From Mr T. Privitelli

With regard to the European Union, we already had our say in March and April of 2003 when we decided to join.

Another referendum, this time to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, would be a sheer waste of money. The following may not sound politically correct, but it’s the truth nonetheless. To vote on whether to join the EU or not was fine, because it was a fundamental, relatively straightforward decision. But quite frankly, the vast majority of the electorate is not qualified enough to decide on such a technical subject as the actual mechanisms and functioning of the EU institutions. The average voter would simply consider it to be a vote for or against the EU as a whole, or even for or against the government of the time, which is not the point of the Lisbon Treaty at all.

If we really want to be very democratic and ask the electorate to choose, the referendum would need to present the real alternatives. These aren’t Yes or No. The choice now is between the Nice Treaty, which is in force, or the newly negotiated Lisbon Treaty. Is it worth the trouble and expense to ask 300,000 uninformed voters whether the EU would function better on the Nice Treaty or the Lisbon Treaty? Should we risk having a treaty that will allow an enlarged EU to function properly, and that was worked out with a huge amount of hard work and tough negotiations, to be capriciously rejected for frivolous reasons unrelated to the contents of the treaty itself?

Tonio Privitelli

HOEILAART

BELGIUM