In the current scenario,

perhaps the European Union would do well to dump Beethoven’s Ode to Joy for his other masterpiece, the Pathetique. Considering the way things are being handled by the EU maestros in connection with the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution Take 2 proposal, and the fiasco it has so loudly generated, there can hardly be a more symbolic anthem.

The Union’s sham democratic credentials have only too quickly resurfaced, following the resounding “no” vote on the part of the Irish electorate in what has been the one and only referendum to have taken place since the previous Constitution proposal was twisted and moulded into a kind of treaty in reaction to the earlier blunt refusals from voters in France and the Netherlands.

You don’t have to be a Eurosceptic to realise that the way things are being force-fed into public acceptance is today a major source of worry, and not just to the smaller members of this club. Too many issues and too many proposals are being rushed at one monopolistic go through the old, bureaucratic corridors for anyone’s comfort. Many people’s worst fears have become an unpleasant reality as they helplessly watch their national rights being threatened, their feelings ignored and their hopes of a so-called “Europe of equals” brazenly dashed.

The arrogant attitude adopted by the vast majority of EU leaders and their sycophantic member governments is rubbing up even the most well-intentioned people the wrong way. It is no longer a question of “a few sceptics” who will always criticise the EU, anyway. Today it has become the concern of most nations in Europe, particularly those who feel they are not only being taken for a ride politically, but are also being insulted by being taken for granted and expected to accept changes and positions that distinguish between big and small, rich and poor, strong and feeble through what are predictable and safe passages in the national parliaments.

EU leaders plainly refuse to accept defeat. They fiddle with the rules in such a way that even the simple toss of a metaphorical coin has to go by the maxim of “Heads you lose, tails I win”. It is like taking part in the current Euro 2008 football finals competition and granting the best sides in the tournament the opportunity to widen or narrow the goal-posts as they fancy, depending on the opposition, perhaps even to the point of opting for widening only the opponent’s goal!

Europe has to be for fairness and not imposition. There are genuine fears that the Lisbon Treaty is meant to create a great political, economic and military divide. History-

loving observers of the European scene would find parallels in the Congress of Vienna and the Treaty of Paris, when the strong dictated to the meek and the defeated by way of actions and terms that eventually and inevitably resulted in the horrors of World War II.

Rather than projecting a vision of a united Europe based on equal rights and equal opportunities, regardless of territorial or demographical size, the treaty is popularly and rightly being seen as an unwanted gift

re-wrapped and re-presented to hoodwink its reluctant receiver.

A union that functions, at least this far in its existence, on the principle of consensus was already breaking its own rules when it decided to over-ride the massive rejections in France and the Netherlands by re-packaging and re-processing the whole proposal. This is not democracy in motion, but blatant circumnavigation and those who perpetrate it should not be surprised at the lack of popular support for the idea of “a stronger Europe” if this is easily translated – given that there are enough interpreters to do the job in all the official languages – into “an unfair, divided Europe”.

After last week’s categorical “no” vote in the Irish Republic, there was only one EU leader who uttered the right words – Vaclav Klaus, the Czech Prime Minister, who unhesitatingly declared the treaty as “finished, since any further ratification is impossible”. Klaus may be a lone voice among EU leaders, but his views will probably resonate with many European voters all over the EU who did not get a say in a referendum.

If, initially, the name of the game was consensus, then the treaty proposal should not have been taken any further. The fact that the rest of the members had decided to ignore their own peoples by ratifying the treaty strictly at a parliamentary level holds not a single iota of justification for an abandonment of the agreed rules.

In our case, on this forsaken little isle, the whole Lisbon Treaty affair has been treated with complete deception on the part of the two major parties. While the government has no choice but to bow its head in submission, after having surrendered all that is important to us as a nation at the negotiating stage, the Opposition, too eagerly trying to show it truly respected the people’s verdict on the EU membership issue, but only just that, simply rolled over and agreed to play ball. It understandably could not – and was not ready to – call for, let alone face so soon, another referendum.

It is important to emphasise that accepting the people’s verdict does not and should not be interpreted as a carte blanche to whatever may be trumped up by the bigger members of the EU club. What Malta signed for way back in 2004 is one thing, what she is ready to accept in 2008 and beyond should be another, that is at least as long as we have representatives who are not ready to kowtow to each and every big-brother whim.

The outstanding reality of this whole situation is that the Irish, the only EU member to grant a democratic referendum to its people, have rejected the Lisbon Treaty proposal. The absurd process of ratification that has taken place in the other member countries is an affront to each and every citizen denied the chance to express his view.

The idea of putting yet another “Plan B” (it is actually Plan C!) in motion by way of bypassing the new crisis caused by the Irish vote is yet another pitiful demonstration of how far Europe has NOT moved ahead since those awful post-WWI years of defunct monarchs refusing to abdicate, obsolete empires resisting dismantling and artificial frontiers being moved about in a dangerous snakes-and-ladders game that finally brought greater misery to the different nations of Europe.

It is exactly the situation that ironically unites the Eurosceptic with even the staunch Euro believer. Strange bedfellows they are indeed, but comrades in arms when it comes to fighting injustice and sheer political cheek.

“Welcome to your future” one EU critic said after the Dublin announcement last week. “This shows an EU mindset that is arrogant, anti-democratic and frankly scary. These people are so scared of public opinion they are willing to set in stone the right to ignore it. Freedom requires the governing elite to be held to account. They must be getting very worried if they are enacting such dictatorial powers for themselves.” And so say all of us.