Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)

I would not. I would require considerably more than two minutes to unravel the undemocratic mess that is the European Commission and Council, and how people end up there. The fact that a number of governments across Europe may be slightly more dominated by right wing elements is neither here nor there. What we are talking about is enshrining the policies of those right wing governments that are currently in place in perpetuity in a new treaty by signing up to their very policies of neoliberalism itself. That is, in essence, what is happening by signing up and handing over in that regard. Obviously, the Minister of State disagrees but we do not have time in this debate to deal with that.

Article 7 of the austerity treaty tries to create a caucus of the austerity club where countries within the EU structures support the Commission's proposals for sanctions or fines on non-performing countries. While I do not have a chance now to go into the detail of that, the new methods of voting which have been introduced, such as reverse majority voting and so on, are inherently undemocratic. What it means is that the Council is presumed to agree with the sanctions unless a qualified majority vote against it. What it really means is that the sanctions are presumed to be implemented and one would need a huge majority to overturn them. If the peripheral nations still had their votes, they would not have a chance of defeating it if the major northern Governments were not in favour of it.

We do not have the time to develop the points now. The key decision making is being taken out of the hands of the European Council, to which the Minister of State referred, and put into the hands of this so-called austerity club. It extends the process too far. For that reason and the other economic ones, we will be opposing the treaty.

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