eurealist.co.uk

The President of Poland has firmed up on his refusal to sign the Lisbon Treaty, but said he would do so if the Irish voted yes in a second referendum, as long as it was as fair as the first and the Irish government did not change the constitution in order to sidestep the Irish voters.

EUbusiness.com assess the reason why Lech Kaczynski has taken this stance is more to do with internal matters rather than an objection to the treaty. He is trying to force the government to agree to a change in the law so that EU-related decisions would be taken jointly by the government, the parliament and the president, a move which is being resisted by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

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 expect. It is worthy of note that it happened after Brussels had agreed to make all possible concessions on the European Constitution to Warsaw. The whole of Europe breathed with relief when Poland signed and ratified the Lisbon Agreement in December 2007.

There was very little left for Lech Kaczynski to do: to put his signature once again on the document which he had already approved. However, it suddenly occurred to him that Poland did not need the Lisbon Treaty at all. The Lisbon Treaty became useless in an instant. Poland refused to sign the Treaty on July 1, when France replaced Slovenia as the chairing state of the European Union.

None of that makes much sense why would the Poland not need the treaty when France took over the Presidency?

Poland has preserved its previous political course and the aspiration to prove that it is not the last country in Europe. Poland used to put obstacles on the way of EU-Russia relations. Nowadays, it puts a spoke in the wheels of the European Union.

Some may recall the glorious Soviet times, when Poland virtually destroyed the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. It seems like Poland is now willing to do the same with the European Union.

The News from Pravda - The place where truth hurts

If only the EU were literally falling apart, now that would be cause for celebration.

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David Cameron has a plan for the next Conservative government!
He says the NuLabour project was nothing more than a communications strategy -

Labour said that it would combine social justice and economic efficiency. The trouble was that it never explained how it would do. Which meant they had no proper plan or focus, it’s no wonder, 11 years on, that precious little has been achieved.

Well actually quite a lot has been achieved?

Scotland has a devolved parliament -

Wales has a devolved parliament -

The English people have been made second class citizen of this country - the House of Lords has been decimated -

The British Parliament has been striped of power to hold the executive to account as -

more power has been passed to our government in Brussels -

our Taxes have gone through the roof -

BT has been opened up to competition -

The Royal Mail had been broken up and competitors from abroad have been allowed to cherry pick the most profitable bits, leaving the rump struggling to make end meet and now Post offices across the country are being forced to close.

The National Health service is being privatised under the auspices of EU induced decentralisation and health care for all -

The country has been flooded with a low wage work force from new EU entrants -

we can now be arrested in our own homes and extradited to a foreign country without any proof -

Since 1997 there have been literally thousands of EU regulations forced on us; so many that the government do not even have a figure

The power of the state over the individual has been increased by several draconian laws forced by this government under the anti terrorism and police acts-

now our local councils can use the anti terrorism laws to spy on us if they think we are throwing away too much rubbish,

These laws have been used to arrest a woman for reading a list of our soldiers who had perished in Iraqi at the cenotaph, to detain an 86 year old Labour supporter for heckling a minister at the Labour conference, a lady who wore a t-shirt with the slogan “Bollocks to Blair”

These are just some of the achievements of NuLabour, and Mr Cameron’s cunning plan is …

putting rocket boosters behind renewable energy; even more spending on useless and expensive wind turbines to blot our landscape, based on a questionable theory, more cost to the consumer in order to meet EU targets by 2020, and Labour is doing this anyway so no change there

having a border police force; what is the point of a border police when we are not in control of our own borders; and Labour is doing this anyway so no change.

And the really big plan is” Lifting up our society is the great task for the next Conservative government” this boils down to basically following the EU line on schools, welfare, and decentralised energy,

As the Conservatives are going to be following the EU line, the real question to ask is—- what is the point of electing them to government?

Just because we are fed up with this government? Well we might be and with good cause, but they are also following the EU agenda, and Mr Cameron is not offering anything different, just more communications strategy than a governing one, because the governing strategy is not made in Westminster. Even in areas such as education which are still within the remit of our government there are EU soft laws which means that we pay the pipers but they play the EU Tune .

And what of addressing the dogs dinner of a constitution Labour has created, well there we can only look at the signs because on these matters Mr Cameron is silent - Habeas Corpus and civil liberties are not high on the Conservative agenda, otherwise the Shadow Home Sectary David Davis would not have resigned, if he thought that he would have been allowed to address his concerns by Mr Cameron.

The West Lothian Question - Mr Clarke has come up with a fudge and a fig leaf, stepping back from the original EVonEM which would not even have solved the problem anyway.

Regional Government, doing away with Regional Assemblies but leaving the Regional Development Agencies in place - Labour is doing this anyway.

Mr Cameron said he was answering questions posed by the Times:
“The Conservative leader replies to a call by The Times to make clear what his party stands for”

Well according to Mr Cameron the Conservative Party stands for more of the same - more evading the real issues, more spin, more misrepresentation, more lies, and more EU.

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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 as efficiently as ever despite the increase from 15 to 27 states.
This was confirmed independently in another study by a university in Paris which found that new EU rules were adopted a quarter times faster in the years after enlargement in comparison with the two years before it.

Sensitive deals agreed on the working time directive or the unbundling of energy networks also show that tough decisions can be taken under the current arrangements.

The Lisbon Treaty was intended to give a constitutional foundation to a federal superstate, and to do so by deceptive means.

In the aftermath of the rejection of the European constitution, officials at the Council of Ministers were instructed to make understanding the text of the Lisbon Treaty as difficult as possible while preserving the constitutional content entirely.

Three times now, however, European citizens have rejected this project of the political elite who would have seen their personal power greatly increased.

It is up to Brian Cowen to call for an end to the ratification process and denounce the dishonest attempts to present a constitution as a reform of EU institutions which are working quite efficiently.

tag: Lisbon Treaty, federal superstate, European constitution, EU institutions

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 the country’s Constitutional Court rules on two legal challenges, and problems with ratifying in the Czech Republic where the government is also struggling with a constitutional court challenge and a EUsceptic majority in the parliament’s Senate, on top of a having the most EUsceptice of all EU leaders as president.

The French who took over the presidency of the EU today did have plans to take forward further political integration in the spheres of more harmonised tax rates, joint EU defence, illegal immigrants, global warming and addressing the effects of rising oil prices.

The first two of these; harmonised tax rates and joint EU defence were leading problems in the Irish No vote, it is unlikely that the French will want to push ahead with these plans when the only legal way the Treaty can come into force will be if the Irish hold another referendum. When by doing so they would be confirming the Irish No camps original objections.

Instead the French will be concentrating on applying as much pressure as possible to the Irish government, one way is to halt all enlargements and blame it on the Irish - Bernard Kouchner said

“What use is it to take, say, three more countries into the EU, if we’re blocked and can’t proceed with political integration?”

At least he is honest about the aim of the EU which is clearly political integration. (Mr Brown please take note)

So the messages coming from Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic will not be welcomed by the French who can see that it will become difficult to isolate the Irish if the Polish are linking their ratification to the Irish outcome and two other countries are also holding back, in Germany’s case until early next year when the Constitutional court will decide.

The Polish President Lech Kaczynski has also said that the principle of unanimity is binding on the EU and there is no way he could agree to breaking that clause.

“The principle of unanimity is binding here, Poland must protect small EU countries’ rights as it is not a major power itself. “If the principle of unanimity is broken once it will cease to exist for ever. We are too weak to accept this kind of solution.”

And with a clear statment that he will not allow the power of Poland to be sidlined by a treaty that gives greater power to the larger states he said;

“My politics is a way to make sure the telephone number of the Polish president or prime minister is frequently used by Berlin, Paris, London or other capitals,”

EUOBSERVER

tag: Lisbon Treaty, European constitution, EU institutions, Czech Republic, principle of unanimity

The result is really striking. The EU has not been this unpopular in Britain since 1983.

Open Europe blog

The bright side of Lisbon

Sir - Is there a bright side to being denied our promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? If we had got it and won it, we would have killed the treaty in a way the people of Ireland cannot. But we would have stayed where we are, ensnared in the Treaty of Nice.

Brussels has used that treaty to legislate 25 per cent faster than before the French and Dutch rejections of the original constitution. Thus, the project of European integration would have continued, surreptitiously and piecemeal. But now, as the new EU mega-state pursues its undemocratic path, conflict will grow between the political class and the rest of us. Our greatest weakness lies in those who believe that we can reform our relationship with Brussels from within the EU.

Yet, the clauses in Nice which mean that Lisbon is dead after Ireland said “no” are also those which require unanimity among all 27 member states before the smallest power can be returned to us.

Such unanimity will not be attainable; the only way out will be the door.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, London SW1

Letters - Telegraph

David’s strong support for liberty has persuaded most within the party – so much so that the one time leader of the traditionalists in the Shadow Cabinet has just resigned to fight the government more strongly in defence of more civil liberty and less authoritarianism. He did not have the leadership’s encouragement to make such a stand, but I am delighted they back him and want him to win, for his fight is our fight. It is in many ways the ultimate proof that the Conservative party has “got it” and has modernised under David. No-one I think could have written such a script four years ago of how the Conservative party would come together behind the cause of Magna Carta and Habeas Corpus, making them thoroughly modern causes, under threat from a punk modernising government with no sense of history or personal liberty.

Modernising the Conservatives and splitting the Anglicans - a story of two leaderships | John Redwood MP

Mr Redwood there is another way of looking at the resignation- it does not make sense for the prospective home sectary to resign in order to fight the government. When all he had to do was to wait a while and he
would have been in a position to see through a real defence of civil liberty and less authoritarianism. He would have been able to reduce the 42 days whilst reversing the many other incursions to our civil liberties made by this present government.

So either Mr Davis is politically short sighted or Mr Cameron would not have allowed him the freedom to make the changes he says he wants.

Looked at that way it does rather open the question of the veracity of a leadership, which has already reneged on the EPP matter, and on the promise to allow a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

One would naturally assume that a party which has fought hard against this government on several fronts would when they gained power, immediately move to overturn those pieces of legalisation
that caused offence in the first place.

I therefore strongly suspect that Mr Davis resigned not to put pressure on the government but to put pressure on the Conservative leadership to stand by its position as expressed in opposition, once elected to
power.

Nobody is really addressing the question “Can the NHS survive the EU” with news that the Commission will present draft rules that patients in the EU can get treatment outside their own country without pre-approval from their doctor. The measure is being presented as part of a wider package to push forward what the EU calls “social Europe”. EU officials hope the package will help answer some concerns of critics, particularly after the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.

So far British Rail, British Telecom and the Royal Mail are just some of the incursions of the EU onto sectors previously protected as being in the national domain.

These have all been deregulated under EU rules and it is looking increasingly like the NHS is about to suffer the same fate.

The problem is the EU is making the rules but the EU is not responsible for the supply of the service that falls to the national governments, it is they who are using our money to assist the EU to fulfil its objectives. There is absolutely no chance that the British National Health Service can survive when it has no control of who can use the system on one hand and no control of its own costs on the other.

As usual these moves to EUropeanise everything are being applied by our government under the cover of making the NHS more efficient, and with the Tories also applying the same arguments, there is very little hope for the future of the NHS. But as usual Labour will claim the NHS is not safe in Tory hands yet all the Conservatives will do when in government is continue the Labour/EU policy of deregulation.

With the EU commission saying “Everyone should have the right to access to quality services such as education and healthcare at all ages,” We can see that “social Europe” will affect every British social policy.

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 reviewing the Treaty to see if it did conflict with the constitution by the Senate in April, and is not expected to issue its judgement until October.

This is some evidence of the ongoing dispute between the two parts of the Czech parliamentary system where the parliament is mainly pro treaty with the Senate taking a less enthusiastic line, and is a move by the lower house intended to influence the courts decision.

“Because the people are sovereign, governments get their powers from us; we do not get our rights from them. This issue is becoming crucial because the centralisation of power to political elites is a threat to our freedom and democracy.“

Left supports Right defending liberty - Telegraph

The loss of our democratic rights and basic human rights is not a left and right divide.

The EU’s new Justice Commissioner, Jacques Barrot, was given an eight-month suspended jail sentence in France in 2000 for swindling public money.

He was later pardoned by former French President Jacques Chira. But because of the vagaries of French Law, once pardoned it was as if magically the whole episode never happened and it was expunged form his record.

Thus he was never barred from holding public office and legally did not lie when he failed to declare his past when he joined the European Commission 2004.

There is a difference between being pardoned and being found not guilty in one you are innocent and in the other you are still deemed to be guilty.

” To release (a person) from punishment; exempt from penalty: a convicted criminal who was pardoned by the governor.
” To let (an offense) pass without punishment.

THE European Commission described Zimbabwe’s presidential run-off yesterday as a “sham” and said it did not recognise the election or its outcome as legitimate.

Rearrange these words - Pot -The - Kettle - Calling - Black -That

As they both refuse to listen to the voters the only real difference between the EU and Robert Mugabe is the violence, and that apparently includes intimidation on the part of the EU.

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, then it should be put to a referendum in his country.
“We think any future changes to the treaty that affect Austrian interests must be decided in Austria by a referendum,”
“There is also in Austria widespread scepticism about the EU at the moment. After the vast majority of Austrians voted in favour of EU membership in 1994, today we see a mood of uncertainty and sometimes also rejection.”

The pro- EU camp are keen to ignore the legal realities of the suggested accommodations to Ireland in that those would necessarily require a change to the treaty which would mean that it would have to be ratified again and not just in Ireland.

Estonian MEP who drafted the media pluralism report, socialist deputy Marianne Mikko, has come under a storm of media attacks in Sweden on her suggestion that there should be register of Bloggers.
Her arguments are elitist in the extreme in that she says:

“The reader should know why this or that blogger should be trusted on a particular issue.”

“It is clear that a Harvard professor of international relations is likely to treat, for instance, the Middle East peace process or European integration in an educated and balanced manner,”

“The same trust cannot be put in a radical high school student from Gaza or a Eurosceptic who has never been out of his village”

“We do not need to know the exact identity of bloggers. We need some credentials, a quality mark, a certain disclosure of who is writing and why. We need this to be able to trust and rely on the source.”

“The Economist is a valuable brand, its articles are trusted by readers without contributors having to reveal their names,” she said. “If there is a way to validate the best bloggers the same way that publishing in the Economist validates its writers, it should be done.”

And who exactly validates The Economist for balance, where does its priorities lie? and how can we trust an organisation where the editorial staff enforce a uniform liberal pro EU voice throughout its pages? The editors say this is necessary because “collective voice and personality matter more than the identities of individual journalists”

And exactly why should we trust so called balance of in an academic who is paid in the main by the EU, and is therefore only to willing to write reports that support the aims and values of his paymasters in Brussels.
The report calls for a clarification of the legal status of webblog authors and wants to see a disclosure of interests, and the voluntary labelling of webblogs.

I would like to see a clear a clarification of the legal status of the EU something long overdue from an organisation that claims to speak on my behalf.

I would like to see disclosure of interests, from people who fully support the organisation, such as the present leader of the LibDems and all of those in the House of Lords who do not deem it in the public interest to disclose that they are in receipt of large protected EU pensions for as long as they do nothing to bring the EU into disrespect such as voting against an EU treaty or against the interests of the EU. I would like to see the BBC disclose that it receives grants and special rate loans from the EU on condition that it supports the aims and values of the EU. I would like to see the disclosure of interests from Whitehall mandarins such a Stephen Wall who openly admitted that for most of his working life whilst being paid by the British Taxpayer to further the interests of Britain he was in fact furthering the interests of the Union.

For that matter how can we trust the voice of the MEP in question Marianne Mikko, is a socialist MEP, obviously in the pay of the EU and obviously supportive of the EU. Yet she wishes to appear as if she is only looking out for the rights of the European people, but is effectively doing the opposite by furthering to interests of EU establishment by trying to control our freedom of speech by controlling blogs and bloggers.

EUOBSERVER

Even a pessimist like me has a small degree of hope that an obviously lost cause would be reversed in the end. However unfortunately that is not to be, as the high court have now rejected Stuart Wheelers case against Gordon Brown for not holding a referendum.

From Press reports Lord Justice Richards and Mr Justice Mackay said “We are satisfied that the claim lacks substantive merit and should be dismissed.”

“Even if we had taken a different view of the substance of the case in the exercise of the court’s discretion, we would have declined to grant any relief, having regard in particular to the fact that parliament has addressed the question,”

They also refused to allow and appeal “We are satisfied that an appeal has no prospect of success.”

“Whilst the issues raised are interesting and important, that is outweighed by the desirability of certainty and the avoidance of unnecessary delay in this matter.”

“There is no other compelling reason why an appeal should be heard.”

Actually there is no desirability of certainty, it is better to be right than be certainly wrong, and the avoidance of unnecessary delay in the matter, as the EU has put open talks about the ratification back until at the earliest October when the Irish will have to come up with a promise of a new referendum and by which time the Czech Constitutional court will have pronounced on the legality of the treaty, so in reality there is plenty of time for an appeal.

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‘agreements must be kept’. It is a basic principle of civil law and international law.

Thanks to that rule we were able to create a society a civilization that was formed by this simple principle. To make sure of that lets try to imagine any group of people, a community, or a society where nobody respects any agreement. As you can imagine it would be impossible to create any relationship between people as what we need to build it is a minimum of trust. The question is then, where to find trust if nobody respects any agreement, when nobody honours what he promised?

Epoch Times | The EU Should Listen to the Voice of Ireland

The Daily Mail is the only paper which mentions the secret visit of the EU Propaganda Minister to the working museum of British democracy yesterday. The flying visit was to the Commons European Scrutiny Committee where Mrs Wallström was supposed to answer questions.

All I have to go on is the Daily Mailesque version, which described the visit as Mother Margot arrived in Westminster with two oblong-headed grunts. This although an evocative headline was not the whole truth because she was also accompanied by a press officer mailesque mouse-like) and a little British sidekick with curly hair and specs. Who turned out (to be someone called Patrick Costello, who did much frowning during the session, as though keen to give the impression that everyone except his boss was talking rubbish. Quite the reverse was true.

A very little digging tells us that Patrick Costello is Mrs Wallstom`s deputy head of cabinet and the Mail tells us that one of the oblong headed grunts (the one on the right) was Reijo Kemppinen, who runs the European Commission in London.

Other than a couple of comments by Eusceptic Members of the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, the Mail does not go into much detail about the session, being more interested in the antics of Mr Kemppinen who was scribbling notes throughout the session passing some to the Propaganda Minister and tearing the others up. This presented much to good a chance to miss, after the end of the session the Mail reporter and a Fleet Street colleague scooped up the rubbish left by Mr Kemppinen and “Using jigsaw techniques managed to reassemble a couple of the notes he had scribbled”

Perhaps later we will be presented with the fluffy version on The Blog? Unfortunately in the world inhabited by the EU autocrats and the main stream media we are only ever offered a fluffy version from which ever side. I am sure that important questions were asked and thoughtful replies given, but one would not know that from reading the Mail; no wonder the EUphiles think EUsceptics are thick xenophobes who do not understand the EU.

Thanks EU Referendum

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Democracy is a system of government by which political sovereignty is retained by the people and either exercised directly by citizens or through their elected representatives.

Daily Referendum

Does that sound anything like our country under the current political climate?

The attempt to override the triple “No” votes of the French, Dutch, and Irish peoples has brought the EU to a systemic crisis of legitimacy. A line too many has been crossed. Any sentient citizen can see that the process has become unhinged.

While “Europe” blunders on as if nothing has happened, it is now an open question whether the Lisbon Treaty - née Constitution - will ever come into force, whether the EU will ever acquire the machinery of an economic, diplomatic, and military power, and whether the euro will ever have a polity to back it up.

Has Europe’s terminal crisis begun with a triple no vote? - Telegraph