Call it Margret but why give the EU the power
January 12, 2009 by Ken
Filed under The Constitution of the EU
Debating EU treaties is quite a lot like wading through mud, you read the treaties and asses the possible consequences arising from the transfers or granting of powers to the EU. When the results are published they are usually met with a chorus of rebuttals based on the premise that the EU would never do that or the EU would not be allowed to do this ect.
The obvious answer to such rebuttals is presented in the second part of the article by Rupert Matthews: What would happen if Britain tried to leave the EU? Is why in that case does the EU want to have these powers? Making the point that we give the power to the Union so that it can carry out the jobs we ask of it. But this seems to be a totally different innovation in that the Union is asking for powers that will enable it to protect itself from its own member states and enforce its will over that of its member states.
Continuing the comparison of the constitutional formation of the USA to that of the EU, Mathews explains, that the USA president could not use legal means to enforce federal law and could not use the military, because he did not have legally authority to do so in the Constitution. So he ended up using a subterfuge; because South Carolina, one of the seceding states attacked Fort Sumter, Lincoln was then able to argue that the USA had come under armed attack.
Mathews argues that he is not saying the EU,WOULD use military force to prevent succession but that it COULD, because The Lisbon Treaty will give it the authority to do so.
He explains that the Lisbon treaty gives the EU the legal authority:
of initiating a proposal for EU-led military operations,
allows EU armed forces to be used to deal with any crisis,
allows the EU armed forces to be used to protect the strategic interests of the EU,
allows armed forces to be deployed to any part of the EU without the agreement of the government of the member state in whose territory they are deployed.
The legal niceties to back up the argument can be read a Here
The Lisbon Treaty will therefore have the effect of giving the EU the legal authority that was not available to President Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War.
Thus any future President of the EU would already have the tools available to prevent any state leaving, and would not be confined by the Constitution of the EU from using military force.
Why does the EU want to have an army and the power to use it internally against the wishes of the member state concerned if not to stop secession? More importantly why is our government and the majority of our parliament prepared to give these powers to a third party that is not accuntable to the British pepole or the British state, at the same time as setting it up as an independent actor on the international stage.
