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Comment by jimnotgym | Hacker News Reader

Wikipedia suggests that

1. The French didn't hold a referendum on Lisbon

2. The treaty was ratified in 2008

Presumably you are either confusing the referendum on the EU constitution with the Lisbon treaty, or trying to suggest that they are one and the same? They are not of course, the Lisbon treaty was drafted specifically to address the concerns with the EU constitution. "The electorate rejected version 1, so we redrafted until it was acceptable" sounds like a pretty good policy to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_...

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as I'm sure you are aware: the texts of the constitution and the Lisbon Treaty are essentially completely identical

the Treaty was a device created to pass the constitution while bypassing the need for referendums

> "The electorate rejected version 1, so we redrafted until it was acceptable" sounds like a pretty good policy to me

well yes, that sounds reasonable, except the electorate were not given the option to reject it a second time, because they might actually do that

> as I'm sure you are aware: the texts of the constitution and the Lisbon Treaty are essentially completely identical

I am not aware of any such thing, in fact I reject your statement completely.

> the electorate were not given the option to reject it a second time Isn't that a matter for France to address, rather than the EU

Well, I for one agree with the GP statement. The Lisbon treaty was specifically designed to override the will of voters, and is essentially identical to the EU constitution. This is a view, I feel, that's shared by the entire Western European press.

Needless to say, this has now been repeated, again, and again:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_Eur...

And of course, one might say that the EU treated the election results in Greece, Italy, France and Germany with utter contempt. Greece most of all, of course, but the others aren't far behind.

It wasn't redrafted until it was acceptable. It was passed as is, but as a massive series of "amendments" that effectively rewrote the entire previous document into the new one.

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