MPs Suggest Referendum for ESM (1)

Published: 01.08.2012 13:52

Parliament's so-called Union of Democrats
( Photo: Postimees/Scanpix )

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A group of ex-Center Party members in Parliament is calling for a referendum on the Treaty Establishing the European Stability Mechanism.

The group put the proposal before Parliament and said it is expecting a response from the parties by August 7. The EU agreement, the group said, limits Parliament's financial competence, Estonian sovereignty and the principles of democracy.

“We are convinced that the decision to give up Estonian sovereignty requires a public mandate,” the statement from the group said. “The question whether we are ready to transfer a certain part of our financial independence to Europe should be put to a public referendum.”

The five ex-Center Party members call themselves the Union of Democrats and are banded together under a nonprofit.

The treaty's accordance with the Constitution of Estonia was recently challenged by Chancellor of Justice Indrek Teder, meriting a review by the Supreme Court last month. Although the court cleared the agreement as constitutional, it was hotly debated and received nine dissenting opinions from a total of 19 justices who reviewed the case en banc.

Teder had argued that article four of the treaty, in establishing an 85 percent majority in votes regarding future emergency decisions, violated the the principle of unanimity and thus Estonian financial sovereignty.

“Although the contested article restricts the financial competence of the Estonian Parliament, the principle of rule of law and the sovereignty of Estonia, the restriction is justified,” a statement summarizing the Supreme Court's ruling said.

 

Ott Tammik

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Comments (1)

  • avatar

    knut_albers

    02.08.2012 10:59

    First of all, the Estonian people should be notified about the fact that the Supreme Court has been pressured by the Government to take such a ruling of discrpeancies in the same manner as Finance Minister Ligi currently tries to put pressure on the German Constitutional Court to stop to delay their decision on ESM. According to Rolf von Hohenhau from the Alliance of Taxpayers in Bavaria e.V., this may be done for personal gains, as finance minister Ligi will be "one of the governors of the ESM-Bank, with a (secret) salary, (secret) allowances and other benefits (such as tax exemption) that would probably be in height of tens of millions in total." Rolf von Hohenhau furthermore states that "we understand that this is appealing for all EURO finance ministers (= the future ESM-bank governors) to eagerly long for the start of the ESM. But do you [ref. Mr. Ligi] really need to proceed that bold and attack the German constitutional court?" He also noted that "Europe is made up of all the citizens of individual states and not from their 'governments and parliaments.'" This is eaxctly the lack of democracy Estonia and the Estonians need to become aware of more often, not to forget to mention about, that a completely uncontrollable ESM mega-bank would introduce poverty and perpetual debt slavery. That may be in line with all the debt collection companies in Estonia that are often attached to the government, but this is certainly not in the interest of the majority of the population. I am for a public referendum in case the public is made aware of all these issues in a fair, transparent and balanced manner. So far, ERR wasn't even able to provide as much information on this as it is even covered in German media, as stated above. How the people in Estonia can take a decision on this, if there is no information exchange and one need to turn to foreign media to get to know about certain facts of the issue? Source: mmnews