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Islands of Aland to Join Ireland in Rejecting Lisbon Treaty?

Read more about: Blogging, Government, Irish Election, Irish Politics, Lisbon Treaty

A tiny autonomous archipelago off Finland could soon add to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty woes…BBC

That isnt the kind of thing you expect to read everyday on the BBC website - or perhaps it is. Anyway it seems that not alone can the Irish do damage to the treaty by effectively killing it. A small island off Finland with 27,000 inhabitants is likely to hammer a nail into the treaty.

The island enjoys a degree of autonomy under Finnish law and has yet to ratify Lisbon - even though the Finnish parliament has ratified it. Failure by them to ratify the treaty would make life very awkward for Brussels and Helsinki.

A senior Finnish justice ministry official, Jaana Jaaskelainen, said “it would create a very awkward situation for the Aland Islands if they rejected the Lisbon Treaty - we don’t have experience of such a matter”.

A two-thirds majority is needed for the Aland parliament to adopt the Lisbon Treaty. “Today there is a strong feeling among our politicians that there is not a qualified majority in favour of Lisbon,” Ms Eriksson said.

3 Responses to “Islands of Aland to Join Ireland in Rejecting Lisbon Treaty?”

  1. # Comment by woesinger Aug 27th, 2008 15:08

    Is this some kind of weird ironic real life allegory or someone’s idea of a joke?

  2. # Comment by stimp Aug 28th, 2008 05:08

    thank god they have some brains…and independent courts! Don’t worry NWO, in five more years you can repackage the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty into a new one that will spoil democratic europe.

  3. # Comment by Fintan Sep 1st, 2008 11:09

    Those Ålanders are no fools. When the EU abolished duty free within the Union several years ago, Åland refused to accept that, either. Now all the ferries between Helsinki and Stockholm stop there for a few minutes and duty free sales on board the ships flourish merrily as though Brussels had never existed.

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