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 [...]

Discuss Charlie Bolton’s attitude

A new teaching pack on the EU has been introduced for use in Key Stage 3 and 4 “citizenship” classes that claims to offer a balanced view of the organisation and its role. Officials responsible for the pack say “The resources have been designed to offer a balanced introduction to the European Union and 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 [...]

Scotland Does Not Want Independence

I know a lot of Scots would take issue with that headline but I will try to explain why I belive it to be true.
But first I would like to explore why some Scots are calling for the break up of the United Kingdom.

Brian Adam is the MSP for Aberdeen North

Independence [...]

MEP`s fight for more power

Members of the European Parliament have stepped up pressure on the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to give them more say in rewriting implementing legislation.
The Parliament is withholding funding from the so-called comitology committees – the groups of national experts who are brought to Brussels to draft implementing rules, which are often [...]

An identity card by the back door

EU driving licence “an identity card by the back door”
According to the Daily Telegraph, transport ministers are expected to approve a single EU driving licence at talks next week, with the document expected to be phased in between 2012 and 2032.
Scottish MEP Ian Hudghton fears it could be “an identity card by the [...]

The Two Courts

The Two Courts
The European Court of Human Rights ECHR
The European Court of Justice ECJ
Confusingly we have two European courts witch our governments have allowed to hold sway over our domestic national laws. As a point of fact no government should allow any other court to make any laws which our courts must obey, we are [...]

Jottings from Hansard

Anne Palmer has been trawling through the archives of Hansard, what were the politicians saying about our proposed entry into the Common Market.
European Economic Community. 1st December 1970. Col 1075
Q1. Mr Kaufman asked the Prime Minister what plans he now has for further discussions with the Prime Ministers [...]

Jean-Claude Juncker stakes job on vote

Leader stakes job on vote to revive EU constitution
The Times By Anthony Browne, Europe Correspondent
IT IS either the most futile referendum in the history of the European Union or the most cynical.
France and the Netherlands have both rejected the European constitution, and countries from Britain to Poland have shelved theirs, but Luxembourg — with an [...]

How to safeguard against the Constitution

Lord Owen writing in the Times suggests three ways to limit the damage of the EU Constitution in the event of a yes vote, the three methods he proposes are at the behest of our own government. The opportunity for improvement is presented by the Government’s European Union Bill. Intended to pave the way [...]

Council of Ministers must be Controlled Better

An article in Die Welt by Professor for public law at Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich Peter M. Huber
The parliaments of the member states must control the Council of Ministers better.
In the article Huber suggests that the EU Constitution will lead to a further disempowerment of the member states”, and will cause a major constitutional problem in [...]

Brevity favours the liar

EU Referendum: deconstructs the seventh FOC Myth “Qualified Majority Voting hands power to Brussels”
Once again, however, we are not dealing with facts, but lies. National governments do not make the decisions. As the FCO says, the Council does… in this case the Council of Ministers.
What the FCO is doing is eliding the two, but [...]

Europhiles try to confuse the issue

Europhiles try to confuse the issue
The Telegraph letters page today, has Richard Corbett MEP self-selected defender of the EU Constitution, taking to task Dr Peter Gardner, Ukip, who wrote a letter suggesting that Dennis MacShane should offer “Less fudge and more facts about the EU Constitution” As usual with the Europhile argument, instead of addressing [...]

Democracy in the EU

Times Online – Comment
Democracy in the EU
From Mr Richard Nice
Sir, Miss Paula Volkmer (letter, Jan-uary 14) claims that the EU is democratic and disputes that we are governed by officials who are “unelected and unaccountable”. As only the European Commission can initiate and implement law, it is the true seat of government; there can be [...]

Corbett I

Why Eurosceptics should vote for the Constitution
Richard Corbett is a UK Labour MEP. He was also co-rapporteur for the European Parliament’s report on the European Constitution.
Richard Corbett, I find it sad that much of the debate about the proposed new EU constitution is couched in the usual hyperbole. Eurosceptic parts of the press are already [...]

Corbett II

They complain about inefficiency. So the constitution introduces several new measures to streamline and improve decision-making. It increases the areas in which governments take decisions by qualified majority voting rather than by unanimity – a vital factor if the enlarged Union is to be able to function without being blocked by vetoes, though the veto [...]

The Two Courts

The Two Courts
The European Court of Human Rights ECHR
The European Court of Justice ECJ
Confusingly we have two European courts witch our governments have allowed to hold sway over our domestic national laws. As a point of fact no government should allow any other court to make any laws which our courts must obey, we are, [...]

Just Like the good old USSR

Just Like the good old USSR

A few ways in which the EU will go out of its way to help those old communists in the new Commission feel right at home.

Anyone who opposes or deviates from the EU system will be ostracised. All sorts of tricks are used to isolate and marginalize those who [...]

White Paper on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe

Whilst I have been away the Foreign & Commonwealth Office has released the governments “White Paper on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe” with a foreword by the Prime Minister.
Our Tone has
“no hesitation in commending it to the country as a success and as a major step forward in creating the kind of Europe [...]

A Golf Club

The argument that a golf club can have a constitution, so we need not fear a Constitution for the EU is patently ridiculous. Disregarding the fact that the set of rules for a golf club are not forever changing, a golf club is a golf club it is not a government.
A constitution sets up a [...]

The British Rebate

After a Eurostat calculation that Britain last year was the richest of the net contributors with a Gross National Income at 111.2 percent of the EU-15 average. Michaele Schreyer, EU budget commissioner, is pushing the idea of replacing the British rebate with a “generalised correction mechanism” for all big net contributors.
He is seeking to stave [...]