Libertas.org

Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is a true pleasure to be with you here this morning.

As a proud Irishman, and as somebody honoured to call himself a son of Europe, I am humbled by your decision to award me this honour here in the heart of your country.

Throughout the ages, Copenhagen has been a shining example of civilization to the world.

In the 841 years since Bishop Absolon made this city his home and his fortress, Copenhagen has with dignity and strength provided the Danish people with a haven from the storms of nature, and the storms of history.

For 20 generations, this city has imbibed from the passage of time only that which made her stronger, and provided an inspiration to those privileged to call her their home.

When I look around me, I can see how the love of this country and this city inspired a young man to take up arms against the tyranny of the Nazi empire, and strike a blow for the freedom of his countrymen.

The fact that you have called me here to address you this morning, and to associate me with the memory of one of your country's greatest sons, moves me beyond what words can express. Thank you.

As we gather here this morning at a time of great change for Europe, I think we can all draw inspiration from the life and the legacy of Frode Jacobsen.

As a young man, he risked his own future, and his life, by standing alone against a monstrous oppressor, when in truth it would have been easier to do nothing, and await liberation by stronger allies.

When others stayed silent, he stood by himself in the foothills of history, in the face of overwhelming odds, and by the force of his own will helped defeat the greatest evil that mankind has ever known.

In truth, there are few men worthy of being called his equal, and I am certainly not amongst them.

While none of us here this morning can claim to share Frode Jacobsen's courage, we are united in admiration of his convictions.

In this new century, the work of this movement to keep the memory of his convictions alive is to be revered and treasured.

A commitment to freedom and democracy is what binds you and I in this room. Though we may not share every value, or a belief in every policy, we believe ultimately in the sovereignty of the people, and in the need for accountable leaders.

For me, The European Union has been one of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind on our continent.

By coming together, and pooling our common resources, the nations of Europe have brought to an end a millennium of history during which its greatest achievements were sometimes stained in the blood of the innocent victims of war and conflict.

We have emerged into the sunlight of prosperity and peace, and that reality is a result of the daring bravery of so many Europeans, some known to history, but many more known only to those that knew and loved them.

I stand with open arms before the idea of increasing and cementing the union of Europe.

That is not to say that there are not problems in Europe.

Our population is aging, and too few new Europeans are being brought into the world. Unless this trend changes, the continent that has influenced the history of the world more than any other will slowly die.

The ultimate expression of hope in Europe's future must be its investment in new generations to come.

We are struggling to cope with mass immigration, and the positive integration of new cultures in our society. Our challenge in this century will be to facilitate the enrichment of our cultural life that this brings without compromising the defining principles of our own heritage.

The breaking down of international borders has brought much success to Europe in terms of trade, but it has also made it easier for criminals to spread their wings and infect their countries neighbours. That is a common challenge, and we must meet it together.

Let there be no doubt that I am fully supportive of the European Union and enthusiastically so.

I believe that European integration has been good for Ireland, good for Denmark, and good for all of Europe. I have great hope for it's future.

In the future, we should look forward with hope to a Europe that embraces wholeheartedly the morality and efficacy of free trade between nations.

We should look forward to a Europe that takes its place as the moral superpower of the world, shining a beacon of freedom and democracy to the darkest corners of the earth.

We should look forward to a Europe that fosters enterprise and ingenuity, and a Europe that leads the world in mankind's battle to protect our world's environment from our past errors.

This is a Europe that is possible.

I do not believe that it is a Europe that even the most heartily Euro-sceptic amongst you would object to.

To achieve that great dream, Europe needs to reform itself and give itself the flexibility to lead in a changing world.

We do need a new treaty for Europe.

We need a treaty that trims and streamlines Europe.

We need an end to wasteful bureaucracy.

We need strong and certain leadership.

We need an effective and agreed foreign policy.

These goals can only be achieved, however, if the sovereignty of Europe remains vested in its citizens and its communities.

While we need a Europe that can act efficiently on the world stage, we do not need a Europe that regulates the length of our pencils and does it in the name of the Free Market.

We do not need a Europe that tells our schools who they can hire and on what grounds.

We do not need a Europe that smothers small business in red tape.

I stand for a Europe that has the courage to let people run their own lives, not a Europe that fears what people will do when left to their own devices.

The history of mankind has been the triumph of people over power, - the triumph of the individual who finds a solution to a global problem when the great and wise leaders of the day cannot do so.

In the headlong rush of those at the helm of Europe to wash the continent of its stained history, the memory our past errors is being swept away.

Those who do not learn from their errors are doomed to repeat them.

The Lisbon Treaty is the child of political amnesia.

Our leaders have forgotten not only the legacy of the 20th century; they have also forgotten the voice of their own 21st century Europe, that rejected the very same document they are now forcing your countrymen to accept.

Most of all, however, they have forgotten the fearsome consequences of creating an unbridgeable gulf between those who wield power, and those over whom it is wielded.

They have, in their unspeakable folly, crafted a document that creates a President of Europe, unelected by the people.

In their desire to believe the very best of their own kind, they believe that they will be able to control this President, and at the same time guarantee that he represents the people.

What they have actually done is to create, in the hope of cementing democracy in Europe, is to create a single personage, with no accountability to the citizen, in whom the power to decide our future direction is vested.

They have put in place a foreign minister, who they seem to genuinely believe will answer to them, but whom in reality will speak for them and us with one voice, and with the unmandated moral authority of half a billion people behind him.

It is the greatest crime of any man to believe that he will not repeat the mistakes of his father, because he is somehow smarter.

There are those who will sneer when I say that our leaders are making a grave mistake by believing that they can control a leader to whom they have given the ultimate authority, because they believe that in today's enlightened world, no harm can come from it.

How wrong they are.

Unfortunately, with the success of the European project there has grown an arrogance that threatens it.

To those in Brussels, who have grown use to wielding power without consequence, the very idea of accountability has become a threat.

Our politicians have become so used to the success of the European Union that they have forgotten that it succeeded because of the hard work and ingenuity of the people, not because of their own entrenched sense of righteousness.

In Ireland, we are often told by our politicians that we owe a lot to Europe, - and we do.

But we owe it not to politicians, but to the ordinary citizens of Europe, who worked hard and paid their taxes so that my own country could be dragged from the periphery to the top tier of the European economic miracle.

Europe's success has been due to the willing self sacrifice of the people, who have willingly given of their own interests in order to build a continent brimming with culture and prosperity.

Now, with this Lisbon Treaty, the political elite of Europe want to lock the people outside the doors to power, and place it in the hands of their unelect.

European citizens will be deprived of the power to do anything other than offer Brussels helpful suggestions by a petition, which they can ignore.

A single mouth will speak for the people of Europe on matters of international importance, and that voice will have no ears.

A President will decide the direction our economies, and our cultures, and that President will have no mandate.

A golden circle of leaders will decide our future for us by majority vote, regardless of minority opinion.

The European parliament will remain little more than a very worthy talking shop.

It is ironic, is it not, that the one of the European Union's great institutions which has the least power, before, and after Lisbon, is the one elected by us, the people?

In Brussels, we already see the cancer caused by this lack of accountability eating away at the Union.

For the last thirteen years, the European Union has failed to have its accounts signed off by the court of auditors.

In the Parliament, a report into widespread corruption is being withheld from publication.

In Dublin, the Government estimates that unnecessary regulation from Brussels is costing Irish business hundreds of millions of Euro a year. I'm sure it's the same here.

In any of the member states of the Union, corruption and incompetence on that scale in Government would result in swift removal from office.

In Brussels, unaccountability corruption is being rewarded by more power.

We are being asked to give the keys to the brewery to people who are drunk on the power they already have.

Throughout Europe, this failed plan, this flawed document, is being imposed on the people with no consultation.

65 million Frenchmen have had their voices silenced by a President who admits that he is afraid of what Europe will hear if he opens the windows of democracy.

In the United Kingdom, the leader of the country that sacrificed so much to secure democracy in Europe has turned his back on the masses outside the Palace of Westminster in order to save face with the Brussels elite.

In Ireland, because of a proud Patriot called De Valera who wrote our constitution, we have to have a referendum. As an Irishman, I feel saddened that the task of rescuing Europe from this disastrous Treaty has fallen upon us.

Nonetheless, that is the accident of history that has befallen us.

As I took in the history and majesty of this ancient and noble city today, my thoughts repeatedly returned to Frode Jacobsen, as I asked myself what it was that makes him and others like him such special treasures of the human race.

It occurs to me that the answer to that question lies in one word, - duty.

Frode Jacobsen saw in the world around him great injustice, and felt the call of duty to oppose it by whatever means he had at his disposal.

He knew that in this world, the great errors of mankind are do not happen of their own accord, they are allowed to happen by those who see the folly of their fellow man and chose not to speak up.

Frode Jacobsen knew that his actions would not necessarily alleviate the suffering of his own generation of Danes, although I'm sure he hoped that it might.

He knew, however, that he had a duty to something greater, - a duty to generations of his compatriots who were not yet born, but who sit in this room to applaud his legacy this morning.

I doubt there is one of us sitting here this morning who could ever match that courage, or bravery.

We can try and draw lessons from it, however.

On our generation of democrats falls a great duty.

We cannot stand idly by and watch perhaps well-intentioned people walk us down the road to bureaucratic feudalism.

We cannot stay quiet as our great and proud continent slides inexorably towards rule by the elites.

In Ireland thus far, this referendum has been about the small issues.

It has been about whether we should keep our commissioner.

It has been about how much money our farmers get.

It has been about taxation.

These issues are open to debate.

What is not open to debate is whether it is a good idea to sign into office a generation of bureaucrats who are three degrees removed from accountability.

I believe that every time somebody makes a decision that affects our lives, they should see looming their accountability to us at the ballot box.

I believe that somebody who is paid by the people should be removable by the people.

On that principle, there should be no debate.

On that principle, there is only duty.

I promise you here, this morning, that I will do everything that I can, along with my friends and colleagues, to speak your voice for you in a foreign land, in the hope that across Europe, the people will hear it and awake from their slumber.

I will leave no stone unturned.

Europe deserves better than what is before us. We cannot risk the consequences of a "yes" vote in Ireland.

The people of Ireland have through their long and ancient history, ever been noted for their generosity.

I am hopeful that the people of Ireland will stand up and be counted in on the 12th of June.

I am hopeful that they will say no to an unaccountable Brussels elite, - that they will send them back to the drawing board with a message for Democracy, Accountability and Transparancy at the heart of Europe.

I hope that in their generosity, they will hand Europe back to the half billion people to which it belongs.

Thank you, and may God bless you all.