RSF Vice-President speaks in Vienna

REPUBLICAN Sinn Féin Vice-President Des Dalton travelled to the Austrian capital Vienna on September 8 where he explained the reasons behind the campaign for a No vote in the forthcoming second Irish referendum on Lisbon to a public meeting and to the Austrian media. Des Dalton also gave an interview to the Austrian national daily newspaper Die Presse which was carried on September 9.

The meeting was organised by a grassroots coalition opposed to the Lisbon Treaty and the EU project on a range of issues from political democracy to environmental issues and neutrality.

Des Dalton

In his address to the large meeting held in Kolpinghaus Alsergrund Des Dalton Des Dalton said that the 26-County administration was forcing a second referendum on the Irish people: “At the bidding of the power brokers of Brussels they are forcing a second referendum – as they did with the Nice Treaty in 2003 – effectively they have sided with the EU political elite in opposition to their own people. The Lisbon Treaty was not renegotiated and consequently has not been altered in any way.” He said

Des Dalton continued: “Their campaign is based on fear and disinformation all with the purpose of stampeding the people into a militarised United States of Europe.”

Des Dalton pointed out that it was the neo-liberal economics championed by the EU which caused the present world economic collapse. Des Dalton said that at present the 26-County administration was sacrificing the people by cutting public services and attacking the living standards of working people. Under Lisbon the situation would be made worse he said: “A neo-liberal EU Commission could use the powers given to it under Lisbon to force states to comply with its budgetary requirements. It would punish governments who would invest in education, health services and public transport. Instead ordinary people would pay for a capitalist crisis through cuts in services and living standards while endorsing – as the EU Commission already has – multi-billion bailouts for banks and speculators.”

Lisbon far from protecting workers rights was an attack on them: “there would be no new rights for workers under Lisbon but the rights promised would be subject to and inferior to the rights of employers and contractors to exploit their workers for lower pay and inferior conditions of employment.” He said Lisbon commits the states of the EU to increase their military capacity while giving huge powers to the European arms industry through the European Defence Agency.

Prof. Karl A. Schachtschneider

“For what, the people of Europe are entitled to ask, is this increased military force to be used?” Des Dalton said. “Is it to fight the ‘resource wars of the 21st century’ which the then President of the EU Commission Jacque Delors predicted in the early 1990s. To be used by the developed and rich north against the developing and poor south for possession of their natural resources.

“This campaign is part and parcel of the struggle against imperialism. Just as we oppose British imperialism in Ireland we must also oppose the new imperialism of the EU. The purpose of the Lisbon Treaty/EU Constitution is to build an undemocratic, militarised and ultra-capitalist super-state. The Irish economist the late Raymond Crotty described the EU project as imperialism by other means.”

The other speakers were Prof Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, former Professor of Law at Nuremberg University. Prof Shachtschneider took the famous legal challenge of the Lisbon Treaty to the German Federal Constitutional Court which has delayed the German ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

He said it was the inherent right of people to “elect their own parliament and those responsible for making laws, the right to create a social state etc”. Prof Shachtschneider said to take on and challenge the “power of a mega-state you need a people with a distinct cultural and historical identity.”

Dr. Eva-Maria Barki

He said that the EU Parliament does not constitute a real government as it does not represent people. “The empowerment of the EU is limitless, taking on more and more power. Such a government can only be despotic. True democracy can only be based on small national units.” He said.

Karl Shachtschneider is coming to Ireland to support the campaign for a No Vote at the invitation of Republican Sinn Féin. He will address a public meeting in Wynn’s Hotel, Middle Abbey St Dublin, on Monday September 21 at 7.30pm and in the Imperial Hotel, Eyre Square Galway on Tuesday September 22 at 8.00pm.

Dr Eva Maria Barki, an expert in nationality and ethnic law and a board member of the Austrian League for Human Rights spoke on the right of the self-determination of peoples. She said the Lisbon Treaty and the EU project were an “infringement of the right inherent to all peoples to self-determination”, she went on to say that the EU was to the detriment of the national rights of peoples such as Ireland, the Basque Country, Catalonia etc who were in conflict with the larger states of the EU.

Interview with Des Dalton in Austrian paper Die Presse: Lager der Vertragsgegner hofft weiter