waider

The stereotype of the arrogant Frenchman may or may not have legs, but Sarkozy certainly displayed if not arrogance, at least a lack of tact in apparently remarking that Ireland would have to vote again on the Lisbon treaty. Now, this being reporting, it's entirely possible that he said it was one of the options, or that he was referring to a modified treaty, or what have you. In today's BBC story on the issue, he's quoted as having said, "the Irish will have to vote again", which is technically correct - if we're to have any significant alteration of the current EU treaties, which we must have, sooner or later, then the Irish Constitution requires that the Irish will indeed have to vote again, and I think other countries should get the chance, too.

Anyway, the various political parties were quick to jump on it from both sides, with the incumbents attempting to do a discreet "shut up, you fool!" approach and the opposition doing their best to find a way to blame his comments on the incumbents. Ah, politics.

German ratification of Lisbon treaty also on hold. The UK case was ruled against, leaving the way clear for ratification, and I've still not stumbled across an update on the Czech situation (although I haven't gone looking for it either).

So we have the OECD telling us our housing market is doomed, the ESRI telling us we're in recession, various goverment rumblings about belt-tightening, and the opposition party accusing the Taoiseach of being personally responsible for the global economic downturn (to be fair, he was the Minister for Finance before he was Taoiseach, but even if you believe that Ireland is one of the richest countries in the EU I don't think our budgetary decisions have had any significant impact in the face of, say, subprime-mortgage-related crashes). In the midst of all this, the general secretary of the IMPACT union suggests that prudent behaviour with regard to wages is "absurd", and also this choice piece of MATH FAIL:

He said: 'What we didn't have in the 80s was the Social Partnership framework that we have been working under for the last 21 years.'

Since, er, 1987 - which is the year that Wall Street crashed rather spectacularly obviously isn't in "the 80s".

(yes, I realise he's more likely to be referring to the early 80s. Let me have my snide remarks, dammit. Also I exaggerate Fine Gael's stance on the handling of the economy for much the same reason.)

I've not seen an update on this story, but apparently the Czech Republic is waiting on a court decision before ratification - as is, apparently, the UK.

So the Lisbon Vote came in as a fairly solid No. Curiously, I'm pretty sure my referendum booklet advised me that if this was the case, the entire treaty was hosed as it requires a unanimous ratification by all member states of the EU and, er, we've kinda broken that.

Good things: hurrah, democracy! 53.1% turnout for a Constitutional amendment isn't exactly song and dance material, but it's better than I expected, and it definitely reflects the fact that some people do care about this stuff.

Bad things: having to put up with the harping morons of Coir for the next month while they smugly tell everyone how they "won".

Amusement: Firstly, taking someone else's line: how are the anti-treaty U.K. tabloids going to cope with the fact that Sinn Féin are in some part responsible for "saving" them from the treaty? Secondly, the results weren't even out yesterday before the main opposition party turned on the incumbents claiming the negative outcome was a result of the referendum being held too close to the change of leadership. This would be the same party who last week (or perhaps the week before) were clamouring for cross-party unity to present a single-faced Yes campaign. A week, as they say, is a long time in politics.

Get out and vote. If you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain about the outcome. And remember, a change to the constitution is far more important than an election: you're not just affecting YOU for the next five years, you're affecting everyone in the country for years to come. Much as I disagree with COIR's wingnuttery, I will agree with one of their slogans: don't be bullied - by either side; make up your own mind.

Some advice, or perhaps a request, on the Lisbon Treaty referendum: don't vote for your party's line. Don't vote against the government. Don't be swayed by ~~Sinn Féin's~~ COIR's somewhat tasteless reference to the 1916 Rising. Don't pay attention to the scaremongers on all sides telling you it'll hurt the country whichever way we vote.

Find out what the vote is about, and make up your own mind.

updated: Those aren't Sinn Féin's posters, much to my surprise. The "responsible" group has registered a very unbiased-sounding domain name on which to host their arguments, but they're quite obviously in the NO camp. No, I'm neither mentioning nor linking the actual domain here.

Our minister for European Affairs attempts to use something approximating schoolyard logic in reference to the revised EU treaty: if we don't vote in favour of it, we won't be popular. Never mind if it's actually right to vote for it.

The official European Union website takes time out to debunk the crap stories made up by the red-tops. They've also included an archive of letters of correction sent to these papers which weren't published.

MEPs vote on less exposed cleavage (front and rear) (this is not the prurience you are looking for)

The French rejected the EU constitution. I have NO idea if this is a good or a bad thing, but given that our own government were looking for ways to railroad it through without discussion, I can only applaud the result. Go France!

I’ve just spent several hours reading through European legalese, and boy do my eyes hurt. Also my brane. Despite all the flapping in various places, it seems like the Council (in the dramatis personæ, the Bad Guys) have actually accepted the bulk of what the Parliament (the Good Guys) proposed, and the only two major points of disagreement between them are (a) cleaning up the line between patentable and unpatentable items, and (b) exemptions for interoperability. The latter is a sort of offshoot of the reverse-engineering thing I mentioned last night; in summary, it appears to say that if you need to get two pieces of equipment to talk to each other and the only way to do it is via a patented mechanism, then we’ll look the other way while you violate the patent. Obviously I’m paraphrasing, glossing, and removing any useful restraints from the actual wording, but Parliament want this to go through as-is, and Council think it’s asking for trouble. As for the line between what can and can’t be patented, well, that’s always going to be a problem anyway, but a wily Frenchman named Rocard has put together a damned fine document which does as good a job as I’ve seen yet of nailing this particular piece of jelly to a tree.

The upshot is, I’m no longer sure what I’m lobbying my MEPs to do, other than "Follow that Rocard guy, he’s good". Unlike some of the more militant people in this particular scrap, I’m not actually an advocate of a blanket ban on patents for software or anything else; I’m an advocate of sane patents and prevention of companies using abuse of the patent system as their means of business. I figure if I’m smart enough to come up with something that, in computer terms, is the new sliced bread or paper clip, I should have some means of sharing that with the community but at the same time getting something more than a slap on the back and "good job, waider!" for my troubles.

One of my readers (hi

mopti!) will be delighted to know I’m currently poring over documents relating to software patents and related issues in the EU. Said reader has been providing huge assistance to my attempts to put together a coherent letter to the undecided MEPs in my area in order to persuade them not to legislate me out of a job, and probably is a little peeved that I’m taking so long between drafts. In my defence I’ll point out that the guinness in my local is very tasty, and sometimes I get distracted by bright shiny objects. Plus,

mopti‘s got MAD WRITING SKILLZ and I keep writing chunks of text and then deleting them in the realisation that he’s going to tell me I’ve lost the plot AGAIN. Anyway. I just stumbled across something that I will have to dig further at, but which relates to my recent reverse-engineering efforts; it is something of which I was aware, almost talisman-like, but which I had never bothered looking up. But here it is: Directive 91/250/EEC Articles 5 and 6 specifically authorise me to reverse-engineer software for interoperability. Now, I’m going to have to go read some more to find out what exactly is meant by interoperability, but right now my eyes are starting to glaze with all this bloody legalese. Oh, one other note: the justification for one of EP’s proposed amendments to the CIID is, "It is bad draftsmanship to couch recitals as normative provisions." Take that, Directive Drafters!

they're against software patents. Pity I've already sealed & stamped the envelope.

I've just written an honest-to-goodness letter about the software patents directive to my European Parliament representatives. I could email them, but I'm still inclined to believe that a letter's a far more weighty thing. I did email the two guys who have stated definitively that they're against software patents to say thanks.

I think it's great that Poland keeps blocking moves to rubber-stamp the EU Software Patent Directive, but I want to know what the hell it's doing in front of the Council of Agriculture and Fisheries in the first place. I've heard of "rider" bills, but this is ridiculous.

"Blair to urge end to US-EU rift over Iraq", and "Europe is 'shutting out UK firms'". Actually, it's probably got far more to do with the UK's "we're still not sure about this whole EU thing" stance than anything else, but I just thought the juxtaposition of the headlines was amusing.

Funferal puts it rather nicely.

Current Music: The Damning Well: Awakening

GM crops? Sure! Software Patents? Hell yeah!

Current Mood: disappointed
Current Music: U2: Lemon (Bad Yard Club Mix)

The Irish Times has a supplement today showing the map of Europe at various points between the Roman Empire and the recent EU expansion. Two things that I didn't quite realise before seeing this:

Ireland has spent most of the last Millennium as a united country of one sort or other, albeit for 120-odd years as part of the United Kingdom. (It's only since 1921 that it's been a partitioned country.)
Austria seriously lost out in WW I

Current Music: U2: Lemon (The Perfecto Mix)

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waider

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Entries tagged with e.u.

how to win friends and influence people

the Lisbon Treaty in further difficulties

cognitive dissonance, and math being difficult

Lisbon Treaty: Czechs may not be in favour either.

and in other news

PSA, Ireland Edition

and while I'm mentioning politics

Vote Yes! All the COOL KIDS are doing it!

IM IN UR FLEET STREET DEBUNKIN UR TABLOIDS

important EU legislature

and some politics

short summary of a long email

legalities

a bright spot in Sinn Féin's recent actions

in which I am a political activist

software patents in the EU

news gathering

shut up already

making the world safe for multinationals

history lesson