The definitive Irish vote that wasn’t, the one last year on the Lisbon Treaty that didn’t turn out the way the European elits wanted, was forced again yesterday. Because of painful economic times, verbal promises that Ireland would maintain its sovereignty (it won’t) and a powerful campaign by the ‘yes to Lisbon’ forces…..the Irish seem to have agreed to it this time ’round.
“Anti-treaty groups were conceding defeat. “I’d like to congratulate the Taoiseach, who ran an absolutely masterful campaign,” said Declan Ganley, the leader of “no” group Libertas, referring to Ireland’s prime minister. “They know how to overturn a result that doesn’t suit them.”
So what will this mean for the future of Europe? Depends…
Maybe it will be enacted by the remaining holdouts, maybe not.
“In any case, the story of the Lisbon Treaty is far from over. Now that Ireland has agreed to it, Poland is almost certainly set to follow suit. But in the Czech Republic, the pact is being reviewed by the country’s constitutional court, and the president, Vaclav Klaus, is not a supporter.
If he is determined to block the treaty, Mr. Klaus could try to delay until Britain holds its next national election, which by law must be called sometime before next June. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, who is widely expected to be the next prime minister, has vowed that if the treaty has not yet been enacted when he comes into power, he will put it to a referendum.
Given the British public’s deep skepticism toward Europe, that vote would most likely end in the treaty’s defeat.
Should the treaty fail, the European Commission has warned, “there is no Plan B.”
As Europe re-shapes itself with new definitions of power and structure….and little reference to its own history….Pope Benedict keeps reaching out to its leaders and citizens with strong and clear advice.
From his book “Europe”, under the section ‘What is Europe?’, sub-section ‘3. The universalization of European culture and its crises’…
“I see here a paradoxical coincidence: with the triumph of the post-European technological-secular world, with the globalization of its way of life and its manner of thinking, one gets the impression everywhere…that the very world of European values-the things upon which Europe bases its identity, its culture and its faith-has arrived at the end and has actually already left the scene; that now tht hour has come for the value systems of other worlds…
“Europe, precisely in this hour of its greatest success, seems to have become hollowed out…”
It’s up to those who have the power to write its future to map it out from the reference point of where it began, and to recall its Christian roots.
03 / 10 | October / 2009
http://www.inforumblog.com/?p=2570
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