Left waiting

It seems that the lack of scrutiny for Parliament since the Lisbon Treaty came into effect is not restricted to the SWIFT agreement.

Documents from the European Scrutiny Committee point that three additional measures have been limited to only four weeks scrutiny time because of the failure of Ministers to deposit the relevant documents with the Committee.

Two different agreements on the sharing of passenger-name records (with the US and Australia), and an extradition agreement between the EU and Iceland and Norway have both seen their scrutiny time cut short in January.

The Committee points out that this "contravenes the undertaking in Baroness Ashton's statement on JHA opt-ins that the Government will place an Explanatory Memorandum before Parliament 'as swiftly as possible and no later than ten working days after the publication of the proposal.'"

Maybe the relevant department took a holiday on 17 December, when the Memorandum was due to be deposited, but that doesn't explain why they failed to do so until 19 and 20 January respectively. While these measures are not as controversial as SWIFT, it would be nice to see the Government adhering on all these proposals to the assurances it made on Parliamentary scrutiny when it was ramming the Lisbon Treaty through.

This is important stuff, as it strikes at the very heart of national democracy and scrutiny in the wake of the Lisbon Treaty (which, on the whole, reduces the role of national parliaments in EU decision making).

A shame so few people are paying attention.