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Hungary regrets Irish rejection of Lisbon Treaty

by Maireid Sullivan | June 13, 2008 at 08:35 pm | 229 views | 4 comments

BUDAPEST, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Hungary regrets that Irish voters have rejected the Lisbon Treaty on EU reforms ,but believes that the outcome of the referendum does not necessarily mean the failure of the document, Hungarian Foreign Affairs Spokesman Lajos Szelestey said on Friday.
Hungarian News Agency MTI quoted Szelestey as saying that Hungary hopes the EU countries will find a solution which both respects the decision of Irish voters and enables the values and instruments of the Lisbon Treaty to be preserved.

Hungary was the first EU member state to ratify the Lisbon Treaty.

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generaldecay

at 08:25 on June 14th, 2008

good stuff:

I wonder if Hungary, and elsewhere, regret not holding a referendum now?

nagba

at 06:19 on June 16th, 2008

Well, for one, i do not regret not having the referendum.

First of all, it costs money (and considering what shape is in Hungary now, we're better off without it).

Second, why did the irish ppl reject it? I recall one guy stating for a reporter "I voted with no because i did not understand it". They usually fail to explain what it is about.

Third, I do fear that the nationalists just vote with no because they feel threatened and forget a hungarian saying: "In unity there is strength". I believe in unity.

Maireid Sullivan

at 02:04 on June 17th, 2008

Hi Nagba,

We all want "unity", but we don't want it to be presented under false pretenses.

The Lisbon Treaty is not just a "legal document", therefore hard to understand. Patricia McKenna (MEP Ireland / Green Party) tried to explain that it was largely written by the military, with an agenda to develop a war industry in EU. It was NOT about creating unity for the "people" of the EU.

Here is my file on her informative statement.

Patricia McKenna advocated a "NO"
vote on the Lisbon Treaty, because it calls for Ireland's participation
in the development of a EU War
Industry. Listen to the Audio report here:

http://www.livevideo.com/media/tag/patricia-mckenna-mep-.aspx

And, here is a brief
excerpt from her concluding statements – "...denying
people the right to even get information on what this

treaty (Lisbon Treaty) is about. The former Italian PM Amato said the
EU leaders decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is
unreadable, it is not constitutional. ...nothing will be directly
produced by the PMs because they feel safer with the unreadable thing.

They can present it better in order to avoid dangerous referendums. If
people understood what was going on they would ask for a referendum.
(Former French President) Giscard d'Estaing, who was basically the
author of the whole thing said, "Public opinion will be led to adopt,
without knowing it, proposals that we dare not present to them
directly." and he stressed, "All the earlier proposals will be in the
new text but will be hidden and disguised in some way." and he also
noted, "What was already difficult to understand will become utterly
incomprehensible but the substance has been retained." So, that is the
contempt that the EU leaders show for the people of Europe, and I think
that this is something we have to get across to everybody. It's
absolutely unacceptable."