What will be signed-up to will be a simple statement of intent to move European Union governance into greater transparency and ordered simplification. The Charter of Fundamental Rights will be accepted by all but the United Kingdom, which will have an optout; this optout from the Charter is already agreed and the window dressing is the written-in explicit confirmation of the optout, which will be emphasized in the English press as standing out for the defence of the common law and the provisions for the 'war against terror'. The text of the Charter will be accessed by a single clause in the Treaties but not embodied there.
Much of the agreed text of the new Treaty will be consolidation and cleaning up of extant treaties - the Treaty on the European Union, and the Treaty on the establishing of the European Community; there will be two Supplementary Protocols by which innovations to these two treaties will be adopted and ratified together with the new Treaty - A Protocol on the Functioning of the Union and, A Protocol on the Developments of the Union's Policies in Order to Meet the Challenges of the XXIst Century. This last will provide the structural framework for innovations to be agreed at future IGCs (intergovernmental conferences).
So after the consolidation of the amendments introduced by the Protocols the European Union will be governed by two treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Expect all attention to be focused on the Charter optout and its explicit confirmation, and on the future policies of the EU. A Downing Street official spokesperson stated "we believe it is in the national interest of this country and the interests of Europe as a whole that we move on from discussing the constitution to practical matters.
"Europe has shown that when it talks about issues such as energy and energy security and climate change it can make a real difference. That's where the focus should be and therefore we need to agree a practical way of working together to get the maximum benefit out of European co-operation,".
Got it? You will, whether you like it or not.
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2 comments:
Also expect a remarkable discovery by McBroon that whatever Blair agrees to, it turns out it is below the threshold for a referendum, so that's alright then.
No referendum, (and referendums have very iffy status anyway. The only one ever held on the then Common Market came some time after the ratification of the various measures adopted).
Will there even be a debate in the House? Laid before the House for three weeks and away it goes to Rome.
General Elections are what used to be held in the UK over central issues like this; not under Labour.
We'll be lucky if we see the inside of a polling booth ever again, experiencing the behaviour of the current regime.
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