Why is Brown hanging on?

The Telegraph tells us Lord Mandelson charged to the rescue and made up for 15 years of hurt and for his trouble he is now effectively the deputy prime minister, we also have another paid up and paid by EU backer in the cabinet in the form of Mrs Kinnock.
But says the Telegraph Mandelson did [...]

The Minster for Europe on Lisbon Treaty

Open Europe informs us that  Europe Minister Caroline Flint admits she has not read the Lisbon Treaty
During questions yesterday in Parliament, Europe Minister Caroline Flint admitted that she had not read the Lisbon Treaty in its entirety.
Following a series of vague answers on the implications of the Treaty for European defence, Shadow Europe Minister Mark [...]

EU Chaos or a failing project

It would seem that Clive Mathews is trying to argue that those of us who question the EU are simply nutty conspiracy theorists who base our abhorrence of this construct on 50 year old quotes of long dead fathers of the EU.
As I said in a previous post that argument is the classic straw man, [...]

Irish Matters

The Irish Times is reporting that Taoiseach Brian Cowen has admitted that the Irish Government was not in a position to report “sufficient progress” to the Dáil on the guarantees sought from the EU on the Lisbon Treaty.
So they have agreed to a new referendum based on these guarantees but cannot tell the Irish people [...]

Quoting Monnet

The important point to remember about Jean Monnet is that as one of the early major promoters of a unified Europe, without any shadow of doubt he fully supported the aims and beliefs of the founding fathers of the European Project. These were that Europe should become one nation state along the same lines as [...]

Nailing Jelly and EU Laws

I must confess that I had lost touch with Martin Coles of Ironies Too, I used to read his original Blog Ironies. Here Mr Coles has a blinder, the President of the EU parliament Hans-Gert Poettering, reacting angrily to the perceived insult to the EU metered out by Czech President Vaclav Klaus during his speech [...]

Lisbon Treaty Woes

The Germany constitutional court has already set aside two days to hear one complaint about the Lisbon Treaty (10 and 11 February by conservative MP Peter Gauweiler who says the treaty undermines freedoms guaranteed in the German constitution.
Now another complaint has been lodged by Markus Kerber, a commercial lawyer, Dieter Spethmann, a former chief executive [...]

Plain English

I start from the position that one should never ever sign a legal document unless they are quite clear of the meaning of the document and what the effect of putting their signature to a legally enforceable document the will have in the event of a dispute between the parties.
We are constantly told that this [...]

House of Lords debates

House of Lords debates
Friday, 15 December 2006
European Union (Information, etc.) Bill [HL]

Lord Dykes (Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. We have just had a most important and lengthy debate on a crucial subject, to be followed by an [...]

Lisbon Treaty Infection Spreads

Only in Brussels would the word Democracy by synonymous with an infectious disease; after the French and Dutch voted against the Constitution the series of referendums was halted to prevent the infection of rejection spreading to other countries. With the single exception of Luxemburg perhaps the most pro EU state where there was a massive [...]

That’s not democracy

Both the Mail and Sun pick up on another comment made by Lord Malloch-Brown:

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown: My Lords, the constitution that was rejected by the Dutch and the French led to very big changes, which led to a treaty that was no longer a constitution. With 24 countries having approved the treaty, I am not [...]

Lisbon Treaty Replay

Lord Malloch-Brown: My Lords, 24 of 27 countries have ratified and are now ready. Ireland sought and has received guarantees, but the treaty has not been reopened. In that regard, it is a referendum on the same treaty as before. Hansard
The Irish government is going to ask its citizens to vote on exactly the same [...]

Call it Margret but why give the EU the power

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 [...]

EU`s anti-democratic nature

Liberal MEP Andrew Duff has told EUobserver that Until the Czech government ratify the Lisbon treaty their EU presidency which starts in January 2009 will not have credibility and authority.
After complaints about the bulling adopted by members of an EU Parliament delegation to Prague this week Duff said;
“We certainly ought not to [...]

Convoluted Thinking

The convoluted thinking of DANIEL GROS director of the Centre for European Policy Studies is shocking in its complete disregard for the democratic process and any legal boundaries.
His suggestion is that the leaders of the member states should sign the consolidated text of the Treaties which results from the incorporation of the amendments of [...]

Treaty Problems

Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski will only sign the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty if Ireland approves it in a new referendum,
“If Ireland makes another decision — but not under pressure, and without changing its constitution — in the same way as the first, then Poland will not place a block on the treaty,” Kaczynski said.
“And [...]

The European Union is literally falling apart.

The European Union is literally falling apart; and its all the fault of Poland and the USA according to Pravda in a roundup of Lisbon Treaty news:
European experts were originally concerned about Poland’s unpredictable behavior. However, the reaction of Polish President Lech Kaczynski turned out to be a lot more unpredictable than anyone could ever [...]

No NO and Thrice NO

No NO an Thrice NO !
The Irish Examiner could have used Frankie Howard`s famous catch phrase when it printed a letter from John Scanlan Co Cork.
THE Lisbon Treaty was never about making the EU work more efficiently. A study by Prof Helen Wallace of the London School of Economics showed EU institutions are working [...]

They’ll be persuaded in the end

They’ll be persuaded in the end – is the opinion expressed by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner at the news that the Polish president Lech Kaczynski has indicated he will not sign the Lisbon treaty until Ireland gets over its No vote, the German president Horst Koehler is also refusing to sign the Treaty until [...]

Czech and Lisbon

Dr. Alexandr Vondra, Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs of the Czech Republic, confirmed press reports that the Czech government reached the conclusion at a cabinet meeting on Friday that the Lisbon Treaty does not conflict with the Czech constitution, the conclusion will now be sent to the country’s constitutional court.
The court was tasked with [...]

The perils of accommodating Ireland.

The perils of accommodating Ireland.
Interesting confirmation of the legal situation in the face of changes to the Lisbon treaty to accommodate Ireland, and pave the way for a second referendum.

Austria’s chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer, has said that if any changes are made to the Lisbon Treaty following its rejection by Irish voters earlier this month, [...]

France threatens to go ahead without Ireland

The pressure is mounting on the Irish to vote yes! this time it is the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner who is interfering, claiming that a no vote in Ireland would be ignored and the rest of the EU would go ahead with implementing the treaty anyway whilst Ireland would be expected to put [...]

Referendum Judicial Review Granted

This morning Stuart Wheeler was granted a judicial review of the Government’s decision to break its promise of a referendum on the EU Constitution.
Reflecting on the Government’s claim that the Lisbon Treaty is completely different to the rejected EU Constitution, the Hon. Mr Justice Owen noted in his argument that “it is plainly arguable that [...]

An EU Professor II

Professor Anand Menon, the Director of the European Research Institute and Professor of West European Politics University of Birmingham’s interviewed by EurActiv

Claims the Reform Lisbon treaty is not necessary for the smooth running of the EU. He said that just as much legislation was being produced by the EU after the enlargements compared [...]

An Expression of Hard Democracy

The form of democracy offered by the EU is one where we the people do not have a controlling effect. The EU offer of democracy can, in some ways, be equated to the use of EU soft power, with the exception that soft power is only one of the methods the EU uses to get [...]

MPs ought to pay for EU treachery

A little local problem
Shropshire Star
MPs voted not to give us a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty by 311 to 248, this is despite all three main parties promising a referendum.
Labour and the Lib Dems both claim that the EU Reform Treaty and EU constitution are different enough not to warrant a referendum – this [...]

A factual error leads to a fallacy

Debate on Quaequam Blog
Which claimed the Constitution was 95% the same as the previous treaties.
A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. This differs from a factual error, which is simply being wrong about the facts.

I will go into this a bit later, but first I would like to put [...]

Archaic at 23

Archaic at 23
The amusingly named lefty blog Obsolete written by someone who goes by the name of septicisle. Is claiming that although he? Has not read the Lisbon treaty—–

—-wait for it

“one of the few facts I am certain of is that there are two main important differences between the [...]

If only British Born Politicians could be so Honest and Straightforward

From a debate in Parliament with thanks to Anne Palmer.

Gisela Stuart is MP for Edgbaston Labour she was born in Germany but moved to Britain in her teens. She was a Presidium Member and UK Parliamentary Representative on Convention for Future of Europe, so she does know of what she speaks.

Ms [...]

Why so secretive?

To be clear about this treaty, there is a very strong movement to prevent an open debate about the effects of the treaty before it is ratified by the British parliament.
The consolidated text will not be published until after Brown has signed the treaty so there can be no real debate in parliament.

But by signing [...]

Dear Foreign Secretary,

Dear Foreign Secretary,
I write to explain why I shall be among thousands of angry and despairing British citizens attending the Referendum Rally in London on Saturday 27th October and [...]

UN Seat Lord Malloch-Brown and EU Referendum

Security Council Seat Lord Malloch-Brown Eureferendum

I have been pondering this for a couple of days, and I am saddened that my first real post for a very long time should be to question one of the icons of our fight to regain our sovereignty both from the EU and our own political class.
Whilst [...]

Security Council Seat

Security Council seat
Sir – The replacement of our seat on the UN Security Council with a single EU seat (report, August 7) would seriously hamper our ability to form alliances with other non-EU nations or take unilateral action to defend British interests.
We could even find ourselves engaging in a conflict opposed by our [...]

Weasel Word Watch

After series of one-on-one meetings with fellow EU leaders, Mr Blair said he was “making progress” on Britain’s four “red line” issues: that the new treaty should not affect Britain’s ability to determine its own labour laws, foreign policy, domestic law on issues such as tax and benefits and criminal and jurisprudence legislation.

A [...]

Forcing the Constituion

According to his Telegraph blog,a senior EU Commission official admitted to Daniel Hannan this week, that there are five countries where he and his colleagues are determined to avoid a referendum, I assume on the EU Constitution, they are Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Poland. Of course all five could [...]

Talk about Cherry Picking

According to Le Figaro, Nicolas Sarkozy has said that a “simplified treaty” would be necessary for the correct “functioning of the institutions” of the EU.
 
He explained that the abolition of national vetoes in EU decision-making was essential, arguing that “It is inconceivable that a single member state, indeed even two, should be able [...]

The Raving Corbett

Attempts to revive EU constitution
Sir: Richard Corbett MEP (Letters, 10 February) makes great play of the fact that 18 EU member-states have ratified the EU Constitution. He does not mention that most of those countries would have rejected it, had it been put to a referendum. Nor does he recall that it was not [...]

Support for the EU can be equated with a semi religious belief

J Clive Mathews seems to be a firm supporter of a utopian European vision, who nevertheless is prepared to support the EU Nightmare that is in reality the only one on offer, in the hope that it will all work out right in the end.  
Having crossed swords with Nosemonkey on his Blog several times, [...]

Preparing for the Volte-face ?

Was only 25 days ago that the home secretary John Reid said “The constitutional treaty is no more – it is a diseased dead parrot,” less than a month later now we have Europe minister Geoff Hoon saying in the FT“In the UK it had been assumed that the constitutional question was moribund after [...]

We Should Not Fool Ourselves

In an interview with Bild am Sonntag newspaper Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission, has said. the EU constitution in its current form will not come into effect. “We should not fool ourselves. It’s important now to maintain its values, its principles and its substance. Above all, we have to improve the decision-making [...]

Social Platform Lies

The Social Platform
The Platform of European Social NGOs is the alliance of representative European federations and networks of non-governmental organisations active in the social sector.

In its Briefing no15 The Social dimension of the European Constitutional Treaty tells us exactly what a Constitution is…..

What is a Constitution?
A Constitution is a text which contains the [...]

Bonde’s briefing and new EU Constitution

Angela Merkel at Fogh.
The German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel is visiting an embattled Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Tuesday the 19th December 2006. Fogh has not been very informative about what was really going on in the democracy projects in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Merkel now wants Fogh’s “yes” to a new democracy project in [...]

An Historical Failure

The German government is starting as it means to go on.

EU Ministers set out yesterday a timetable for reviving the Constitution, with the hope of concluding negotiations on a new document by late 2008.
In a move to isolate countries which have not ratified, the18 countries that have already ratified will attend a meeting in Madrid [...]

Step Towards Further Integration

The Telegraph calls it the doomed currency, after last years call by Italy’s Northern League for a return of the Lira this time it is the French in guise of prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, who although not calling for the return of the Franc has said that members must regain control over exchange-rate policy.
The [...]

The Gangplank

EUOBSERVER reports 

EU parliament MEPs have reacted furiously to a UK parliament report which questions the right of the European Parliament to make laws on criminal and police matters due to the fact that most of its members are non-British.

Which is not quite the point made by the report but this slight myth is [...]

Good News Bad News

 
“The constitutional treaty is no more – it is a diseased dead parrot,”

UK home secretary John Reid said
http://euobserver.com/9/23024

Finland ratified the EU constitution on Tuesday adding one more country to the list of member states having given the nod of approval to a document whose fate is still undetermined.

European Commission president Jose [...]

How to Duff up the EU Constitution

EU Communication Commissioner Margot Wallström supports Andrew Duff’s idea of a new Constitutional text which should be based on the current Constitution with added bits.
The proposal is based on the existing text and foresees keeping the Preamble, as well as Parts I and II. With respect to Part III he intends to add and [...]

Highest Ambitions

Highest Ambitions
From Anne Palmer 2006/09/25
BERLIN
(Own report) – Last weekend, at a conference in the “World Room” of the Foreign Ministry, representatives from nearly all EU states were briefed on Berlin’s European policy guidelines.

The focus was on the further elaboration of the EU Constitution Treaty, the development of a European state “leadership” as well as [...]

The Wise Monkeys

Euobserver announces that an EU Commision backed group of “wise men” are going to meet this weekend to see if they can come up with solutions to pull the EU out of its institutional stalemate. (Euobserver actually said Europe but we do have to keep on correcting them don’t we).
 Apparently Giuliano Amato former Italian prime [...]

Veto on criminal justice

Abbreviated, and in particular the editor has removed the quotation from the official government pamphlet delivered to
every household during the 1975 referendum campaign:
“The Minister representing Britain can veto any proposal for a new law or a new tax if he considers it to be against
British interests”.
As I’ve pointed out in my PS on the website: [...]

Dialogue, Debate and Democracy

Margot Wallström informs us on her blog that “The Commission launched an internet discussion last Monday 27th on the future of Europe as part of our “Plan D” which of course stands for Dialogue, Debate and Democracy.” The EU commissioner for Communication / propaganda tells us that she wants to “encourage everyone who [...]

A Total Lack of Mandate

I raised the question of Solana’s status in a written question to the Council last October.
They are supposed to reply within six weeks to all questions, but we MEPs have no sanctions available if they don’t.
As you can see from the attached file, the answer was answered in April and finally reached me on 1 May.  [...]

Are we to be a nation or a province of Europe?

Sir – When Daniel Hannan says "we are fantasising about the kind of EU we might ideally like to have", he is highlighting the dilemma faced by Britain as a result of its membership (Opinion, March 20).
We are swimming against the tide of European integration, which is the raison d’être of the whole project. [...]

Eurocrats’ Contempt for the Voters

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan writing in the Telegraph 
Two years from now, the European constitution will be in force. The Eurocrats have worked out a deft way of getting around them. Around 85 per cent of the text can, with some creative interpretation, be implemented this way.
True, there are one or two clauses that will [...]

The Constitution is ?

Blogging Richard Corbett puts the argument that the Constitution is dead to the test…..
"There are at least two views. One is that this text of the Constitution is dead following the referenda in France and the Netherlands; that we had better start thinking of something else and preparing a different way forward. The other [...]

Resurrecting the Constitution

Resurrecting the Constitution
From Euobserver
German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Jacques Chirac are engaged in confidential talks aimed at re-submitting the core of the EU constitution to French and Dutch voters, according to a German weekly.
Spiegel Online reports in a preview of the Spiegel weekly printed edition that conservatives from Germany, France and the European [...]

So they put ratification on hold?

A yes of course is what the Europhiles are hopping for, they can then claim that the treaty is still alive, the only problem is France and Holland have still to clarify what their intention is until they do everything else is just fluff.
Luxembourg yes could revive EU constitution
Luxembourg`s prime minister, Jean Claude Junker is [...]

So why bother to hold the Referendum

Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and holder of the rotating EU presidency, told Le Soir newspaper in Belgium that he would act swiftly on Sunday night if France voted No.
He would appear with the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and demand that all 25 EU nations complete the process of [...]

The real reason for the Constitution

I have posted on this before but it deserves repeating. Today George Trefgarne in the Telegraph suggests the real reason why we are to be blessed with a constitution is the same reason for the USA constitution “it was the need to underpin the currency that led to the development of the constitution of the [...]

The Beano Agency

The Beano Agency  
 

A new “Fundamental Rights Agency” to police European Union institutions and national governments for signs of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination is being set up by the EU Commission.
It is to be based in Vienna, will have a mandate to monitor and “issue opinions” on whether rights enshrined in the [...]

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