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Look beyond the Lisbon spin and stop using Europe as a fall guy


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Published Date: 27 October 2007
By CATHERINE STIHLER
Labour member for Scotland of the European Parliament
THE Treaty of Lisbon, formally the Reform Treaty, has been agreed and will be rubber stamped in December by all 27 states of the European Union.
It is some achievement to have achieved consensus across the 18 member states that ratified the European Constitution, the two member states that rejected it and the other countries.

The Lisbon Treaty is not the Constitutional Treaty by another g...



The full article contains 500 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 26 October 2007 8:41 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: European Union
 
1

Sierra Foothills Scot,

27/10/2007 02:45:55

Ms Stihler's article is hogwash.

Even very senior EU officials openly admit that the new "treaty" retains many of the sovereignty-seizing provisions of the "Constitution" which was wisely rejected by the French and Dutch voters.

For example, see the "Charlemagne" article in the August 11 2007 issue of The Economist at: http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?st....

2

Sierra Foothills Scot,

27/10/2007 02:57:27

P.S. The article cited in #1 gives names and positions of Eurocrats who have made the admissions.

Further, Ms Stihler states that "The Lisbon Treaty extends full co-decision powers to the European Parliament - a welcome and overdue reform."

This would certainly be a welcome and overdue reform if it really happened. Maybe she would be good enough to explain what "full co-decision powers to the European Parliament' would mean in practice.

3

Dr. James Wilkie,

27/10/2007 16:43:07

"Hogwash" is an understatement for this piece of transparent and meaningless propaganda. Germany, France and the Netherlands rejected the contents of this treaty the first time round, and the German Constitutional Court is most likely to come out against it this time too.

"The Lisbon Treaty is not the Constitutional Treaty by another guise." With 95% of its content the same? So the changes should make the EU "more accountable and effective". Accountable to whom?

One way of making this monster more accountable would be to scrap the so-called European Parliament (which is neither European nor a parliament), but instead compose its legislature (if such there has to be) of delegated members of national parliaments. This system works well enough for the Council of Europe and the OSCE.

Of course, this would derail the present Brussels gravy train, and one must have a parliament because that is one of the essential attributes of a sovereign state, which it is intended the EU will become under its adopted name of "Europe".

I have been involved in European integration for decades, and I have seen the EU at close quarters, at foreign ministry level. This present runaway juggernaut is not what I and many of the pioneers envisaged as the European ideal, as has been demonstrated by its contemptuous disdain for some of the basic canons of democracy.

Since 1975 its actions have never been submitted to democratic scrutiny witihin the UK. That must change with the holding of a referendum on the Lisbon proposals.


 

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