Ireland-EU
Campaigners opposed to Ireland ratifying the new EU reform treaty announced Monday that they are organizing a protest demonstration against next week's planned visit to Dublin by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Organisers of the demonstration, the Campaign Against the European Constitution (CAEC) said it will be protesting against the French president's refusal to accept Ireland's rejection of the treaty and his policies in general.

Sarkozy, who takes over the EU presidency for six months from July 1, caused controversy, when calling for other member countries to proceed with the Lisbon Treaty after it was rejected earlier this month, in a referendum in Ireland, the only country to hold a poll.

His office has announced that he would to visit Dublin on July 11 to hear the Irish government's perspective on the Lisbon vote and to meet others involved in the debate.

But CAEC, formed in 2005 to oppose original plans for an EU constitution, said that they would tell the French president that "no means no."
"The EU establishment want to force a re-run of the Lisbon referendum in Ireland" in the hope of overturning the rejection, it warned.

The Irish negative vote is holding up the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, which has to be ratified by all 27 member countries before coming into force by its target date on January 1, 2009.

CAEC describes itself as a "broad coalition of progressive and left political parties, organisations, trade unionists and individuals committed to democracy, peace, justice, Irish neutrality and equality."
Affiliated organizations include Sinn Fein, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Workers Party, Communist Party of Ireland, Eirigi, Irish Anti War Movement, Peace & Neutrality Alliance, People Before Profit, Peoples Movement and National Platform.

"We want a foreign policy that seeks to resolve conflicts without military action or support for despotic regimes. There is no need for increased military spending, to send Irish soldiers into EU battle groups and to be party to US foreign and military policy abroad," it said.

The campaign group said it was not opposed to EU membership, but wanted "economic policies geared to full employment, decent wages and sustainable development, here and elsewhere."
"We do not want more decisions affecting our lives to be made in a way over which we have little or no control, by people who are unaccountable, and enshrined in laws we cannot revise," it said.

The Lisbon Treaty was the "same in substance as the previous EU Constitution" and will take us in the direction of "more
privatisation, more right-wing economic policy, more militarisation, less neutrality and less democratic control," it warned.