The Lisbon Treaty takes one step forward and two back as the German Constitutional Court accepts that the Treaty is accordable with the German constitution but requires that the German Parliament has strengthened powers and initiatives. These changes in the relationship of the German nation state with the federalised European state that the Lisbon Treaty seeks to establish are required before the Treaty can be ratified and deposited in Rome.
The WSJ reports that in its ruling, the court found that:
"the substance of German state authority is protected" in the treaty. It said any decisions on transferring powers to the EU will be made "in a controlled and responsible manner."
The judges did, however, find fault with an accompanying law drawn up by the German government on the rights of the Parliament in Berlin. Those rights:
"have not been elaborated to the constitutionally required extent" and that needs to be cleared up before ratification is completed, they ruled.
So the Irish are to retain control over taxation, neutrality and abortion, if they accept the Treaty at all at the second time of asking. While the Germans retain the control of the German Parliament over any aspect of the Lisbon Treaty that falls under their Constitution and its competence and guarantees.
What has the United Kingdom retained?
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6 comments:
The answer as to what the UK has retained can be found here
http://www.brugesgroup.com/LisbonTreaty.pdf
Actually if you search through the Treaty with "Germany" and the "United Kingdom" you will find that the UK has retained a lot more - and all that Germany seems to have kept are some provsions on Schengen and reunification. All the provisions about Parlimentary Sovereignty are common to Germany and the UK - so it is interesting and somewhat counter to current thinking hereabouts to see that the that the Treaty protects the substance of German/UK state authority.
Isn't it Europhiles who are usually accused of not reading the Treaty?
The difference being that Germany has not wrecked its constitution and the Treaty stands before a seriously protected state, whose Constitutional Court has just ordered further explicit powers retained from any European federalisation.
The state of Germany and the state of the United Kingdom are not on equal terms and there is little substance to UK state authority any more.
Are you attempting to state that Angels have not read the Treaty and that, further, Angels are anti the European Union? If so you are quite wrong. For Germany, Italy and France the European Union is an institution built to order. A more inappropriate joining than that of the United Kingdom to the European Union would be difficult to imagine. That is why our constitution is being deconstructed and replaced with nothing - nothing democratic and pluralist in the form of controls over EU interference in our democracy.
You are entitled to you views about the impact of the EU on the UK's constitutional position - but it is difficult to argue that the Treaty, in itself, has more impact on the UK position than other member states. I suspect that like many others your motives is to remove the UK from the EU - and your interest in the LIsbon Treaty is only as a possible means to that end.
Perhaps if we are to stay as a member of the Club, as is the official policy of all the 3 main political parties, then a more constructive approach to the Treaty, and other EU reforms, is required than to try and use it as a wreckers charter. Perhaps we should appreciate how such behaviour is seen by other members of the club?
Time to cut the rope.
http://www.billtidy.com/uploadedfiles/mrbear.jpg
...a more constructive approach to the Treaty, and other EU reforms, is required than to try and use it as a wreckers charter. Perhaps we should appreciate how such behaviour is seen by other members of the club?.
Indeed. But as the United Kingdom - or should the term 'Britain', so representative of this stance, be used? - DOES wreck the European Union and its purposes, intends to try to use Lisbon to wreck further, and is recognised for what it does, and is, you should not be suspicious that Angels wants the UK out. You should be certain.
Europeans do not want 'Britain' in the EU. And citizens of the United Kingdom do not want to be there either. Bit like Scotland in the federated Great Britain really. So lets all have a vote, Europeans as well (and for that matter the English on Scottish separation from the UK, as well as the Scots) and leave each other alone.
You, S, would know better than most the chasm that separates the United Kingdom and a German-led continental Europe.
Both have their points but there is now way those points an be reconciled. Both lose.
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