eurealist.co.uk

Prof. Mario Monti the former competition commissioner of the EU, proposes that a government whose signature on the treaty is repudiated by its parliament or in a plebiscite be invited to try once more, but this time it should not ask its citizens, “Do you accept the European constitution?” He says the question should become, “Do you wish your government to continue to be a member of the EU on the constitutional terms the other members now have adopted, or do you wish your country to leave the EU?”

This makes explicit what is implicit in a vote against the constitution. There are consequences for saying no when the rest have said yes. If the public or parliament nonetheless says no to the restated question, it can be said that it has voted to leave the EU as the union newly exists. Monti says, “The union is not a prison. It’s a club… with rules for becoming a member and rules for leaving.”

One of the rules Monti is so keen on, is that any changes to the treaties requires 100% acceptance by member states not 50% 75% or even 99% but 100% now which part of that rule does the professor not understand. Because what he is suggesting is that the only rule that the EU will agree to is the one that says, it and not the member states are in charge. It is the EU that is setting the agenda and the EU that is demanding more power, it is the EU Constitution, but it is up to the members to give it those powers and as our own dear Jack Straw reminds us “And we will make clear to the British public how the constitution gives us our kind of Europe, based firmly on the power and legitimacy of the nations of Europe”.

So who is right according to Monti we have two choices, accept the Constitution or leave the Union? On what does he base his argument, perhaps he would be king enough to phone Jack and tell him that he is wrong, and the Constitution is not based firmly on the power and legitimacy of the nations of Europe but on the power of the supra national EU.