The 'Amending' treaty.

[InsaneApache]

Like a bad smell, the European Constitution (http://europa.eu/roadtoconstitution/index_en.htm) keeps coming back.

Wait! No! It's not the EU constitution, it's an amending treaty. It different. It's difference is that the EU won't have an official flag or anthem, the rest is the same though. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who wrote this piece of garbage has said that the politicos are pushing essentially the same document that was decisively rejected by France and The Nederlands two years ago. Now Blair says that because it is an amending treaty, he doesn't see the need to honour his commitment to a referendum (which he would lose) and instead will ratify it through parliament. I say it's outrageous.


When Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, sits down for dinner tonight in Luxembourg with her 26 European Union colleagues, she will fire Britain’s opening shot in what promises to be a bitter week-long battle over the future of Europe.

The dinner, in a dull conference centre, will not be the most glamorous event Beckett has attended, and it could be one of her last: she is not expected to survive in the position once Gordon Brown takes over as prime minister on June 27.

But the meal for foreign ministers marks the unofficial start of this week’s EU summit (things officially get under way in Brussels on Thursday) and on the table is a reheated version of the European constitution proposed three years ago and scuppered by French and Dutch voters 12 months later.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1942929.ece


Downing Street has indicated the treaty that emerges from next week's EU summit will not be put to a referendum.

Tony Blair promised a public vote on the EU constitution in 2004 - before it was rejected by France and Holland.

Number 10 said the document expected to be agreed next week would be an "amending" treaty rather than a "constitutional" treaty.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6756331.stm

Oh and another thing. Nicolas Sarkozy, the new French president, has floated the idea that Mr Blair could become the EU’s first permanent president. No carrot there then! :shame:

Older posters will remember I predicted this when France and The Nederlands rejected the proposal. I should have been a palm reader. :laugh4:

[Rodion Romanovich]

Crap, these PMs/presidents only call referendums when they think people will vote their way, and if they miscalculate and lose, they hold repeated referendums until the people votes their way out of fatigue. Why are we not being given a referendum for leaving the EU, leaving the Euro, or collective suicide of pro-EU Prime ministers, when we're being given repeated referendums to approve of more and more EU crap - dictatorship constitution, euro, crap this and crap that?

EU is indeed a country - a dictatorship country, without democratic elections. It's no better than the plans Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin put forth for Europe: a single big oligarchy/dictatorship. Given how picky the EU people are about curvature and length of banans, I wonder how they will behave when they start deciding how people are allowed and not allowed to be. "Abnormal curvature of *****, off to prison with you", "not liking EU enough? Off to prison with you" etc etc.

[Husar]

I just hope it includes mandatory corporal punishment for adults.:laugh4:

[Marcellus]

Hooray! Another victory for democracy!

I suppose we should really wait to see what the 'Amending Treaty' says before declaring that it's the same as the EU constitution, though I can't say I'm optimistic.

On a side note, navigating around the europa site, I found out that Europe is fun! (http://europa.eu/europago/welcome.jsp) There's an enticing quiz with 'a set of brand new questions about agriculture!' Yay!

[Rodion Romanovich]

I just hope it includes mandatory corporal punishment for adults
You would like an Iranian citizenship, trust me.

[Husar]

You would like an Iranian citizenship, trust me.
But the Iranians wouldn't want me since I'm a christian.
It's a pity, really, but I can instead work on making europe a christian Iran.
I mean why go far away for awesomeness when you can have it here?

[JR-]

not interested in the UK being part of a federalised EU.

if the continent is determined to press ahead with this rubbish, then i believe the UK should stop being an obstruction by withdrawing to EFTA/EEC.

[Strike For The South]

"Fog across the channel, continent cut off"

lol:beam:

[InsaneApache]

"Fog across the channel, continent cut off"

lol:beam:

By gad, Sir, he's got it!

:smash:

[Justiciar]

Personally, methinks the sooner the nations of Europe are disolved and or forcably annexed in favour of a greater, and more-over singular uberstate the better. If it happens peacefully through something like the EU then that's just an added bonus.

Onwards, to Unity! :turtle:

[rory_20_uk]

The only thing that I like about brown is that he is anti-Europe. I've not heard a single concrete advantage of the EU that is not better served with bilateral treaties. All we get from them besides a drain in money and jobs for fading politicians is masses of red tape that we are forced to follow.

~:smoking:

[Rodion Romanovich]

The only thing that I like about brown is that he is anti-Europe. I've not heard a single concrete advantage of the EU that is not better served with bilateral treaties. All we get from them besides a drain in money and jobs for fading politicians is masses of red tape that we are forced to follow.

~:smoking:
QFT :2thumbsup:

[InsaneApache]

Mick Hume on the issue.


As the resident libertarian Marxist on these pages, I do often find myself in the same camp as traditional Eurosceptics. I am all for abolishing the British monarchy, don’t much care whose head is on our currency (so long as it’s not Jamie Oliver) and am rather more pro-European than most professed Europhiles on an issue such as free immigration.

But there is a big difference between Europe the continent, with its dynamic, civilised peoples, and the “legal personality” of Official Europe, a dead weight around the neck of the civilised world. Time to raise an argument not heard enough in this clichéd debate: for Europe, but not the EU.

The EU supra-state has become a bastion of all that is rotten in politics, its first instinct always to regulate, restrain and ban. The EU mindset is now the opposite of the spirit of the European enlightenment. For years, politicians of both the Left and Right have retreated from the battlefield behind the Euro-barricades, trusting the judges and commissioners more than their own people.

Then in 2005, French and Dutch voters stunned their arrogant rulers by rejecting the EU Constitution. Now Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French President and architect of that constitution, admits that the public is being led “to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly”. What part of “non” don’t these aristos understand?

Despite the talk of divisions between EU leaders at this week’s summit, the one thing they seem united about is that their agreement need not be put to a referendum. The European Commission chief has warned Tony Blair not to give into “populism”. For his part, Mr Blair now even admits that he didn’t really agree that there was a need for any vote on the constitution, despite Labour’s manifesto commitment. (That echoes the high-handed attitude of the Conservative Government that signed the Maastricht treaty creating the EU.) And Gordon Brown’s people have let it be known that there will be no referendum on his watch because it would be “unwinnable”. What if they thought the same about elections?

All of these arguments drip with patronising contempt for the peoples of Europe, apparently considered too fickle or just too thick to grasp the subtleties of the Euro-elite’s ways. When much of the political class unites to tell us that there is no need for any controversy or public consultation, it surely ought to be the cue for a big debate and some serious boat-rocking.

Perhaps it is time for a vote, not on how to make us fit for Euro citizenship, but on whether the EU is fit to have all of us as members. What Europe needs is not a quietly agreed peace treaty, but a war of words; not a deal stitched up by the Euro-aristocracy, but a democratic revolution.

:2thumbsup:

[English assassin]

Its very simple IA: we are going to keep on voting on the constitution/amending treaty/teeny weeny little treaty that no one need worry their pretty heads about until we get the right answer.

Which is to say, the answer that guarantees jobs for life with no scrutiny for graduates of the grandes ecoles. Hooray for the EU.

[Kralizec]

Well, they scrapped the bits about the European anthem and flag from the text, wich is good. Can't say I remember anything else about the old text wich bothered me that much.

I recall the old text mentioned a procedure allowing a member state to leave the EU and I expect it won't be left out, so it's not all bad ~;)

[InsaneApache]

Flippin' heck, it took me ages to find this thread. :sweatdrop:

Anyroad, it looks as though the pressure is building up nicely on Broon to honour his promise on the referendum. From both sides of the political spectrum.

First up Ms. Stuart.


First, when the government promised a referendum on the EU constitution there was, rightly, no perceived conflict with representative parliamentary democracy. On the contrary, it was part of the case that Labour candidates took to the country in the 2005 general election. Now ministers want to renege on the grounds that the “constitutional approach” has been dropped or that the new treaty, unlike the EU constitution, is simply amending previous treaties. This puts form above content and is tendentious.

In opposing a referendum on the new European Union treaty, ministers argue that in a parliamentary democracy it is right and proper that parliament should decide.

There are valid arguments about the differing merits of direct and representative parliamentary democracy; but there are three basic reasons why the official line won’t wash.

First, when the government promised a referendum on the EU constitution there was, rightly, no perceived conflict with representative parliamentary democracy. On the contrary, it was part of the case that Labour candidates took to the country in the 2005 general election. Now ministers want to renege on the grounds that the “constitutional approach” has been dropped or that the new treaty, unlike the EU constitution, is simply amending previous treaties. This puts form above content and is tendentious.

The original version of the constitutional treaty was also an “amending treaty”, in the sense that both the original and the new version take over the text of the existing treaties but add lots of new content as well. The substance has remained the same. It has just been made more difficult to understand.

As Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the leading author of the constitution, said: “All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”

All the important changes in the constitution remain: the introduction of majority voting in many new areas and the reduction of member states’ ability to block legislation when majority votes are taken; the new powers of the Court of Justice in criminal justice and policing; and the new institutions such as the council president.

Only Britain is pretending that this new treaty is a different animal from the defeated constitution; and even here ministers have implicitly conceded, falling back on the argument that we have secured opt-outs and defended red lines.

However, these are vulnerable and are also broadly the same as were negotiated last time when a referendum was promised. No let-out for the government there.

Secondly, we should be realistic about parliamentary democracy. Over centuries of British history there have been struggles to control an overmighty executive. It is important not to be naive about these things: there was no “golden age” when MPs debated matters independently of faction.

Today the executive’s dominance (of the Commons in particular) is entrenched. The government’s majority is huge, the payroll vote and other placements are large and growing. In any case the new EU treaty cannot be amended so the whole purpose of debate and argument, let alone “line by line scrutiny”, is nullified.

The inability of the Commons to scrutinise this treaty is part of a wider malaise. Westminster has largely failed to hold ministers accountable to agreements made in Brussels. Parliamentary committees are informed but only after the decisions have been taken. Much implementation is by statutory instruments, which cannot be amended. In this context, to uphold parliamentary democracy as a reason for not having a referendum raises cynicism to new levels.

The third factor undermining the case for leaving the decision to parliament is the nature and content of the new EU treaty. National parliaments are instructed “that they shall contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union”. It is central to Britain’s constitution that parliament cannot bind its successors; yet that’s what this obligation in the new treaty is proposing. This might conflict with Britain’s national interests.

The repeated assertion by the government that this treaty strengthens national parliaments is wrong. There is a mechanism whereby the European commission has to justify a proposal, but this is a charade.

In the unlikely event that a third of national parliaments, in nine countries, all vote against a proposal within an eight-week period then the commission has to “reconsider” the proposal – but having done so it can still ignore national parliaments.

The new treaty introduces provisions of the rejected constitution that allow EU leaders to change treaties incrementally without the need for more new treaties. Such agreements have to be ratified by each country in line with its own constitutional requirements (a bill or a statutory instrument in the UK), but since no new treaty is required integration can proceed by stealth.

Beyond that, the new treaty allows EU leaders to move to majority voting in any of the remaining areas covered by unanimity (including foreign policy, but excluding defence) and such changes do not need to be ratified by parliaments. Any proposal goes through unless a national parliament objects within six months: but this requires a government allowing parliament time to vote against something to which it has already agreed.

In practice this is the last opportunity for a referendum. The notion that a decision on this treaty should be by parliament rather than by referendum is like telling someone to trust a court when the jury is rigged.

The government should stick to Labour’s manifesto promise on a referendum and it should be reaffirmed in any future manifesto for a “snap” election. To do otherwise would either break a commitment to the electorate or be based on a deception: the notion that the new treaty is in any meaningful way different from the previous constitution. Neither course is likely to help Labour’s cause or build trust with the people.

Gisela Stuart is Labour MP for Birmingham, Edgbaston

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/article2414635.ece

and now Jackie Ashley....


Losing a referendum would be a political embarrassment. Refusing one would be a political disaster.

The campaign to persuade Gordon Brown to hold a referendum on the new EU treaty is gaining force. The drums are rolling, time is short and this choice cannot be fudged. Immediately after next month's EU summit meeting, he and his colleagues have to decide whether to accept the treaty and ram it through the Commons, using his personal authority, or risk a crisis in relations with other European leaders, and the future of the treaty, by throwing caution to the winds and agreeing that the people have a right to vote directly.

Fighting for a referendum are "usual suspect" Labour MPs, including Gisela Stuart, Frank Field and Kate Hoey; the still Eurosceptic Conservatives, led on this issue by that arch-Brusselsphobe William Hague; and now some of the big voices in the trade unions, led by the GMB and the RMT. Their motives are mixed and, to the foreign secretary David Miliband, suspect too.

It's easy to see why the prime minister may not want a referendum. Surely, here is the moment to show himself a committed European and to reassert the powers of parliament, by pushing it all through the Commons. Yet to my own surprise, the more I look at the proposed new treaty, the more I find myself in the referendum camp. They may be a strange alliance, from rightwing newspaper types to anti-Brown leftists, from dissident Labour MPs to the UK Independence party. But those calling for a national choice are absolutely right and, if they are listened to, will strengthen not weaken the government. Brown and Miliband need to think very carefully before trying to bolt the door on them.

Let's start with the basics. Brown's case to the country has been that he offers a genuinely fresh start, a "new politics" that eschews deviousness in favour of plain dealing. His strong performance in the polls is based on people hoping that's true, plus his highly competent early moves. He has won sceptics round - a bit - by talking plainly, by sticking with early promises to tell parliament first about new policies and by working through cabinet. But it is all fragile, and there are millions of people who haven't quite made up their minds about him. Lose them, and he'll lose the election.

The government promised a referendum on the original treaty. That caused much irritation in Brussels, and yet even the very pro-European Tony Blair decided it was the right thing to do. Only the revolt of French and Dutch voters got him off the hook. The big problem for the government now is that, to avoid accusations of bad faith, it would have to show that the new treaty is significantly less important than the old one. And at the moment, that isn't true. Apart from trivial changes, such as the use of symbols and music, it is overwhelmingly similar. Many of the key figures in Europe actually celebrate this.

Listen to Germany's Angela Merkel: "The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact." What about Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the aristocratic former French president who was in charge of the original treaty? He told a London conference that although Britain, France and the Netherlands had demanded the word "constitution" be eliminated, all the key elements were still there: "All the earlier proposals will be in the new text but will be hidden or disguised in some way." Spain's prime minister José Zapatero? "We have not let a single substantial point of the constitutional treaty go."

There are plenty of other examples from across the EU. And if you judge the treaty by the core where-does-power-lie questions, they are surely right. The change in voting includes the end of Britain's veto in 61 areas. The EU court of justice gets new powers over policing and criminal justice. There would be a new EU diplomatic service and someone who would be, in effect, Europe's foreign minister. Though national parliaments do get very limited new rights to scrutinise what the Brussels commission proposes, they are weak and balanced by a formal insistence that national parliaments should actively contribute "to the good functioning of the union".

Now, as it happens, I approve of much of this. To make the larger EU function better, we do have to give up some veto powers, for instance; and after the mayhem of the last US-dominated decade, it would be a good thing if the EU exercised more influence in world affairs. But what I can't manage to do is to pretend that all of the above is somehow unimportant, and does not add up to a new constitutional treaty. So, a question: how likely is it that the British people, who seem to be overwhelmingly in favour of a referendum, will be persuaded despite the known facts, and the cheerfully unhelpful contributions of Merkel, Giscard, Zapatero and all, that this is a mere tidying-up exercise that can be left to parliament?

Not very. It is true that there are British opt-outs. But as the former Europe minister Keith Vaz has pointed out, they are the same ones as in the original treaty. Nor are they unequivocal. Vaz, like David Blunkett and other mainstream MPs, has concluded that the argument against a referendum is lost. And, to cap it all, John Hutton has promised that "if there is some significant constitutional arrangement that would affect our relationship with the European Union ... there should be a proper referendum."

So Brown is under huge pressure, and not just from stroppy union leaders who call the new treaty "anti-labour to the core". Brown has a reputation as moderately Eurosceptic, based mainly on his hostility to joining the euro, which has won him newspaper support but is likely to cause him increasing difficulty on the continent. Accepting a referendum would not be risk-free. Other leaders would be furious. At home, it would unleash hostility from hostile Blairites who have so far bitten their tongues.

Above all, consider the alternative. Parliament doesn't actually get the right to properly scrutinise the treaty, since parliament can't amend it and send it back for second thoughts. So the idea is that in the teeth of public hostility, and on the back of a threadbare, widely ridiculed argument, he should ram this through Westminster? Not only would that be wrong in principle, it would severely damage Brown's hard-won reputation for straight dealing and give the Tories the opening they've been searching for. Come on, Gordon.

Losing a referendum would be a political embarrassment. Refusing one would be a political disaster.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2165731,00.html

:book:

[naut]

Yuck, EU constitution, sounds fascist. A referendum would surely end in a rejection of this "amending treaty".

[HoreTore]

All I can say is: HAH!!

Smart people don't join at all.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I'm going to have to agree with the Norwegian Socialist on this one ( :dizzy2: ).

If you want a look at where this will be in 50 years if it goes along, check out the US. The power of a USA state will be equal to the power of a nation in the EU, methinks. And a lot of people don't think states in the USA don't have enough power as it is, and where all in the same country.

CR

[Papewaio]

Whose final signature goes on the treaty?

Does the Queen need to ratify it? And if she turns around and goes 'One believes that the people were promised a referendum'... what happens next?

[Slyspy]

Fall of the monarchy.

[HoreTore]

I'm going to have to agree with the Norwegian Socialist on this one ( :dizzy2: ).

As odd as it may seem.... :laugh4:

I have nothing against the principle of unity,etc of the eu. That's all fine with me. It's now very easy for me to move to, say Italy. Before the EU, that would've been a lot harder(I would've be a "standard" immigrant). The idea of working with the poorer nations in europe and helping them financially is also something I like.

However, what I DON'T like, is the complete and utter centralization of government/power. It seems like the EU is becoming, or has already become, an intrusive body that does not care for anything but standardization. "You've used those glasses for centuries, you say? Well, now you get to pour beer into these glasses instead!" Everything has to be the same, local variations are not to be tolerated.

To me it looks like a freemarket version of soviet russia.

[Papewaio]

It's not a freemarket if the government is deciding the standards (beyond health and safety minimums) for what consumers consume... in essence the government is choosing the products.. that is not freemarket at all.

[InsaneApache]

Horetore is on to something there. Very well articulated. Here's an example:


It is proposing to allow the UK to continue using pounds, miles and pints as units of measurement indefinitely.

The European Commission will announce later it is leaving all future decisions to the British government.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6988521.stm

You see! They are going to allow us to use pints, gallons, miles etc. That's jolly decent of them. :thumbsdown:

As a plus they are also going to allow the UK government to decide.

There you have it in a nutshell why I dislike this behemoth. :no:

[naut]

I'm with HoreTore on this. The EU has some benefits etcetera

Europe is full of many cultures, and all the EU is essentially doing is making a weird amalgam of these cultures. But not only that it is destroying the diversity that is Europe.

Also being born in London, I still consider myself English and thus am understandably biased towards the metaphorical widening of the Channel.

[rory_20_uk]

The items that HoreTore likes can be covered by a series of treaties. Only the behomoth that is the EU requires this further integration.

~:smoking:

[JR-]

All I can say is: HAH!!

Smart people don't join at all.
very much agreed.