About Us ☚
The National Platform EU Research and Information Centre is based in Ireland at 24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9.
It advocates a Europe of Independent, Democratic, Cooperating Nation States
WHO ARE WE: The National Platform EU Research and Information Centre is a voluntary research and information body on EU affairs. Its Director is Anthony Coughlan, who is an economist and Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. He acts as coordinator of a loose group of lawyers, economists and politically interested people who come to the fore when their expertise is needed. The group seeks to produce legally accurate documentation on EU matters for the use of organisations and individuals on the centre, left and right of Irish politics who are concerned at the development of the EU in an undemocratic and highly centralised direction. Its members stand for a Europe of independent, democratic and cooperating Nation States.
OUR ORIGINS: In 1986 when the Irish Government sought to ratify the Single European Act (Treaty) by majority vote of the Dáil (Parliament), a number of professional lawyers along with Anthony Coughlan and others advanced the view that, according to the Irish Constitution, the surrender of sovereignty to Brussels which the SEA involved could only be done by the Irish people themselves in a referendum.
They invited the late Raymond Crotty, the distinguished economist, to challenge the Irish Government’s proposed mode of ratification in the Courts, which he courageously did.
In its judgement the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Crotty. It is the Irish people, not its politicians, who alone can amend the country’s basic law, the Constitution. Any surrender of sovereignty to the European institutions must therefore be decided by the people themselves in a referendum. Therefore the Single European Act could only be ratified by popular referendum, not by parliamentary majority vote.
This referendum was duly held in 1987 and the Single European Act(Treaty) passed into law, having received majority approval of the people.
It is because of this Crotty judgement that successive EU Treaties have had to be put to referendum in Ireland.
Activities: The National Platform EU Research and Information Centre has been actively involved in all subsequent EC/EU referendums, mainly in providing documentation and a speaker service to other organisations.
It was also involved in supporting the McKenna(1995) and Coughlan(2000) cases before the Irish High Court and Supreme Court. These led to two important Supreme Court judgements governing fair referendum procedures. The McKenna judgement prevents the Irish Government from using public funds to obtain a particular result in a referendum. The Coughlan judgement requires that there should be equality in the allocation of free broadcasting time in referendums.
The National Platform EU Research and Information Centre is affiliated to The European Alliance of EU-critical Movements(TEAM) and its Director is President of the Foundation for EU Democracy, Brussels. It has no party-political, religious or ideological affiliations or orientation, apart from supporting the principle of a Europe of independent, democratic, cooperating Nation States.
Between one half and two-thirds of legal acts affecting Ireland each year now come from Brussels. The European Treaties amending the Irish Constitution on which referendums have been held are:
Ireland’s Accession Treaty to the European Communties (1972)
The Single European Act (1986)
The Maastrict Treaty on European Union (1993)
The Treaty of Amsterdam (1998)
The Treaty of Nice (2002), on which two referendums were held, as the Irish
people rejected this Treaty in 2001 and the Government re-ran the same
Treaty under different referendum rules in 2002.
The Treaty of Lisbon, which was rejected in the 12 June 2008 referendum and
which the Irish Government proposes to re-run unchanged in a second
referendum in autumn 2009
DONATE TO HELP OUR WORK: We are a wholly volunary body and depend on private donations to meet the expense of researching and circulating our documentation. If you would like to help this work, please send a donation to us at the address above. Cheques should be made out to our account at the Bank of Ireland, No.30081817
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Dear Friends at Irish Nat. Platform. A few weeks ago I viewed an excellent video about an open debate by various opposition parties to the Lisbon Treaties. It was held in Eire with a neutral chairman - lasted about an hour or so.
Do you happen to have the link reference for this please. With thanks
Graham Wood
—- Forwarded Message —-
From: Graham Wood
To: [...]
Sent: Monday, 12 October, 2009 8:56:34
Subject: [SANITY] Re: “in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements”
This is an extremely important comment on the legality of the Lisbon Treaty.
Congratulations to Dr Cooper for his excellent research into this matter.
It is an absolute fact that EU interference in the 2nd Irish referendum took place on a massive scale, with the injection of many thousands of euros being pumped into the ‘Yes’ campaign.
Much of this (EU taxpayer’s money) was used on a very large scale promotion of what can only be described as propaganda in the form of leaflets, adverts, and intrusive interference in the national life of Ireland internally in order to secure a ‘Yes’ vote.
In addition it is also clear that rules governing the actual referendum process, which the Irish Referendum Commission has a statutory duty to maintain, were flagrantly disregarded.
There is no question therefore that the referendum process itself was deeply compromised and must be regarded as null and void.
Similarly, there is little doubt that the process contravenes many of the criteria for the legal establishment of a treaty as laid down by the Vienna Convention on Treaties.
It is very surprising that those very keen advocates for a UK referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (EU “constitution” ), expressed so zealously by Mr Cameron, Mr Hague and the Shadow Front Bench, appear to be so tardy in commenting on the Irish referendum process.
Even more surprising that they have not eagerly grasped the political implications of a referendum process so deeply flawed. Is this another case of ’snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory?’
Perhaps we may expect these gentleman to comment in particular on the point Mr Cooper raises on the obligatory responsibility of member state governments to ratify the Lisbon Treaty in accordance with their own constitutional requirements in the Irish context.
The referendum process in Ireland clearly did not fulfill this function.
Now is the time to comment please, Conservative leaders, so that a new opportunity presents itself for the Conservative party to formulate a clear and credible policy on the unqualified promise they made for a referendum for the British people.
Graham Wood
____________ _________ _________ __
Sent: Sunday, 11 October, 2009 17:33:36
Subject: “in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements”
As you will see below from this research undertaken by Dr Denis Cooper there are numerous grounds for challenging ratification of the Lisbon Treaty as is happening in some countries.
Have our Loyal Opposition given any thought to challenging the illegality of the treaty on any one of the grounds given below and if not why not? [...]
The procedure for making amendments to the present EU treaties is that laid down in Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union, which has been fully ratified and is currently in legal force throughout the EU. On pdf page 34 here:
http://eur-lex. europa.eu/ Le xUriServ/LexUriServ .do?uri=OJ: C:2006:321E: 0001:0331: EN:pdf
Article 48 ends with these words:
“The amendments shall enter into force after being ratified by all the member states in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. ”
It follows that if any member state either delivers no ratification at all, or a ratification which is invalid because it has been obtained by means which are not in accordance its constitutional requirements, then the proposed treaty amendments cannot legally enter into force.
Obviously the authorities of one member state have the right to seek confirmation that the ratification delivered by the authorities of another member state is a valid ratification, just as they had the right to examine the credentials of the representatives of other member states sent to negotiate the treaty amendments, pdf page 10:
“WHO, having exchanged their full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed as follows … ”
The question then arises whether the authorities of one member state have not only a right, but also a legal duty to satisfy themselves that the ratification delivered by another member state is a valid ratification.
It seems to me that there are strong arguments that under the present EU treaties, and under the European Convention on Human Rights, and probably under other international agreements, as well as under their own national constitutional laws in many cases, the authorities in each member state do have the duty to fully satisfy themselves that other member states have ratified the amendments “in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements” .
If that is true, then, for example, Gordon Brown is legally bound to take into account the challenge to Latvian ratification of the Lisbon Treaty recently presented to the European Court of Human Rights:
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=Oc1N9B0khOc
and he should notify other EU governments that British ratification is now suspended until that case has been resolved.
Otherwise, he could be illegally permitting the Lisbon Treaty to come into force on the basis of an invalid ratification by a member state, contrary to Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union, which is part of British law.
Similarly, the Czech President Vaclav Klaus would have a legal duty to consider whether the Irish referendum campaign was significantly tainted by irregularities and illegalities, and fully satisfy himself that any such legal taint had not been transferred to the subsequent Irish ratification.
To do otherwise would be to place him in breach of his oath of office, whereby he pledged to uphold the Constitution and laws of the Czech Republic:
http://angl.concourt. cz/angl_verze/constitution.php
The Preamble and Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 9 and 10 are relevant, plus Articles 59 (President’s oath of office) and 63 (power to ratify treaties).
But of course it would be inappropriate for the President to start to examine the validity of ratifications delivered by other member states, while the Constitutional Court was still considering objections to the treaty which may preclude ratification by his own state.