up to now, be respected by the rest of the EU.”
