USS Maine (BB-69)

Legal framework

Article 118 of the Portuguese Constitution lays down the organization of the referendum on " important questions of concerning national interest the competence of the Parliament of the Republic or government or concerning the approval of an international convention or an act législatif" . The object of the referendum however is very limited: in are excluded the modification from the Constitution, the matters which articles 164 to 167 exclusively reserve for the Parliament of the Republic (among which the approval of the treaties concerning the participation of Portugal in international organizations), as well as the budgetary matters, tax and financial.

In conclusion, to subject the ratification of the Traité establishing a Constitution for Europe with a referendum requires to carry out a modification of the Constitution.

A first law was voted and envisaged to pose to the Portuguese citizens in April 2005 the following question: Accept you to it Charter of the Basic rights, the role of the vote in the majority qualified and the new institutional framework of the EU, such as they are defined by the European Constitution? . In December 2004, the Constitutional court of Portugal rejected the constitutional modification and the law on the referendum with the reason which the question was ambiguous and not very clear.

The Assembleia da República (Parliament of the Republic) owes revoter now a law authorizing the referendum on the European Constitution. In spite of both " non" French and Dutch, the Portuguese government initially wished to maintain the referendum which should take place at the same time as the municipal elections, i.e. the 2 or on October 9th. It decided to freeze the process (which is delicate, because of the preliminary constitutional reform).

Watchwords of the parties and other organizations

Tendency

In December 2004, the partisans of “yes” accounts for 61% of the voters compared with 11% for holding of “not”. But this same survey announces that Portuguese considers that they do not know sufficiently the text, nor its consequences.

According to an investigation carried out for the newspaper (Espresso') on June 10th, 2005, 50,8% decide for the " oui" (" sim") and 49,2% for the " non" (" não").
The towns of Lisbon and Oporto vote against as well as the south (Alentejo and Algarve) while north (except Oporto) and the center vote for.

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