Madam, - Lucinda Creighton, Fine Gael Spokesperson on European Affairs, makes an eloquent case for Lisbon (January 22nd). Unfortunately, she also makes a number of errors, including her suggestion that under Lisbon, the proposed presidents of Europe would be elected as democratically as our Taoiseach.
The Taoiseach has to be elected by popular vote before he or she can be appointed in the first place.
Under Lisbon, however, neither the presidents of the Commission or the Council nor the proposed EU Foreign Minister would have been elected by popular vote, but they would be given the power to make very important decisions for the 500 million citizens of the EU member-states. This is just one of Lisbon's proposals that fails the democratic accountability test.
We welcome Mary O'Rourke's support for the demand, launched
publicly on the website www.EUReform.net on January 11th, for a
reader-friendly summary of Lisbon's proposals. Such a summary would
help to reduce the number of false claims in this debate. We
believe the Irish electorate is sufficiently mature to read and
understand Lisbon's proposals without propaganda from either side.
- Yours, etc,
DICK HUMPHREYS,
EUReform,
Mount Merrion,
Co Dublin.
Madam, - On Wednesday the European Commission announced its climate and energy package at a special plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels.
I think it is timely to remind those who, on the one hand, are rightly exercised about climate change and increases in greenhouse gas emissions and who, on the other hand, have concerns about ratifying the Lisbon Treaty that climate change is specifically included in the treaty - as distinct from its forerunner, the Constitutional Treaty. Indeed, the Lisbon Treaty is the only treaty that specifically mentions climate change (Art. 191(1)).
Following the recent UN Climate Summit in Bali which produced a road map for a post-2012 global agreement, it is clear that Europe, as a union of 27 member-states has the capacity to lead the world on this most critical of issues with this package at its centre.
For the record, all the goals in this package are realistic and
the cost of inaction underlines how manageable the cost of action
will be: €16 per capita per week versus €3 (i.e. 0.5
per cent of EU GDP) per capita per week. It's a no-brainer. -
Yours, etc,
AVRIL DOYLE MEP,
Member European Parliament's Committee on Climate Change,
Industry,
Energy and the Environment,
Brussels.