eurealist.co.uk

The Lisbon Treaty gives the EU power in civil and criminal law, justice and policing, anyone thinking that this will have little effect should be warned that the EU is already preparing the ground for harmonisation of civil and criminal law procedures throughout the 27 member states.

The EU tells us that almost three quarters of European Union (EU) citizens believe that measures should be taken to help them gain access to civil justice in other member states and citizens would prefer these measures to be taken at the EU level through common rules.

More than 80 percent believe that the EU should assist in the enforcement of civil court rulings in one member state involving payment to be made in another member state.

European Commission Vice President Jacques Barrot, who is temporarily in charge of justice affairs in addition to his transport portfolio, said ;

“Europeans are concerned about their ability to access civil justice abroad, or to see a civil court ruling enforced in another country. They look to the EU to ease their path,”
“Our work is to ensure that citizens and companies in one member state can exercise their rights in another member state, even in the event of a dispute that crosses national borders,” he said.
Over half of EU citizens believe it is either very difficult or fairly difficult to access civil justice in another member state.
They are most concerned that, should they need to access civil justice in another country, they would not know the procedural rules in that country. Language barriers are the second most widely voiced concern by EU citizens regarding access abroad. The cost of procedures and lack of trust in the proceedings also concerns a considerable proportion of EU citizens.
Of course the commissioner only knows this because of the recently published Eurobarometer report on a survey conducted to the order by the EU Commission.

That is the democratic problem with the EU, unless we live in Ireland, none of us will actually be allowed to vote for the EU to be given this power, we will not be allowed a vote on any of the legalisation, hence the EU is totally unaccountable. But at the same time because they conducted a survey, they will claim they have a democratic mandated, surveys have now replaced the ballot box as a means of informing the EU government, but the EU is in charge of the its own surveys and can pick and choose which it will consider surveys conducted outside of the EU system that do not support the project and indicate that we do not want the EU to have these powers in the first place are simply ignored.

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