Updated: Mifsud Bonnici hails Irish rejection of EU treaty

(Adds reference to Joseph Muscat's position at end paragraph)

Former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, leader of the Campaign for National Independence (CNI) today welcomed the Irish referendum “no” on the EU’s Lisbon reform treaty and said he was sure more countries would have rejected the treaty had the people been given a choice.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said he shared the view expressed by several prominent EU leaders that the Lisbon treaty was now dead. It was wrong, he insisted, for others to act like nothing had happened and to insist that other countries continued the ratification process.

The main reasons for the Irish rejection, he said, was that the EU was taking over far too many powers from sovereign states. Furthermore, in terms of the EU treaty, the EU would increasingly take decisions on the basis of a majority rather than unanimity, even when such decisions affected the people directly.

Furthermore, the EU was being increasingly militarised.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici strongly criticised the Maltese Parliament for having ratified the Lisbon treaty after just three hours of debate. The treaty, he said, would not have been referred to national parliaments if they were only expected to rubber stamp it, as Malta had done.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the Irish in rejecting the treaty had acted according to EU rules and it would therefore be a mistake for the other countries to carry on regardless, because it would be they who would be breaking the rules. Imposing decisions over the people’s heads amounted to democratic fraud.

When it was pointed out to Dr Mifsud Bonnici that the MLP’s new leader Joseph Muscat had expressed his disappointment by Ireland’s decision to reject the treaty in a referendum, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said he absolutely disagreed with that position.

“I never agreed, I don’t agree and never can agree, because it (the treaty) goes against the democratic principles of the majority,” he stressed.