The European Commission’s dodgy numbers

Open Europe has caught the European Commission out in some outrageous spinning. Before the recent summit, the Commission circulated a briefing note to journalists that stated that 40 percent of No voters in Ireland voted no because they didn’t understand or were not familiar with the Lisbon Treaty. However, the Commission’s Eurobarometer poll published yesterday shows that this isn’t true. It reports that only 22 percent of No voters said that they voted no for these reasons. This raises the question of where did the Commission’s 40 percent figure come from?

As Open Europe says, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Commission were stretching the numbers in an attempt to persuade journalists that the Irish had voted no out of ignorance and so the vote could legitimately be re-run. It is another indicator of how reluctant the Euro-elite is to accept the result of the Irish referendum.