Pressemitteilung der irischen Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA), Dublin, 30. Mai 2008

At a news conference today (Friday, May 30th), the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) outlined its reasons for advocating a No vote to the Lisbon Treaty. PANA was joined by German MEP, Tobias Pflüger, from the United European Left/Nordic Green Left group in the EU parliament.

Roger Cole, Chairperson of PANA, highlighted opinion poll findings that show that issues of EU militarisation and Irish neutrality are the chief reason - after confusion over the Treaty - that Irish people are thinking of voting No. "It's clear that people are very concerned that the EU is being militarised. We don't want to be supporting and funding the armaments industry. We don't want Irish troops to be part of EU military forces that are linked with NATO and are 'interoperable' with NATO forces that use cluster bombs. The EU also sees its military forces as not requiring UN mandates. As the EU Commission President, José Barroso stated, the Lisbon Treaty lays the foundations for a 'genuine EU common defence'. This is something we should strongly oppose.

Tobias Pflüger, MEP, stated that: "all progressive forces interested in a democratic and peaceful EU are looking forward to the Irish referendum and hoping that the Irish people will forcefully reject this militaristic treaty. Lisbon provides for: 1) world wide EU combat missions; 2) a Solidarity Clause which indicates how the EU is transforming into a military alliance; 3) collaboration with NATO, including the development of an EU security and defence policy which must be compatible with NATO; and 4) more of our money going into the armament's industry. There are many, many people in Europe who also wanted to vote on this Treaty. However the EU leaders have ensured we will not have this democratic right. We hope that the Irish people reject Lisbon and that we can create a more democratic EU without a military dimension".

Carol Fox, PANA researcher, said the Irish Governement could not be relied upon to protect Ireland's neutrality or to halt EU military developments. "Look what has already happened in the EU, despite the existence of an Irish veto. The Lisbon Treaty includes a number of new military provisions, including mutual defence and solidarity clauses, an elite military force ('Structured Cooperation'), and an armaments agency. Our Governement has supported all of this as well as joining an EU Battlegroup and the Rapid Reaction Force. We've even weakened our Triple Lock (Governement/Dail approval/UN mandate before sending troops abroad) to facilitate this. We already know from the example of US troops through Shannon that the Irish Governement has a very peculiar definition of neutrality. The Lisbon Treaty further confirms this".