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Friday, October 02, 2009

BBC: Utterly unacceptable

Sophie Raworth, reading from the autocue live on the BBC One O'Clock news, has just made this quite unbelievable introduction to a piece on events in Ireland today:

"The people of Ireland return to the polls today in a referendum on whether to accept the Lisbon Treaty on enlarging the European Union."

Hat-tip to friends in Northern Ireland who alerted us to this.

This is a quite unacceptable distortion of the facts - the Treaty has nothing to do with enlargement, otherwise we might be campaigning for a 'yes' vote. This Treaty is about giving the EU more powers. What is the BBC on?

We've made a complaint - and we urge everyone else out there to do so too, and as soon as possible. The same piece reported that most people in Ireland are still to vote, many of whom may not yet have made up their minds. This kind of ridiculous and false statement might just tip the balance.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/homepage/

5 comments:

Ralf Grahn said...

You are quite right: The Lisbon Treaty does not change the enlargement criteria much (marginal tightening through 'respect' and commitment to promote them).

Politically, the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty may unblock the enlargement process, but that is another story.

Lisa said...

I am very surprised the way Ireland voted, but they are desperate because of the economy.

constant gina said...

The EU requires a birth certificate

John McClane said...

A European point of view on referenda as far as the EU is concerned and in the context of the Irish vote:

Ce résultat positif souligne à quel point le référendum est un instrument inadapté pour adopter un traité européen, fruit d’un complexe compromis entre 27 Etats membres, forcément insatisfaisant et incompréhensible pour les non-initiés. D’où la tentation naturelle pour les citoyens de ne pas répondre à la question posée.

and:

je ne passe plus aucun commentaire du style: "la démocratie a été violée car ils ont voté deux fois et on est dans une dictature et blablabla et blablabla". Ces commentaires ont déjà été fait, la discussion a eu lieu. Ce genre de réactions n'a aucun intérêt et vise seulement à bloquer le fil.

From Coulisses de Bruxelles

Open Europe blog team said...

Hi Mad Dog Mclane - yes, we also saw that and thought it summed up the rather unpleasant attitude that seems to prevail!