Open Europe blog

Ja, aber

2009-07-10T18:29:00.004+01:00

The fall-out of the long awaited decision of the German Constitutional Court on whether the Lisbon Treaty violates the German Constitution (or "Basic Law") is ongoing, with German parties battling it out as to what it all means.

In a nutshell, the Court ruled broadly in favour of Lisbon but withheld approval for immediate ratification, demanding a law to guarantee the rights of the German Parliament in the EU decision-making process.

In its press release, the Constitutional Court noted that the German ratification act should be modified because the German Bundestag (Lower House) and Bundesrat (Upper House) “have not been accorded sufficient rights of participation in European lawmaking procedures and treaty amendment procedures.”

Handelsblatt analysed: “for the Court there is only one real basis for democracy in the EU: the national Parliaments”.

German ratification of the Treaty could be delayed until after the German national elections on 27 September because the Bavarian Christian Democrat CSU party and the Social Democrat SPD party, both of which are in government, have opposed fast-tracking the new law. With Czech President Vaclav Klaus vowing to be the last one to sign the Treaty, the German ruling offers him the opportunity to further delay the final step in Czech ratification. (Welt, 30 June; Handelsblatt, 3 July)

More widely, the ruling raises serious questions about the role of national parliaments and the Lisbon Treaty - shouldn't similar democratic safeguards be required for national parliaments in all member states?

This message has been echoed by publications across Europe, with French newspaper L'Alsace saying, "The German court has signalled that it is necessary - and possible - to convey rights upon the national parliaments in European decision-making. It's a pity such a message was not evoked by France". Dutch magazine Elsevier wrote, "What does this judgment mean for the sovereignty of other member states? Should they not also build a guarantee into their own legislation in order to secure their right to self-determination?"

In an analysis in English, German weekly Der Spiegel noted that the decision "very elegantly demolishes the old European idea that the recognised democratic deficits in the EU would disappear completely of their own accord by enhancing the rights of the European Parliament".

We will very soon return with our analysis of this extremely important question, looking at exactly what the ruling said and what changes are expected to be made to the German system of parliamentary scrutiny of EU law in order for Lisbon to come into force.

But reading through the long, and often awkwardly-worded English version of the Court's decision throws up several devastating conclusions in there that have so far escaped attention.

In particular, the ruling confirms what Open Europe has long been arguing - the simple fact that the Lisbon Treaty's extension of majority voting to so many new policy areas (about 60), necessarily means less influence for national parliaments in policymaking. Advocates of the Treaty have tried to ignore this simple and very logical truth, but here we have it from the Court:

"The status of national parliaments is considerably curtailed by the reduction of decisions requiring unanimity and the suprantioanlisation of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters."

It also clearly states:

"The Treaty of Lisbon does not lead to a new level of development of democracy."

With all these 'ifs' and 'buts', it seems unsurprising that 77% of Germans want a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, according to our new poll.

FAQ: What is wrong with you people?

2009-07-10T14:35:00.005+01:00

In its fevered desperation to pass the Lisbon Treaty, the Irish government has now gone into total overkill.

In addition to its campaigning website on the Treaty itself, which is www.lisbontreaty.ie, and of course the suspiciously slick Generation Yes campaign, the Government has now launched yet another new website "to explain what the EU has done for Ireland." It is a frankly shocking example of propaganda financed by the public purse.

Absolutely no attempt is made to even pretend that this is neutral information written to help people's understanding of the EU (which we all agree is desperately needed).

Take this for example. Among the 10 'Frequently Asked Questions' about the EU are such gems as:

"Is the EU working to make sure my children's toys are safe?"

"What about the food I eat and the water I drink? How does the EU help to make them safer?"

and

"I bought a camera on my holidays last month in Spain, but it isn’t working. Does the shop in Spain have to fix it? "

Eh? Frequently asked questions? How about: "What is the European Commission" "What do MEPs actually do" and "What proportion of our laws are made in Brussels?"

This shameless, concerted and no doubt expensive brainwash campaign is the latest in a long, long list of examples of how too many people in positions that matter simply do not understand the desperate need for a fair and balanced debate about the EU and its future.

Not only that, but we also hear that crazed politicians around Europe have decided to have no qualms at all about wading right into the Irish debate and demanding that voters say yes - with the new EP President, Jerzy Buzek planning a trip.

All this is very depressing for a Friday afternoon.

This game is not over

2009-07-10T11:13:00.004+01:00

This is from Swedish Radio:

Swedish Employment Minister Sven-Otto Littorin - whose country currently is at the EU helm - will next week sit down for a talk with the new chairman of the European Parliament's employment committee (most likely an MEP from the EP's socialist bloc). The objective is to revive the negotiations over the EU's Working Time Directive. As we reported on extensively as the story line unfolded, the negotiations broke down in April following a disagreement between the EP and the Council over the right of British and other European workers to opt out of the EU's maximum 48 hour working week, entailed in the Directive.

We've estimated that the Working Time Directive as it currently applies in the UK is already costing the economy between £3.5 billion and £3.9 - a cost that could rise to between £9.2 billion and £11.9 billion should the opt-out be scrapped.

The Swedes, alongside several other European countries, are primarily interested in changing the rules in the WTD which define all time spent on-call as active working time - a rule that has messed up rota systems in health care sectors right across Europe, and cost taxpayers billions (the rules were introduced following two absolutely ludacrious rulings by the ECJ).

As several member states are using the opt-out primarily to get around the on-call time rules, we fear a future deal between ministers and MEPs, in which the European Parliament agrees to revise the on-call time provisions, in return for removing the opt-out altogether. Critically, the opt-out has been an obsession for the socialists in the EP for some time, and a surprising number of MEPs in the EPP are also in favour of seeing it go.

In such a horse-trading scenario, the UK could suddenly find itself terribly isolated. Is anyone in Whitehall paying attention?

Stark contrasts

2009-07-07T16:47:00.006+01:00

From very informative EU news site Euractiv:

France and Germany have apparently set up a 'working group' charged with ~~blocking reform of~~ outlining the future of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2013.

And there's little doubt over what the objective is. Following a meeting with President José Manuel Barroso last week, French Farm Minister Bruno Le Maire, bluntly said that "more regulation" will be France's guiding line in negotiations on the CAP.

The negotiations on the EU budget will kick off in November and, according to Euractiv, the Commission is due to table its first ideas on 'CAP reform' in September 2010. The franco-german 'working group' will now tour EU capitals, starting in London before going to Madrid, Rome, Bucharest and Warsaw, in a bid to convince EU partners of the undisputed advantages of the CAP (which, for example, include artificially high food prices, more global poverty, and allowing for non-farmers to be paid not to farm).

But quite apart from the issue itself, note the contrast between the franco-german approach to CAP negotiations and the UK Government's approach to the ongoing talks on more EU supervision and regulation of the financial markets - proposals with huge implications for the UK economy. We doubt that there were 'working groups' from the Treasury touring Europe to win support for the UK's position as these proposals were concieved (indeed many of them are still in the process of being worked out). It's widely acknowledged that Whitehall has struggled in putting its mark on the negotiations - despite the UK being home to by far the most important financial centre in Europe.

In fact, even the House of Lords EU select committee criticised the UK Government for being "behind the ball game" in the negotiations.

Perhaps the UK could learn a thing or two from the French here - at least when it comes to influencing the EU agenda at a much earlier stage, particularly in policy areas that are so significant for the UK economy.

Wish you were here

2009-07-07T11:07:00.006+01:00

The Irish government is planning to spend millions of euros of taxpayers' money going all-out with a ~~propaganda~~ postcard campaign which aims to "explain" the so-called 'guarantees' offered to Ireland in return for holding a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Judging by the language on the Irish government's own Lisbon Treaty site, the information will be highly subjective, 100% positive about Lisbon, and there will be no opportunity for opponents to offer an alternative view. Sounds like a very fair way to spend public money.

The government is telling a lot of porkies and getting away with it. For instance, the Irish Times today unblinkingly reports that "The guarantees on taxation, on the protection of the right to life, the family and education and Irish neutrality will become legally binding, the Government says, immediately once the treaty enters into force." This is completely untrue - how can they become 'immediately' binding, when they have to wait for the next EU Treaty - probably the Croatian Accession Treaty, which might not materialse for years? Particularly given the current border dispute with Slovenia.

And while we're on this subject of what 'legally-binding' - the catchphrase of the moment - actually means, so far, nobody, including our own Foreign Secretary David Miliband, has been able to explain exactly why, if the guarantees are 'legally-binding' from the moment the Lisbon Treaty enters into force, they also then need to be ratified into EU law at a later date in the form of a protocol? See here for how the Irish government fails to answer the question.

one to watch

2009-07-03T18:21:00.006+01:00

We've just come across an interesting piece on PA which says that this man, Jacques Attali, has claimed that Margaret Thatcher's famous budget rebate "victory" in Europe 25 years ago was actually a defeat which left her broken and "in tears".

He was a senior adviser to President Francois Mitterrand when Thatcher demanded "my money back" at an EU summit in Fontainebleau in 1984.

Now 65, he has said that Thatcher lost the rebate battle because she had to accept only half of her "embarrassing" demands.

On the BBC's Today Programme Attali said:

You will find the minutes of the discussion in one of my books... where you will see that Mrs Thatcher was asking something like 2000 ecus (a pre-single currency European accounting unit) and she ended up crying, crying in the middle of the meeting, accepting, begging half of it.

He contnued:

"Actually she cried. Mitterrand told me 'She's broken like a piece of glass'. And she actually was. I was surprised to see that, she was really broken when she accepted the final deal."

Mr Attali says the French considered the amount as not much more than "a tip", and in the end the rebate issue was just "an embarrassing appendix" at the Fontainebleau summit.

He explained:

"It was embarrassing begging for a tip and then we gave them (the UK government) half of the tip that she was requesting and we went on to very more serious issues."

Not quite getting it

2009-07-02T18:24:00.007+01:00

As noted previously, Sweden is now at the helm of the EU. For those of you not familar with the country's position on the EU, it can basically be summarised as follows: pretty much on track on individual EU policies (such as financial regulation, the EU budget and labour market regulation) - but lost on the big institutional questions - such as the Lisbon Treaty.

For instance check this out - it's from a magazine commissioned by the Swedish government to inform us about its Presidency. One of the articles, looking at the Lisbon Treaty, is particularly revealing. Torbjörn Haak - Deputy Head of the EU Coordination Secretariat at the (Swedish) Prime Minister’s Office - has clearly not quite grasped the debate surrounding the Lisbon Treaty - or how politically charged it is. Neither has the journalist writing on the government's behalf.

The article informs us that:

"Being the civil servant he is, Torbjörn Haak avoids taking a political stance but notes that the Lisbon Treaty gives both the European Parliament and national parliaments more power.
'It’s not a question of a massive transfer of power to Brussels,' he says. 'It doesn’t introduce any broad new policy areas.' But, he adds, national parliaments will be able to keep a check on their governments' EU policies and will also be able to scrutinise legislative proposals from the European Commission."

Ha! No, not political at all. Never mind this week's ruling from the German Constitutional Court, which alluded to the potentially detrimental effect the Lisbon Treaty will have on national parliaments. And never mind the damning verdict by the UK Commons European Scrutiny Committee, which said the Treaty offered no significant new powers for national parliaments. (See here for why national parliaments will in fact lose influence under Lisbon).

Failing to recognise one of the most basic politcal disagreements on the Lisbon Treaty at this particular moment in history is simply not okay - for key civil servants and journalists alike.

Sweden is a voice of reason on many issues in the EU. With the Lisbon Treaty now firmly on the home stretch, there couldn't be a better time for the country to start applying some of that reason to this vital debate.

Bye bye Blair?

2009-07-02T14:29:00.007+01:00

We have learnt from the Indy this morning that Tony Blair may not have the job as EU President as sewn up as he would like.

Despite reports last month that David Cameron had said he would "not oppose" Blair becoming the EU's first full-time President if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified this year, it will not all be plain sailing.

Nicolas Sarkozy has thrown his support behind Felipe Gonzalez, the former long-serving (13 years!) Spanish Prime Minister. Gonzalez's spokesman reportedly said that "M.Sarkozy is in favour of Mr Gonzalez's candidature once the Lisbon Treaty is passed."

The article cites Le Monde's former editor Jean-Marie Colombani saying that M. Sarkozy is the key to the power game and political horse-trading over who will eventually seize the job.

We should mention that Gonzalez has reportedly, however, said he does not aspire to the job, so it might still be a clear field for Blair all the way to Brussels...

Heja Sverige

2009-07-01T17:35:00.004+01:00

As Sweden takes up the EU hotseat today, we've published a guide to the Swedish EU Presidency, looking at the various nettles it will have to grasp - from the negotiations on the Lisbon Treaty and its impact on the EU's institutional setup (if it gets passed), to the slew of financial regulations and the efforts to reach agreement in time for the Copenhagen summit on climate change at the end of the year.

If the EU ~~bullies~~ leaders get their way, and Ireland votes 'yes' to Lisbon, this will be the last time a small EU country like Sweden will get to set the agenda in Europe for a very, very long time.

McCreevy to spend his summer reading Lisbon

2009-06-29T15:41:00.006+01:00

Charlie McCreevy is an honest man.

As well as putting his foot in it by saying that 95% of the rest of Europe would have voted against the Lisbon Treaty if they'd been given the chance, and that most heads of state are glad they didn't have to actually ask the people, the Irish EU Commissioner has also proudly defended referendums in the democratic process. He said:

"I've never been ashamed to stand up for the way we do our business here. We do it by referendum. That's democracy."

According to a different source at the Irish Times his words were:

“We might not like the result on occasion . . . but that’s democracy and we should not be ashamed of it."

He also said there had been much greater debate in Ireland than in any other member state -(something we at OE have recently pointed out in the FT and on our blog) He said:

“Everybody says we do not know enough about Europe. I can tell you in my humble opinion that the ordinary people of Ireland know a damn sight more about the intricacies of the European framework than nearly all the members of the other 27 states.”

But not only that - he also appeared to confess that he still hasn't read the Lisbon Treaty

The Irish Times reports:

"Asked after the event by Today FM had he read the treaty since admitting during last year’s campaign that he had not read it from cover to cover, he replied: 'I am going to stay up every night during every day of the summer reading chapters. I will put questions to every journalist I meet asking them what different subsections mean. A lot of that is political nonsense.'”

We can't quite decide what's more astonishing about all this. The fact that Ireland's own EU Commissioner has clearly not read nor tried to understand the Treaty, or the fact that he is willing to admit it in public. Or maybe it's the fact that that people in their millions are not yet jumping up and down about this seriously ridiculous situation.

Bruce Arnold, at least, made an almighty case against the stitch-up in Saturday's Irish Independent, writing under the headline "Government has abandoned democracy to get a 'yes' vote".

Criticising the failure of the main opposition parties, Labour and Fine Gael, to hold the government to account, he noted:

"The duty of those two opposition parties, with the others, is not to side with the Government -- certainly if its objectives are spurious -- but to hold it to account. Their job is to ensure that we put before the people a fair, objective choice."

He said:

"There is growing government determination to run the referendum campaign with huge, illegal support from the EU, preventing people from knowing what is in the treaty and what it means. This is what the debate is about."

"The EU meeting they attended was designed to involve Europe in an entirely domestic Irish issue: that of Ireland deciding on its future in Europe. The EU should not be so involved; it is not its decision, it is ours. Yet Europe, at the top of its totalitarian structure, is up to its neck in such involvement, already committing huge sums of money to pervert democracy in the one country among 27 that can hold back this surge, this tidal wave of pernicious autocracy."

And concluded:

"We have to decide, for ourselves and for other benighted member states who have been denied any process of deciding these questions democratically, whether we want to create a super-power and ever afterwards to be subservient to it."

Adding to the case against this charade, columnist Maurice Hayes, also at the Irish Independent, wrote:

"The clarifications [protocols] in this case are less an explanation of what is in the treaty, than an affirmation of what is not. More nuanced it may be, but the question remains the same -- as does the treaty."

Ireland you are not alone

2009-06-26T15:32:00.006+01:00

Following calls from several corners in Germany for more referendums on EU issues, and with the German Constitutional Court due to rule on the compatability of the Lisbon Treaty with the German Constitution next week, Open Europe today publishes a new poll of German voters, which shows that 77% of them want a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

See here to read the press release, which also has some background details.

Interesting to note that EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has weighed into the Irish debate again today and remarked that voters in most other EU countries would also have voted no to the Treaty, if only they had been given a say. He added that many EU leaders were glad they had no legal obligation to hold referendums on the Treaty in their own countries.

Too right. Back in 2007 Open Europe conducted the first ever independent poll of all 27 EU countries, and found that an average of 75% of all Europeans want a referendum on any new Treaty which transfers power to the EU (ie Lisbon) - and a clear majority in every single country. There was also no clear majority in favour of such a treaty - respondents were equally split with 41% saying they would vote in favour of a treaty that transferred more powers to the EU level, and 41% saying they would vote against.

This is not the first time Charlie McCreevy has scored an own goal for the EU cause, having admitted during the first referendum campaign in Ireland that he hadn't actually read the text (just like the Prime Minister, Brian Cowen).

It won't be long before old Charlie is told to get back in his box, before he does too much damage with his honesty.

Seeing sense

2009-06-26T14:56:00.005+01:00

This editorial in the Wall Street Journal today is so spot on we are copying and pasting the whole thing here. It takes up some of the same arguments made in Open Europe's recent briefing on the outcome of the latest EU ~~stitch up~~ summit.

In some countries they rig votes, in the European Union they repeat votes to get the desired result.

After Ireland last year rejected the EU's Lisbon Treaty -- itself a rehashed carbon-copy of the EU Constitution that Dutch and French voters rebuffed in 2005 -- the Irish are being asked to reconsider. There will be another referendum in early October, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said Wednesday, and this time the Irish are expected to get it right. In Europe, they don't take "no" for an answer.

Proponents say the Lisbon Treaty is key to reforming the squeaky institutions of the 27-member union. Skeptics, including a majority in Ireland, see a significant power grab. The Treaty gives the EU a nonelected president, a quasi foreign minister, a beefier defense and foreign policy and fewer national vetoes in a number of policy areas.

To justify a revote, EU leaders put on a big show at last week's summit, giving the impression of tough negotiations in which Dublin supposedly won important concessions. The main prize Mr. Cowen took home is a protocol that claims to address Irish concerns, such as worries that the Treaty would allow the EU to meddle in Irish taxation, abortion issues, workers rights and neutrality.

Oh really? According to the EU summit's own conclusions, the protocol "will clarify but not change either the content or the application of the Treaty of Lisbon." So the Irish will vote on the same text they previously rejected by a seven-percentage-point margin despite assurances by their government as recently as last month that this would not happen.

In the year since the last vote, the Irish economy has tanked, and a pro-Brussels vote this time is possible if only because many Irish worry that the EU may abandon them in their economic hour of need. It's a fear the government knows how to exploit. A precondition for economic recovery, Mr. Cowen said Wednesday, is to "remove the doubt about where our country stands in relation to Europe."

Just a couple of weeks ago the bien pensants in Brussels bemoaned the success of euroskeptics in European Parliamentary elections. This latest run-around on the Lisbon Treaty for the purpose of boosting the power of the EU at the expense of individual states is not the way to create more europhiles.

City of Europe

2009-06-26T09:43:00.008+01:00

This week the IHT reported that the EU had recruited French architect Christian de Portzamparc "to devise a comprehensive, 15-year plan" for Brussels "that would not only create new office space but also provide an architectural framework symbolizing the European Union."

Portzamparc said:

"I thought of a big and beautiful idea, that took this historic axis, linking the old and the new. It would be a city of Europe, with lots of periods present. It's a formidable opportunity... I told them it should be like a downtown American city, with three skyscrapers, yes, but with open islands, keeping historic buildings, with pocket parks."

The idea to transform Brussels into the "city of Europe" has been around for a while - but not yet picked up anywhere in the British press.

The Commission calls it “Operation Face-lift”. And the Commissioner in charge says the idea of the project is “to create an urban design with a strong symbolic identity”. They want to more than double the office area occupied by the Commission in Brussels, from 170,000 square metres to 400,000. According to German magazine Spiegel that's 10,000 extra offices for the swelling tribe of bureaucrats, as well as 40,000 square meters of commercial space and 110,000 square meters of apartments. "The idea is that EU administrators can stay in their idyll even after the workday ends. They can shop, go for a beer and even go home to bed all within the European Quarter."

Spiegel notes:

“All of this construction will cost hundreds of millions of euros, possibly even billions. There are no exact numbers for the project at this early planning stage, not even estimates. The necessary funds will be added into the budget later, little by little and in manageable amounts. By then, presumably, today's building dreams will long since be yesterday's decisions and by their own intrinsic momentum they will prevail against any critics and skeptics. So far, at any rate, only a few Members of the European Parliament have even raised an objection to the delusions of grandeur in Brussels.

That is hardly surprising. After all the planners and developers in the Commission, Council and Parliament like to abide by a tried and tested principle: More offices mean more EU.”

We called the relevant Commission department and an official said it is too early to give any estimation of costs, as no concrete proposals for building have been issued. He also said the winner of the competition has teamed up with several other architects to draft a proposal, but they are not receiving any funding by the European Commission. However it’s pretty clear the cost of the building will come out of the EU budget.

The next steps of the project are:
2009: further work on the urban design
2009 – 2011: realisation of a binding urban plan
from 2011: construction of new buildings.

The Commission currently already occupies 61 buildings in Brussels, and a press release from the Commission in March tells us that it spent €206.9 million in buildings in Brussels alone in 2008 – including EUR 77.4 million in rent and EUR 129.5 million in expenditure on property purchases.

According to the BBC, the last renovation of the Commission (the 15-year resurrection of the asbestos-ridden Berlaymont) cost a billion euros.

Spiegel also notes that:

“In addition, the EU Commission has another large-scale construction project in its sights. This one is to be erected four kilometers away, behind the outline of the Atomium, Brussels' symbol from the 1958 World's Fair. There are plans to build a conference center here with capacity for 3,500 visitors, as well as a gigantic shopping mall and Belgium's largest parking lot. The new location would also place a further 300,000 square meters of office space -- an area the size of 40 soccer fields -- at the EU Commission's disposal.”

EUobserver wrote about this in January, and noted that a German MEP had criticised the Commission for secrecy in the decision-making process. She also claimed that one of the Commissioner’s special advisors, Richard Boomer, is a Belgian real estate developer whose partner was one of the authors of the proposal for this project.

Busted

2009-06-25T09:20:00.009+01:00

Oh dear - the new 'Generation Yes' campaign in Ireland has fallen at its first hurdle.

Its 'Fight the Lies' page states:

"The Irish people deserve an honest debate on this Treaty, we promise that our campaign will base all our arguments on the facts, and will reference all our statements.

We don’t believe in attacking people personally, but we have zero tolerance for anyone who lies to the Irish people in this campaign. When people make false statements, we will respond immediately with the truth."

Sounds good.

And yet the first question on the FAQ section says:

"Are there any changes since last time we voted?"

"Yes there will be changes to the Treaty, which means there is a new deal on offer."

Uh-uh. An enormous, devastating, and unforgivable porky!

The conclusions of the EU summit last week clearly state:

“The Protocol will clarify but not change either the content or the application of the Treaty of Lisbon."

If that's not enough for you, then how about this:

“the text of the guarantees explicitly states that the Lisbon Treaty is not changed thereby”.
- EU Presidency statement following the outcome of the summit

"The summit conclusions set out the fact that the protocol does not change the relationship between the European Union and the member states, and that the protocol clarifies but does not change the content and application of the Treaty... The Treaty assurances have made explicit what was implicit in the Treaty already."
- Gordon Brown

“Nothing in the declarations materially affects the treaty text. If there was a material difference, then the Treaty would have to be re-ratified in all the other member states”.
- Patrick Smyth, Brussels Correspondant for the Irish Times

"From the French point of view, there are no difficulties with these guarantees since they only repeat and clarify the content of the treaties, without adding anything nor taking anything away... This does not pose problems for us because this protocol says nothing more, nothing less than what is in the Treaty."
- Then-French Europe Minister Bruno LeMaire

“The European Council agreed a package of measures to offer Ireland the reassurances that it needed on the Lisbon treaty covering taxation, defence, social issues and the size of the Commission. These do not change the Lisbon treaty… 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.”
- UK Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch Brown

“At the European Council on 11-12 December 2008, all countries agreed that there could be no change or amendment to the Lisbon Treaty and that we should proceed to ratification.”
- Then-UK Europe Minister Caroline Flint

"The guarantees do not change the Lisbon treaty itself in any respect. They have the character of explanatory assurances. In other words, the Irish guarantees only confirm and explain what is already in the text of the Lisbon treaty."
- Czech Europe Minister Stefan Fuele

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. 'Fight the Lies' eh. Wonder what else they have got wrong - after all, this is pretty much the central, most important point of the whole argument.

Because the Irish government explicitely promised not to make people vote on exactly the same text - recognising that this would be a ridiculous and wholly unacceptable thing to do after they had already rejected it.

"We will not be asking people to vote on the same proposition.”
- Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin

“Our partners understand, I believe, that we cannot and will not put the same package to our people later this year.”
- Irish Europe Minister Dick Roche

If you want the truth on the Lisbon Treaty 'deal', check out our briefing:
http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/irishguarantees.pdf

Promotion for trying to kill the opt-out?

2009-06-24T17:40:00.006+01:00

PA reports that Labour MEP for the North East of England Stephen Hughes has been made Vice-President of the ~~Party of European Socialists~~ the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

You may recall that Stephen Hughes is the MEP who led the charge to end the UK's opt-out from the Working Time Directive - trying to link it with teenage pregnancy when he told the Today programme,

"I think another useful study might be to look at the correlation between very long working time in Britain and teenage pregnancy, social dysfunction; a whole range of social indices that might well suffer as a consequence of the long working hours in Britain."

Could this be his promotion for trying to kill the opt-out?

Brown reiterates Lisbon remains unchanged

2009-06-23T19:21:00.003+01:00

According to PA, Gordon Brown today confirmed in Parliament that the 'guarantees' given to Ireland would "clarify but not change" the Lisbon Treaty.

David Cameron pointed out that the claim that the guarantees made no change to the Treaty would be received with "great interest" by the Irish people.

He also demanded:

"Why are Irish voters being forced to give their views twice when the British people haven't been asked for their views once? Will you explain why the protocols won't be debated or put into place until the next countries join the EU. Isn't it the case the Government wants to delay this until after the next election. They don't want the embarrassment of having to vote yet again in the Commons to deny people the referendum they originally promised."

Very, very worrying

2009-06-23T12:46:00.004+01:00

A headline in the Irish Independent this morning cheerfully tells us:

"Cowen says he has now read the full text of Treaty"

Well done!

So the guy who has been frightening the whole of Ireland about the 'disasters' of rejecting Lisbon didn't actually know what was in it? The guy who insitsts those calling for a 'no' vote don't know what they're talking about, hadn't actually read the thing himself?

Absolutely unbelievable. And we thought Caroline Flint was bad.

Why on earth should anyone trust this man to know what's best - he clearly didn't the last time around.

Ni plus ni moins

2009-06-22T16:55:00.003+01:00

Further evidence that the Irish will be voting on exactly the same text of the Lisbon Treaty that they have already rejected comes from French Europe Minister Bruno Le Maire:

"From the French point of view, there are no difficulties with these guarantees since they only repeat and clarify the content of the treaties, without adding anything nor taking anything away... This does not pose problems for us because this protocol says nothing more, nothing less than what is in the Treaty."

Cowen, you leave with nothing

2009-06-19T18:06:00.005+01:00

The conclusions of the EU summit have finally arrived. Despite a whole year of promising to respect the Irish no vote, EU leaders have decided not to change a single word of the Lisbon Treaty to reflect Irish concerns, and instead will hand it back to them to vote on exactly as it was before. There won't even be the shifting of paragraphs around that we saw after the French and the Dutch voted no to the original EU Constitution. That would have caused too many headaches for other EU leaders - any changes at all to the text mean that the whole thing has to be ratified again.

The Council decided on a list of declarations, but because these have absoultely no force in EU law, they will need to be ratified by all member states at a future date - and EU leaders have decided that should be done alongside ratification of the Croatian Accession Treaty - whenever that comes along.

A huge question mark therefore hangs over whether or not the declarations will ever actually become legally-binding (any member state could in future decide not to bother ratifying, or a Parliament might reject the Treaty), but as the conclusions themselves acknowledge, even if they do enter EU law, they do absolutely nothing to change the text of the Lisbon and how it applies in Ireland. This is because, unlike in 1992 when Denmark got opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty after it was rejected in a referendum, Ireland is seeeking no opt-outs at all from the Treaty - not even on the thorny issue of the mutual defence clause, which experts say is incompatible with Irish neutrality.

This is a disaster for Brian Cowen. Nothing at all in the Treaty has been changed - Irish people now have even more reason to vote no than they did the last time, because now it's clearer than ever that the EU has not a shred of respect for their concerns.

See here for our analysis of the outcome: http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/irishguarantees.pdf

Round 2 kicks off

2009-06-18T18:21:00.004+01:00

While EU leaders meet today to discuss how to best pretend that they are going to present a different Treaty to the Irish a second time around, Open Europe held an event at The Centre in Brussels, in collaboration with the Bertelsmann Foundation.

We will write more tomorrow about exactly what is being cooked up by EU leaders, and what it all means, but in the meantime, here is a summary of what went on at the event.

Newly elected MEP Joe Higgins, for the Irish Socialist Party, kicked off by pointing out that the debate about what Ireland will do next is not about whether the people want to leave the EU, but rather about what direction the EU was heading. He said, “There are many red-herrings on both sides of the debate”, and described the process going on behind closed doors today at the European Council as “an elaborate charade” to make people think they will be voting on a different text a second time around. He noted that, according to the draft conclusions of the Council, the Treaty itself will not be changed prior to the second referendum, saying the agreement "doesn't advance the issue one iota." He noted, “It is exactly the same text, word by word, not even a comma has been changed”, and noting that none of the Irish people's real concerns are addressed.

When questioned by a Commission official in the audience about why we should bother referendums, when "nobody votes on the question asked", Mr. Higgins said it was "highly arrogant" for someone from the Commission, or indeed anyone else, to stand up and claim that the Irish people had no idea what they were voting for. He said that the results of the vote were barely through before people started calling for a re-vote, and noted: "The right of Irish people to disagree was being questioned." He noted that ahead of the second referendum, the establishment would "terrorise the Irish because of the Irish crash" in the economy. He said this would be "the biggest red-herring of all" in the debate, and challenged proponents of the Treaty to clarify what exactly in the Treaty would help to stop people in Ireland losing their jobs.

Elmar Brok, veteran German MEP for the CDU Christian Democratic Party, kciked off by issuing a series of morbid veiled threats :

1) the Irish people were responsible for the fate of 500 million EU citizens (no pressure, then)

2) “You get this, or you get nothing", there is “no chance of negotiating a new Treaty”

3) If Ireland votes no, the Union would see a “break up into first and second class Member States”, which would distort proper functioning of the EU.

He said: “United we can be stronger, together we can maintain peace and prosperity” and said the guarantees Ireland have been promised would be carried out in a similar way to those awarded to Denmark at the Maastricht ratification process in 1992. “These types of declarations have worked before, and there is no reason to believe they wouldn’t work again. They are legally binding declarations and have been a big success”.

Jens-Peter Bonde reacted from the audience, stating that “EU Member States cannot enter into international agreements”. He said: “These declarations are politically binding, but they have no legal value. All of the Danish ‘guarantees’ have been breached, every single one of them, so they are not legally binding guarantees”. Brok's pretty feeble response was: "This decision will become a protocol and then it will become legally-binding."

Paddy Smyth, Brussels correspondent for the Irish Times said, “it is not undemocratic to ask the people to vote again. I would agree with Joe; nothing has changed in relation to the declarations. It is a question of clarifications entirely, apart from the guarantee of an Irish commissioner”.

For an unswerving advocate of the Treaty, this is quite candid stuff. He said: “Nothing in the declarations materially affects the treaty text. If there was a material difference, then the Treaty would have to be re-ratified in all the other member states” and said that “the difference to the Danish case is that Denmark got an opt-out, which was a material change in effect”.

Smyth pointed out the differences between the yes and no campaigns for the Lisbon Treaty, stating that “the yes-campaign was a defensive campaign addressing those issues raised by the opposition to the treaty, such as abortion or workers’ rights. Many of the proponents of the Treaty had not read it and didn’t understand it to properly defend it”. The no campaign, he claims, will “gain much steadier ground through the debate around the guarantees”.

The Daily Telegraph Brussels correspondent Bruno Waterfield said that in one sense, it was “great to have a second chance for a debate, especially when other countries haven’t had the chance for even one”. He argued that the “EU is a club of leaders and administrators that are running away from debate, and rely on legal forms and arguments. But no one really understands them, and they don’t really mean anything”.

He said: “now is the time for an open and honest debate, an open debate about Europe, but it should not be governed by legal nonsense. The sad thing is that the EU, which is supposed to be about the rule of law, is tying itself in knots to obfuscate politics. The guarantees say more about what the Irish people want, in a kind of a cartoon depiction of what the leaders think the Irish referendum was about”. Waterfield concluded by saying it was indeed necessary to have this debate, particularly in a time of economic crisis.

Euro election results reflect... views on Europe

2009-06-12T17:17:00.003+01:00

There's loads of interesting stuff in this new YouGov poll for Channel 4. 32,268 people were polled online between 29th May and 4th June, right before the elections.

Some notable EU questions:

Q: If you do vote in the European Parliament elections will you be voting mainly...?

To influence the composition of the European Parliament - 23%
To express your views on the political scene here in Britain - 30%
To express your views on Britain's relations with Europe - 35%
Not sure - 12%

It's no surprise that most people were not - shock horror! - voting to actually influence the makeup of the European Parliament, but it is very interesting to see that people did in fact use the vote to express their views on Britain's relations with Europe. A very common complaint from the Commission, the European Parliament, Labour, Lib Dems and all the other ever closer unionists is that people use European elections not to think about Europe but to deliver a verdict on the current domestic situation. This is especially true this year, with the UK political scene in meltdown and everyone talking about the (mostly UKIP) 'protest vote'. These results turn that argument on its head.

Secondly, the poll also showed that 39 percent agree with the statement “The UK should withdraw completely from the European Union”, compared to 38 percent who disagreed, and 16 percent who said they neither agreed nor disagreed. 22 percent agreed strongly.

And it shows that while the vast majority of people think that rules governing trade with the rest of the world , and measures to combat pollution, climate change and global warming should be decided at EU level, rather than by each country on its own, an overwhelming majority (78%) believe that immigration policies should be decided not by the EU as a whole but by individual countries. (A seperate question finds that 61% of people agree that "All further immigration to the UK should be halted.")

Only 27 percent agreed that “The existence of the EU promotes prosperity throughout Europe”, compared with 37 percent who disagreed. 80 percent agreed there was some truth in the statement: “A great majority of the important decisions that affect our daily life are taken by the European Union, not by Britain’s parliaments, assemblies or councils.”

With hindsight

2009-06-10T19:01:00.004+01:00

Back in April, we urged our supporters to write to their MPs (again) to ask them what they made of comments made by veteran Labour MP Alice Mahon, who had resigned from the party in disillusionment with the Government's failure to deliver on promises in the 2005 Labour manifesto, including a referendum on the EU Constitution - renamed the Lisbon Treaty.

We asked our supporters to send us any replies they received. For the most part, they were predictable, with the vast majority of Labour and Lib Dems MPs rolling out the same tired old lie that the Treaty was significantly different from the original EU Constitution.

However, sifting through the piles there are a couple worthy of note. To borrow from an old phrase, a month is a long time in politics, and some of the responses look that bit more interesting in the context of the upheavals of the last couple of weeks.

One is from Dr. Ian Gibson, the Labour MP forced to resign over questionable expense claims and barred from standing again as a Labour MP. He was loyal to the Government back in March last year and obediently voted against a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Parliament . However, needled on it by a constituent in April this year, he sounds a lot less sure of himself, and shows he basically hasn't got a clue. He says:

“Thank you for your letter regarding the Lisbon Treaty. I acknowledge your concerns on this issue and I have written to the Government to state why they have not proceeded with a referendum on the treaty.”

He then sent another letter which said:

"My position on a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is that it is irrelevant to a certain extent. My point being is that there needs to be a full debate on Europe as whole (sic) with a subsequent referendum on the issue. Both arguments must be heard and the public must be comprehensively informed but I think it is important that this subject is resolved once and for all."

In a similarly confused (and illiterate) email he told another constituent (this is copied and pasted in exactly as he wrote it):

"There will be atime for a referendum but there has not been a seriousdebate where all sides of the argument are put It reqires an honestdebate based on facts I believe it is an issue which will be seriouslydebated in the next few years"

Clear as a bell, eh. Forwarding the messages on, the first constituent told us:

"I detect a big embarrassment in his words 'I acknowledge' - he has never used them before in his previous reply letters on other subjects! So he is very worried about his election local majority prospects... Recently he has spent a lot of effort in the local newspapers trying to distance himself from the expenses scandal, and is now suddenly very supportive of any local issue – very worried about his future!"

Quite!

A much more intriguing one was from Jon Cruddas MP, a good guy who unfortunately in the end did not vote in favour of a referendum last year. He said:

"I think we have to wait for what happens in Ireland- but think a vote is still a possibility- but will look into it again".

Very interesting.

But probably our favorite response is this one-liner from Conservative MP Douglas Hogg, whose constituent simultaneously asked him about "ending the abuse of MPs' expenses". Remember this was back in April, before we found out, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph, that The Rt. Hon Mr. Hogg had kindly billed the taxpayer for the cost of clearing his moat, tuning his piano and having stable lights fixed at his country manor house.

Mr. Hogg told his constituent:

"I am in favour of a refendum and the abuses do need to be curbed."

Better fall into line, Glenys

2009-06-09T18:23:00.005+01:00

It's a good job that Lady Kinnock was not Europe Minister this time last year when the Government was falling over itself to persuade us that the ~~EU Constitution~~ Lisbon Treaty was nothing to bother our little wooden heads about.

One particularly misleading and often repeated claim was that the Treaty secured Britain's veto in foreign policy - that "unanimity in decision-making will remain the rule (i.e. the UK will hold a veto)", as the FCO told a Commons inquiry.

The Lib Dems argued the same thing:

Ed Davey: "The changes wrought by the treaty involve no new powers for Brussels but a simple and sensible reallocation of powers between those responsible for this area of policy. Foreign and security policy remains, as it always has been, in the control of member states. Britain controls its veto on all key decisions."

Interesting then to see Glenys telling the Fabian Society:

"Vetoes are a problem in foreign policy. We need the foreign policy reforms which were in the Constitutional Treaty".

Indeed. As we have long argued, the Treaty, just like the Constitution that preceded it, introduces majority voting into a dozen areas of foreign policy (See page 3 here).

Kinnock's life as a European

2009-06-09T10:37:00.005+01:00

Check out this blatent example of EU propaganda, found on the website of our New Europe Minister Glenys Kinnock (or is she?) "My life as a European" is a pamphlet produced by the Party of European Socialists, using public money channelled through the European Parliament.

If the idea was to provide information, then fair enough. But as it explains:

"The aim of this story is to tell you about their day-to-day lives and those of their friends and acquaintances, and to show you the benefits brought about by the European Union, the European Parliament and especially the Parliamentary Group of the Party of European Socialists."

For more on why we think this is an unacceptable use of public money, see our research on the EU's £2bn yearly campaign for hearts and minds.

Slowly does it...

2009-06-07T21:03:00.006+01:00

It's 11pm and there's still barely any results from the UK elections to the European Parliament. Other countries, including France, Germany and Poland, which voted today, as opposed to on Thursday, have already published theirs.

As of 11pm the only definitive UK results are:

Labour keep the Northeast (down 9%) coming top (Hughes), while the Tories came second (up 1%) (Callanan), and then the Lib Dems (Hall) (0%). As 3 seats are up for grabs within a PR system, all three get a seat.

It's obviously likely to be all downhill from here for Labour, however.

There's been a record low turnout at 43% across Europe - down from 45% in the 2004 elections. And there seems to be a perhaps counter-intuitive surge in support for centre-right parties, at the expense of the Left.

See here for the BBC page which will update as the results (finally) come in.

In the studio, Emily Maitlis is using Open Europe's figures published on Friday which show that each MEP costs EU taxpayers an enormous £1.8m a year - research also discussed in detail today on Andrew Pierce's show on LBC Radio.

Meanwhile, the Democracy Movement have published a good argument why the likely results show Gordon Brown must not now "indulge with his fellow members of Europe's political elite in another bout of 'carry on regardless'" when he goes to the EU summit the week after next - when the details of how Ireland will be bullied into ratifying the Lisbon Treaty will be hammered out.