European Union, key issues, news, information,
documents, expert witnesses. Written from a UK perspective.
Website edited by David Roberts, author of The European Union and You.
Latest additions to this website:
The
topics covered in this blog are: Accountability,
Commission, Constitution, Council (of ministers), Democracy,
European Council, Ever closer union/Integration, Fisheries, Human Rights, Subsidiarity, Transparency and the Treaty of Lisbon.
Treaty of Lisbon (The Reform Treaty)
Treaty of Lisbon key
facts and issues
Introducing the Treaty
of Lisbon
Gordon Brown on the
Treaty of Lisbon
UK government
Scrutiny Committee report on the Treaty of
Lisbon
EU
leaders plan to minimise
public debate on the Treaty of Lisbon
EU leaders spill the
beans about how they set out to mislead
the citizens of Europe (What they actually said.)
Foreign policy
issues (UK independence is not fully
maintained)
Link to a side by side comparison of the two texts: The Treaty of Lisbon and the European Constitution. www.openeurope.org.uk/research/comparative.pdf
Reform
How to reform the EU
(The reforms the EU really
needs)
The reforms EU
Leaders wanted
See also Laeken
Declaration below
Official documents or statements
The Laeken Declaration
(text of official document)
Foreign
policy section of the Treaty of
Lisbon
Treaty of Lisbon
on who is in charge of the
EU
Referendums on the Treaty of Lisbon
For and against a
referendum on the Treaty of
Lisbon
William
Cash MP makes the case for a
referendum
UK MPs condemn betrayal of trust over
the No-Referendum decision
on the Treaty of Lisbon
- Speeches in parliamentary debate, 21 January 2008.
Links
to websites concerned with and about the EU
Links page
17 June 2008
The UK will ratify Lisbon, but you can register your objection with Downing Street.
On
Thursday 12 June the people of Ireland voted to reject the Lisbon
Treaty. Under the EU's rules for the treaty to come into force all EU
member states must ratify the treaty.
But
politicians across Europe are refusing to accept the result. They
insist that the Treaty must go ahead regardless of the rejection by one of the member states.
Despite the no vote, the UK
Government is planning to carry on regardless, and ratify the Treaty in the
House of Lords on Wednesday18th June.
Clearly
EU leaders, including Gordon brown, have not been able to adjust to the
legal reality of the Irish NO vote on Lisbon.
To register a protest with Downing Street and send a message to
Gordon Brown asking him to respect the verdict of the Irish people you can click this link and sign the petition.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Abandon-Lisbon/
17 June 2008
EU leaders reject their own rules on EU agreements
It
took many months following the rejection of the EU Constitution in 2005
before EU leaders accepted that the Constitution could not come into
force. Now we are seeing a re-run of this situation with EU leaders
proclaiming that the Lisbon treaty is not dead.
"The Treaty is not dead. The Treaty
is alive, and we will try to work to find a solution."- European
Commission President, Jose Barroso.
"We are sticking with our goal for it to come into force. The ratification
process must continue." - German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
"I don't think you can say
the treaty of Lisbon is dead even if the ratification process will be
delayed." - French Europe Minister, Jean-Pierre Jouyet
Spanish Europe Minister Lopez Garrido says:
"The treaty will be applied, albeit a few months late."
"18 countries have now passed the
reform treaty...each country must see the ratification process to a
conclusion... there needs to be a British view as well as an Irish
view."- British
Foreign Minister, David Miliband.
Citizens of Europe, be thankful to the
Irish for their No vote on the Treaty of Lisbon.
Ireland
was the only EU country to be
allowed a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon. On Thursday (12 June)
Ireland decisively rejected the Treaty of Lisbon with 53.2% voting
against the treaty and 46.4% voting in favour. This is a remarkable
result. The turnout was very high for a referendum - 53% (compared with
only 34% in the Irish referendum on the Nice Treaty in 201).And all the
main Irish political parties campaigned for a Yes
vote. This suggests a deep distrust of both the EU and politicians.
The vote cannot be dismissed as merely
one per cent of the European Union rejecting the Treaty. This
document was in all essentials the same as the European Constitution
of 2004. Apart from a few details the differences were almost
entirely changes in presentation: changes in terminology, a
re-ordering of the articles and a change of name. (Evidence here.) That being the case
we must add the Dutch and French rejection of the Constitution to the
rejection of Lisbon by the Irish.
Plans for the transfer of power from
elected state governments to Brussels do not have the support of the
people of Europe. None of the parliaments of EU member states were
elected on a manifesto to transfer more power from their states to
Brussels. They are acting without and in most case probably against
the known wishes of their citizens. If EU leaders were confident of
popular support they would not be so adamantly opposed to
referendums. But they know the results of opinion polls and have
colluded to cheat the people of Europe of control of their own
destiny.
French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has
described referendums as "dangerous". More explicitly, he
said in November last year in a closed meeting with senior EU MPs,
"France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting no.
It would happen in all member states if they have a referendum. There
is a cleavage between people and governments."
What EU politicians refuse to face is
that the EU project to integrate the states of Europe into a single
state, transferring more and more powers from the governments of
member states to Brussels, cannot proceed any further. The EU
project, which started in 1957, has reached its limit. So the first
reform that must be made to the European Union is the scrapping of
the repeated treaty commitments to "ever closer union".
This is not a draconian measure. In itself it necessitates no change
in the way the EU is presently run. Wholehearted European
co-operation can and should continue.
But other reforms are vital, too. The
EU must become fully democratic. There must be means to introduce new
and alternative policies and people when there are failures of
policies (for example, the catastrophic failures of the EU fisheries
policies). The meetings of EU institutions must be opened up to
public view. Their documents must be made available for all to see.
Politicians and administrators must be fully accountable. Corruption
must be ended. For a fuller discussion of these reform ideas see the
reforms section of this website and my book, The European Union and You.
David Roberts, 14
June 2008.
The most important debate on Europe for more than 15 years
The British parliament began debating the new EU treaty, the Treaty of
Lisbon, on Monday 21st January 2008. The Prime Minister was out of the
country. The 5 hour debate was, at times, impassioned.
Constitutional Change?
The Foreign Secretary David Miliband, said "My case to this house is
that this Treaty does not constitute fundamental constitutional
change." Is this true? This important question and the possible effects
of the new treaty are is explored on this website.
Referendum needed?
The other hotly debated issue was the question of whether or not the
people of Britain should be allowed to vote directly on the
ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon. Speaker after speaker spoke of
a betrayal of trust if a referendum is not agreed to. This topic is
explored more fully on the Referendum page. What MPs actually said
on the topic can be read at
MPs' on referendum.
Where does the editor of this website stand? For or against the EU?
I have just spent three years investigating the European Union -
its merits and problems. My 600 page book, The European Union
and You, is the result of this work.
The first question most people ask me is "Are you for or against the
European Union?" The short answer is: We are part of the European
Union. It is very important to our trade and way of life and there
is no option to separate ourselves from the rest of Europe. But
there are many serious things wrong with the way the EU operates.
The EU is disconnected from its citizens who feel they don't
understand it and are powerless to influence it. Therefore I am a
critic of the EU, a Reformist European.
EU leaders back in 2001 recognised many of the problems I describe
in my book. At that time they issued the Laeken Declaration
which set out their concerns. The EU Constitution (now transformed
into the Treaty of Lisbon) was supposed to deal with the
problems. Unfortunately the Treaty of Lisbon fails to address
the most important issues and in many ways makes matters worse. That
is what this website and my book are mainly concerned with.
The EU must be reformed or member states are likely to change their
relationship with it and withdraw from some aspects of EU
centralised control. I think the Treaty of Lisbon creates
many more problems than it solves. Fresh thinking is needed, but it
seems to me that the EU's leading politicians are out of touch and
out of ideas.
David Roberts
David Roberts 
David Roberts has worked in industry, as a teacher, and for the past
eleven years as a writer and publisher. He is editor of two anthologies
of First World War poetry, author of a pamphlet on United Nations'
reform and is preparing a book on international law. He has spoken on
international relations at conferences and to interested groups
including The Young Fabians, London, Oxford University United Nations
Association, and the World Social Forum in London. He spoke
on the EU in Brighton in May and discussed the topic with a the audience in the Brighton Festival Fringe.
"The
European Union and You" is the fruit of almost three years of
full-time investigation.
Website last updated 18 July 2008
Website
copyright©David Roberts 2008
|
