After the lengthy period of navel-gazing triggered by the French and Dutch rejections of the EU’s Constitution, many had hoped that the Lisbon treaty would finally allow the EU to move on and effectively re-engage with the rest of the world. Those hopes were dramatically dashed by Ireland's "no" vote, and a dangerous factor behind has been the growing tendency in a number of member states to place national interests above those of the Union, and indeed above those of the wider world. The basic principles of solidarity and integration now seem, therefore, to be under threat. Member states continue to abide by these principles only as long as they serve the national interest, and many governments are even beginning to question the added value of the whole European project. This trend had become all too obvious when a number of member states proposed dropping common European symbols like the flag and the anthem at the time of the negotiations on the constitutional treaty. This no doubt reflected blatant political calculations that voters tend to favour their own national symbols over those of the European Union.
MATTERS OF OPINION
Ireland’s missing voters – who abstained and why Two-thirds (67%) of those questioned in a Eurobarometer survey of 2,000 people conducted immediately after Ireland’s recent referendum on the Lisbon treaty said the “no” campaign on the treaty had been more convincing, and this view was even held by a majority of the “yes” voters (57%). More than half those polled said that they only decided whether to vote “yes” or “no” in the final weeks of the campaign and 15% decided on the day itself. Over half those who did not vote in the referendum said this was because they didn’t understand the issues, and more than half of these (54%) said they would have liked more information from the Irish government. Ireland’s young voters were especially reluctant to participate in the referendum; more than twice as many in the 18-24 year-old age group abstained than among the over-55s (64% compared to 31%). Fewer than half of those interviewed who were students or unemployed had voted (40 and 49%, respectively), compared to a higher-than-average turnout among the self-employed (61%) and retired people (67%). There was a marked difference in voting between age groups: nearly two-thirds (65%) of young people aged 18-24 voted “no” in the referendum, compared with fewer than half (42%) of the over-55s.
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