EIRE ANTI NICE TREATY CAMPAIGN

The National Platform
 24 Crawford Avenue
 Dublin 9
 Ireland
 
 Phone : 00-353-1-8305792
 
 Web-site: www.NationalPlatform.org 
 
 Monday 7 May 2001

 Dear Friends and Fellow Democrats
 in other European countries inside and
 outside the EU,
 
 On behalf of Ireland's No-to-Nice campaigners,  may I appeal to you to give us all the help and solidarity you can, to enable us reject the Treaty of Nice in the Irish referendum on 7 June - four weeks from next Thursday.
 
 We are the only EU country holding a referendum on Nice. The Irish will be voting for people everywhere in Europe. The Treaty divides the EU in a fundamental way. To keep Europe united, we are urging a No vote. Please do your best to help us.
 
 The National Platform of which I am secretary, is a research and information group that provides critical information on Nice and EU matters generally to the many different political parties and organisations that are calling for a No to Nice in the Republic of Ireland.  Our material is used by all of them, although each party and group of course has its own special emphasis. Many of these organisations have two agendas - for example to "blood" their political party for the general election that must be held in this State by next spring.   The National Platform, however, has only one agenda - to defeat this reactionary and anti-democratic Treaty. There is now a real possibility of doing this in Ireland - in which case the Treaty will have to be renegotiated. There will never be a Treaty of Nice, but maybe a Treaty of Gothenburg, Brussels or whatever in due time, which will be different from Nice in major respects.
 
 I send you for your information our critical case against Nice, in two e-mail attachments above. All this material, and much else, is up on our web-site at www.NationalPlatform.org Please consult this and urge others in your country to do so. it contains lots of eurocritical material that should be useful to democrats all over Europe.
 
 The most important way that you can help us defeat Nice is to collect money for the TEAM EU Referendum Fund. TEAM is the international network of EU-critical organisations, encompassing now some 45 democratic political parties and non-party bodies in some 15 different European countries, inside and outside the EU, on the left, right and centre of politics. The EU Referendum Fund has been launched to help Ireland's No campaigners, but it will be a permanent feature of the European political scene henceforth. It will collect money to help the democratic side in all future EU-related referendums, whether inside or outside the EU, where there is evidence of significant imbalance of resources between the Yes and No sides. Such imbalance is commonplace, as you well know, in EU-related referendums, with the anti-democratic side usually having vastly more resources than the democratic one.  In due time the TEAM EU Referendum Fund will  be collecting international money in support of the No side in Britain's euro-referendum, and for EU-related referendums in Malta, Slovenia, Sweden, Poland and other countries.
 
 How much money has been collected  for the current 7 June referendum in Ireland, and how it will be spent to help the Irish No-to-Nice campaigners, will be publicly announced by the Board of TEAM towards the end of May.

Everything about the TEAM Referendum Fund will be open and above board.

Below is the text of TEAM's appeal for money  for the Irish Nice referendum, with details of where to send anything that you are willing to contribute to it or to collect.
 
 If you prefer to make a contribution directly to any of the political parties and organisations in Ireland that are campaigning against Nice, of course please do that as you see fit. These range from Catholic traditionalists, republicans and the Green Party to peace and neutrality organisations,the ATGWU - Ireland's third largest trade union -  and Third World development bodies. Information on some of these is on our web-site, but they are many, and if you want specific details, please contact me.

My own group, The National Platform,  is not accepting donations from any organisation, whether inside or outside Ireland.  but we are grateful for contributions to help our work from individuals; and people can be assured that anything donated will be put to good use to help the remarkable Irish No-to-Nice movement in the most sensible way possible.
 
 With thanks in advance for your solidarity and help . . . 

 Yours sincerely,
 
 Anthony Coughlan
 
 Secretary
 
 PS. The two reasons why the Brussels Commission and various top Irish politicians are now getting worried that the Nice referendum may not get through in Ireland are: 
(a)	They are trying to stampede the Irish people into voting for this Treaty in a very short period of time, mixing it with two other quite unrelated referendum issues that have to be voted on simultaneously, without any adequate consideration of the actual content of the Nice Treaty. The Irish people may resist and react against such stampeding. 
(b)	The Irish Government is attempting to "sell"  Nice as an EU enlargement Treaty, when last week's Eurobarometer poll by the EU Commission showed that in Ireland and across the EU, only two-thirds of those polled supported  EU enlargement, presumably because of unexpressed economic concerns and fears.

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