eurealist.co.uk

Very Funny post well worth a read
North Sea Diaries - A weblog of European politics

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle

Thanks to The Anglo Saxon Chronicle for the link and the thought

Hate On Display: A Visual Database of Extremist Symbols, Logos and Tattoos SS Bolts

And then Europol very similar a modern version perhaps?

North Sea Diaries - A weblog of European politics

In 2007, Jacques Chirac’s presidency will come to an end. At which point, his immunity to criminal prosecution will lapse, and he’ll be prosecuted for vote-rigging, inventing fictional jobs in the Paris city hall, accepting corrupt party finances, and a host of other unpleasant activities.

It would be nice if he could be made a Senator for life, thereby gaining the immunity for life which this office would give him, but unfortunately this isn’t allowed under France’s constitution.

Of course, one solution would be to run for the presidency again. But this doesn’t seem likely at the moment.

Another would be - you guessed it - to change the constitution.

Continued

How the EU system works against democracy and a member state government.

Declarations and Preambles are important because these are used to extend the power of the Union beyond the treaty agreements.

The European Union Treaty introduces a new and decisive stage in the process of [the] European Union which within a few years will lead to the creation of what the founding fathers of modern Europe dreamed of after the war, the United States of Europe. Chancellor Kohl, on the completion of the Maastricht Treaty, 1992

This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, where decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizens… the process of creating an ever closer Union…in order to advance European integration. Treaty on European Union, 1992

The Maastricht Treaty among other things firstly created the EU, and then It established “European Citizenship” Neither of these were offered to the people in Britain for their opinion, they were forced through a reluctant parliament by John Major who, unwilling to accept that his party did not support him in this, threatened to resign split the party and force an election if his party did not withdraw their objections and support him. Turkey’s do not vote for Christmas was the phrase being used to at the time to describe the problems this would have caused both in the Conservative party, and the country, because a split Conservative party would have had no chance of winning the following election.

However the intergrationalist had ensured that Maastricht, even though it only just scraped though, was not the last word, they made sure that the Maastricht Treaty contained a commitment to convene an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) in 1996. A “Reflection Group” was set up ahead of the IGC and reported in 1995; its report was regarded as a “ sound basis” for the IGC. The subsequent Treaty of Amsterdam was agreed at the Amsterdam summit in June 1997, and came into force in May 1999.

The Treaty of Amsterdam amongst other things created a new objective for the European Community: “to provide citizens with a high level of security in an area of freedom, security and justice”. It also obscurely created “constructive abstention”, where a member can abstain without blocking an otherwise unanimous decision. In other words an abstention was counted as a vote for acceptance rather than an abstention and hence a non vote. This last has no part to play in the following but it indicates the removal of obstacles to integration.

At Tampere Finland in 1999 the European Council approved a programme of action for creating an “area of freedom, security and justice”, covering civil and criminal justice, visas, asylum and immigration, and police and customs cooperation. Many of these priorities relate to matters which are at the core of national sovereignty and also directly affect the lives of individual citizens.

Naturally at this stage we have veto’s on the various parts of the agreement, this in essence is to preserve national sovereignty. A veto is effective because taking these proposals forward are only agreed by 100% between the members states governments no agreement no proposal.

So having first set up the EU, then the Citizenship, then the area of freedom, security and justice, at each stage these unacceptable proposals are only made acceptable because each member state has the power to stop any of the proposals by using their veto, the Commision now moves on to the next stage of their developments. This is usually achieved by a report done under the control of the Commision which is then presented as a basis for debate. In this instance their Assessment of the Tampere programme

The Report makes claims that the Commision will later develop as the basis for their remit to act for their citizens, and sets out some of the problems the Commision has faced getting their proposals accepted, these boil down to the members states threatening to use the veto which was the only reason that the policy was accepted in the first place.

However, the original ambition was limited by institutional constraints, and sometimes also by a lack of sufficient political consensus. The step by step approach was often the only possible way of moving forward. For the Commission, the establishment of the area of freedom, security and justice has been a strategic priority to be attained also with contributions from several of the Union’s policies.

So obviously these constraints need to be removed, because they are stopping the Commision from achieving not its ambitions, but those set out in the agreement?

To continue the story we now must move to the British parliament report on the Commision report, to get some idea of the effects of the Commissions proposals “Select Committee on European Scrutiny”

Where we will see that the Commision is attempting to extend the agreement, remove the obstacles, invert agreed policy that will affect the agreement, whilst following a path of creating the union as a separate state with its own powers beyond those of the member states

The Commission says that Member States “do not hesitate to threaten the use of the veto they enjoy… in order to lower the level of ambition of the Commission’s proposals”, and that “it was not always possible to reach agreement at European level for the adoption of certain sensitive measures relating to policies which remain at the core of national sovereignty”.

The Commission comments that it would now be timely to use the powers of Article 67(2) of the EC Treaty to introduce co-decision and QMV for measures under Title IV of the Treaty.

Here we see the Commision trying to remove the veto

SC. We …draw attention to the danger of measures ostensibly concerned with mutual recognition creating uniform rules which then apply to all cases including those without cross-border implications. If Parliament has not chosen to unify the separate legal systems within the UK we see no justification for this being attempted by the EU.

Trying to extend an agreement in one are to another

SC. the Commission does not evaluate the practical benefits of the measures already adopted; nor does it state what practical benefits it expects from the priorities proposed for the next five years. We consider that Member States should withhold commitment from the programme until they have been able to examine such a statement.

Not offering a clear acceptable reason for the suggested changes

SC. We believe it bodes ill for the future if, on such sensitive matters, the Commission envisages reliance on qualified majority voting to impose on Member States legislation to which they are opposed.

SC. We recognise the potential benefits of operational cooperation. But we object to giving Europol its own investigative powers, which would change it from an agency for the exchange and analysis of criminal intelligence into a European police force. Proposals concerning crime prevention should go ahead only if fully consistent with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality

Adding to the agreement and changing the basis of Europol

SC. We are concerned by these passages of the Communication. It seems to us reasonable and proper for Member States to withhold their agreement from measures they do not support and which, to use the Commission’s own words, “remain at the core of national sovereignty”

We are concerned, however, by the Commission’s proposal for the creation of a European Corps of Border Guards. In our view, the Commission has not presented a sufficient justification for the proposal. We also note that the draft Constitutional Treaty does not expressly refer to the creation of such a Corps, but only to the “establishment of an integrated management system” for external borders. We are also aware that provision for the creation of such a Corps, although supported by the Commission, was a divisive issue within the Convention and that express reference to such a Corps in the Convention text did not gain acceptance. Moreover, we consider the proposal for a Corps of Border Guards objectionable in principle. Control over admission is a good illustration of the sensitive matters which remain at the core of national sovereignty.

The Government’s comments on civil and criminal judicial cooperation highlight an important aspect of the principle of mutual recognition: namely, that the principle does not necessitate uniformity of procedural or substantive law. Indeed, in our view, the principle of mutual recognition is devoid of any meaning if the condition for its operation is uniformity in the law between Member States.

The experience of the Brussels Convention accordingly demonstrates that uniformity of law and procedure is not required as a condition for mutual recognition. We regard such uniformity both as unnecessary and as prejudicial to the integrity of the different legal systems of the Member States.

We draw attention to the danger that measures which are ostensibly concerned with mutual recognition will have the effect of creating uniform rules which will then apply to all cases, whether they have any cross-border implications or not.

As we have commented before, Commission proposals on the “area of freedom security and justice” have appeared to treat this “area” as synonymous with a unitary State, with only one legal system.[15] We do not believe that there is any treaty basis for such an approach, or that it complies with the principle of subsidiarity. If Parliament has not chosen to unify the separate legal systems of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we see no justification for this being attempted by the European Union.

The risk that the expression “an area of freedom, security and justice” is encouraging the notion that such an area is a unitary State separate from the Member States which make up the European Union and Community.

Our concern on this point is illustrated by the statement in the Commission’s document that “there will therefore be expectations and demands for ‘more Europe’, this being seen, in particular in the new Member States, as the only way of assuring European citizens of the level of security to which they legitimately aspire”

Telegraph | Opinion:

“I wish to defend some of us poor maligned atheists. The literal definition of atheist is ‘without god’. I am atheist, not ‘an atheist’. By this I mean that I subscribe to no god. Even if the ether were abundant with deities, none is for me.

This is much the same as being apolitical. It does not mean the apolitical person does not believe in the existence of politicians, merely there is no politician to which he subscribes. We used to be called Conservatives.

Keith Macpherson, Houston, Renfrewshire”