Previously, our headline campaign demanded that all citizens should immediately be given the opportunity to vote in referendums on the Lisbon Treaty. Thus far, over a quarter of a million people across Europe have signed our petitions.
Click here to read more.
This campaign aims to guarantee free access to scientifically based natural health remedies for all European Union citizens.
Click here to read more.
On November 13, 2007, more than 30 survivors of the extermination camp Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps met in Auschwitz for a one-day conference.
Click here to read more.
» 2007 » 2008 » 2009 » 2010 » 2011
December 17, 2009
EU's senior prosecutor quits amid corruption probe
The EU prosecutors' organization Eurojust announced Thursday its Portuguese president has resigned after two years in office as he faces a corruption probe at home. Jose Luis Lopes da Mota's decision followed a Portuguese Public Prosecutor's office disciplinary committee's announcement that it has suspended him for 30 days. The committee ruled that Lopes da Mota had earlier this year pressured two Portuguese investigating magistrates to drop their probe into alleged bribery by a British real estate developer to obtain government approval for a large shopping mall near Lisbon.
Read article at businessweek.com
December 14, 2009
'Phantom MEPs' to cost taxpayers £6m a year
Eighteen new MEPs whose seats have been created by the Lisbon Treaty are to receive full pay, perks and an allowance worth an annual £300,000 each despite being unable to start work for up to four years. The "phantom" group from 12 countries, including one MEP from Britain, will have no powers but will be entitled to draw staff and office allowances at an annual cost of more than £6 million and, possibly, full salaries. The 18, who will initially have "observer" status, will also be entitled to tax-free allowances of £255 for every day of their limbo existence in Brussels and can claim back business class travel.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
November 24, 2009
EU's top executive refuses to rule out Brussels tax
STRASBOURG — The European Union's top executive on Tuesday refused to rule out a bloc-wide tax on its half-billion population, in remarks sure to raise eurosceptic hackles. Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, said he would look at raising direct EU taxation -- a debate that has sparked anger especially in fiercely sovereign Britain.
Read AFP news report at google.com
November 24, 2009
NGO voices new concern over 'transparency' of incoming EU commissioners
A leading NGO has voiced concern about the "very weak" code of conduct covering the professional activities of future and ex-commissioners. The claim comes in the wake of a review of the rules over appropriate etiquette, recently announced by the executive's president Jose Manuel Barroso. It is claimed that five years ago, the last time a team of commissioners was replaced, the approval procedure for post-commission employment plans proved "inadequate." It is said, for example, that the one-year 'cooling-off' period was not respected in the case of health and consumer commissioner Pavel Telicka who "established a for-profit lobby consultancy firm within weeks of leaving the commission."
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: Perhaps not surprisingly, considering the fact that EU commissioners are appointed on behalf of corporate interests, there are rumours about several current commissioners considering future lobby work for large corporations.
November 22, 2009
Herman Van Rompuy: Europe's first president to push for 'Euro tax'
Herman Van Rompuy, Europe's first president, is to join forces with the European Commission to push for sweeping new tax raising powers for Brussels. Within days of taking office in January, the former Belgian prime minister will put his weight behind controversial proposals already floated by the commission's head, José Manuel Barroso, for a new "Euro tax".
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
November 19, 2009
Open Europe responds to outcome of EU summit
Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy has been nominated EU President, while the UK Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton will become EU Foreign Minister. Open Europe Director Lorraine Mullally responded saying: "This whole process has been a stitch-up and a perfect illustration of just how out of touch and anti-democratic the EU now is. 27 EU leaders met behind closed doors over a cosy dinner in Brussels to thrash out who will represent Europe's 500 million citizens on the world stage, without so much as a wink to voters as to what on earth was going on. After years of insisting that the Lisbon Treaty would bring the EU closer to citizens, how sad and ironic that the very first big decision was made after a secretive backroom deal which should have no place in a 21st century democracy. This has been EU politics at its very worst. Neither Herman Van Rompuy nor Catherine Ashton has any democratic mandate to speak on behalf of Europe's citizens. Most people were denied a say on the Lisbon Treaty which created these posts, and now the jobs themselves have been filled without the slightest input from voters, nor even national parliaments."
Read press release on the Open Europe website (UK)
November 19, 2009
European Union to seek special status at United Nations
The European Union is pushing to upgrade its status at the UN to put it on a par with quasi-states such as the Vatican and Palestine. EU officials are discussing a plan to seek a controversial UN General Assembly resolution that would recognise the 27-nation bloc’s new unified foreign policy envisaged in the Lisbon treaty. The resolution, if adopted, would give the EU its own seat and nameplate in UN General Assembly chamber and committees and allow it to take part in debates and co-sponsor resolutions — but not vote.
Read article in The Times (UK)
November 16, 2009
Top candidate debates EU tax at elite dinner
Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, a top candidate for the new European Union president job, laid out his views on future EU financing at a dinner of the secretive Bilderberg group last week. The event took place at Val Duchesse, a former priory on the outskirts of Brussels, on Thursday (12 November), with guests including Belgian industrialist and Bilderberg chairman Etienne Davignon, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and luminaries from the worlds of international politics and business, according to Belgian broadsheet De Tijd. The Belgian leader is reported to have said in a speech that: "New resources will be necessary for the financing of the welfare state. Green tax instruments are a possibility, but they are ambiguous: This type of tax will eventually be extinguished. But the possibilities of financial levies at European level must be seriously examined and for the first time the large countries in the union are open to that."
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: To all intents and purposes, this dinner was Herman Van Rompuy’s job interview for the post of EU President. Unlike in any true democracy, European citizens are not permitted to choose their president in an election. Instead, the entire executive level of government in the ‘Brussels EU’ is chosen on behalf of corporate interests. In other words, the clandestine Bilderberg Group – whose meetings are held behind closed doors, away from the public eye, and attended on an invitation-only basis by the rich and powerful ultra elite from the worlds of the aristocracy, politics, business, banking and journalism – have more influence over the selection of the European Union’s president than do ordinary citizens. For more reports on Herman Van Rompuy’s “job interview” with the Bilderbergers, click here, here and here.
November 13, 2009
Latvian candidate for EU President says selection process is 'Soviet'
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a Latvian candidate to be the European Union's first President, claimed the appointment is being conducted with Soviet-style secrecy and contempt for the public. Mrs Vike-Freiberga, 71, the former Latvian President and the Baltic state's first post-Communist leader after independence from the Soviet Union, attacked the EU for operating in "darkness and behind closed doors"."The European Union should stop working like the former Soviet Union," she said.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
November 13, 2009
Czech PM brings Lisbon treaty to Rome ending ratification process
Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer today brought the EU reform Lisbon treaty to Rome where it was placed in the depository at the Italian Foreign Ministry, completing the process of ratification of the document. The Czech Republic was the last EU country to place the treaty in the depository. The treaty can now take force on December 1.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
November 3, 2009
Czech president signs Lisbon treaty
Czech President Vaclav Klaus signed the Lisbon treaty Tuesday, meaning the agreement can come into force as the European Union's governing framework. Klaus was an opponent of the treaty until the end, Financial Times reported, only signing the document hours after the Czech constitutional court ruled the agreement did not violate the country's Constitution.
Read article on the United Press International (UPI) website
October 29, 2009
EU clears hurdle to Lisbon treaty
EU leaders meeting in Brussels have agreed a deal designed to win Czech backing of the Lisbon Treaty, clearing a major hurdle to its ratification. The Czechs were granted an opt-out from the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, similar to that of the UK and Poland.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
October 28, 2009
Czech decision on Lisbon treaty only after EU summit
The Czech constitutional court has indicated it will rule on whether the Lisbon Treaty is compatible with Czech national law next week, meaning EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday (29 October) are unlikely to take a final decision on dividing the top jobs in the European Union. Following a hearing on Tuesday on a legal challenge by 17 conservative senators, the court said it would reconvene on 3 November, when it is likely to give its verdict.
Read article at euobserver.com
October 27, 2009
Message from an EU Citizen
Ireland's "Yes" vote—sorry, re-vote—on the Lisbon Treaty has catalyzed Brussels's efforts to undermine independent thought in the European Union. After all, the European Commission's labors paid off in Ireland, where many voters were led to cast "Yes" ballots thinking they were affirming their commitment to the EU, and that this would somehow make Ireland more powerful within the block. Polish President Lech Kaczynski followed, his hand literally shaking as he put pen to paper—Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso standing behind him—and ratified the text. Now, the pressure is on the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus. How do we judge this ultimate hurdle for Lisbon, as Mr. Klaus's self-appointed intimidators try to force yet another signature?
Read article by Declan Ganley in the Wall Street Journal (USA)
October 27, 2009
Czech senators in last ditch effort to challenge Lisbon Treaty
The 15-member Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic is meeting in the city of Brno to debate what could be the final legal challenge against ratification of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty. Jan Fischer, the country's prime minister, said he did not expect the court to make an immediate decision on October 27 and that a subsequent hearing would probably make the ruling. The BBC also confirmed this expectation, saying that the court had had several additional petitions in the past few days, and that some observers believed that the judges would need more than one day to decide. The legal challenge in the Czech Constitutional Court has been brought by 17 Eurosceptic senators who say the treaty would create a superstate, and as such infringes Czech sovereignty.
Read article in the Sofia Echo (Bulgaria)
October 26, 2009
Lisbon Treaty will usher in 'European surveillance state'
The Lisbon Treaty of the European Union will hasten the creation of a “European surveillance state”, a think-tank has claimed. Open Europe, which opposes greater European integration, said that the ratification of the controversial treaty will see powers over home affairs and justice policy “almost totally shifted to the EU level.” That will allow the creation of new EU-wide systems to monitor citizens’ private lives and movements, the think-tank said.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
October 26, 2009
Czech President Klaus still holding out over Lisbon treaty
Václav Klaus, the Czech President, who is the last hurdle to full ratification of the Lisbon treaty, has made a final attempt to derail the agreement. In a submission to the Czech constitutional court, which will decide tomorrow whether the treaty is compatible with the country’s constitution, Mr Klaus has suggested that it should be subject to a referendum. The President, who is the only head of state yet to sign the treaty, attacked the EU notion of “shared sovereignty” as a contradiction that effectively means a loss of national control.
Read article in The Times (UK)
October 21, 2009
Northern Ireland Assembly Passes Motion Calling For A Referendum On Lisbon Treaty In The UK
The Northern Ireland Assembly motion of 20th October 2009, passed by 47 to 19 votes, indicated: “That this Assembly notes the verdict of the Republic of Ireland electorate on the Lisbon Treaty referendum; reaffirms its support for a referendum in the United Kingdom on the Treaty; and calls for a declaration from those parties aspiring to form the incoming Government of the United Kingdom to give an unequivocal commitment to hold, within a twelve month period from assuming office in 2010, a binding referendum on the Lisbon Treaty that is unconditional and unrelated to how other member states choose to vote, and the result of which will not be held in abeyance pending a further referendum on the subject.”
Read report at egovmonitor.com
Comment: The Northern Ireland Assembly is the devolved government of Northern Ireland and is responsible for making and enacting laws on matters transferred to it by the United Kingdom (UK), of which Northern Ireland is a part. With the recent vote in favour of the pro-EU Lisbon Treaty in the Republic of Ireland increasingly being seen by some Irish people as a dramatic blow to their longstanding dream of the reunification of the island of Ireland, it is now clear that following the upcoming 2010 elections in the UK, the new British Prime Minister will come under pressure from the Northern Ireland Assembly to hold a public referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in the UK. Click here to read the text of the debate that led to the Northern Ireland Assembly’s motion on the Lisbon Treaty being passed.
October 21, 2009
Who are the real authoritarians, Mr Miliband?
The peoples of Europe today are confronted by a new and dangerous post-democratic elitism - Euro-Authoritarianism - of which David Miliband is one classic manifestation. Euro-Authoritarianism is self-evidently more subtle than Twentieth Century fascism, and it is not motivated by anti-semitism. The Euro-Authoritarians do not seek to end multi-party elections, but rather to greatly restrict the parameters within which electorates can make meaningful collective choices. This is achieved by transferring ever more law-powers to appointed, non-accountable institutions in Brussels and through so-called Human Rights legislation that enables judges to become policy makers though their interpretations of vaguely drafted articles.
Read blog entry on the Democracy Movement's blog site (UK)
October 20, 2009
PM Fico says Slovakia will block Czech Lisbon Treaty opt-out
Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico confirmed on October 19 that he would insist on the same guarantees of the indisputability of the 1945 Beneš Decrees as the Czech Republic would get at the European Council meeting at the end of the month. Otherwise, he will not back the Lisbon Treaty, the SITA newswire wrote.
Read article in the Slovak Spectator (Slovakia)
October 19, 2009
Now Slovakia threatens to reopen Lisbon Treaty row
The long-running saga of the Lisbon Treaty ratification has taken a new twist after Slovakia said it wanted to reopen negotiations. The country's prime minister said he might seek similar opt-out clauses to those being negotiated by neighbour, the Czech Republic.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
October 18, 2009
Czech President Suggests He Will Stop Blocking EU Lisbon Treaty
Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the last European Union leader yet to sign the Lisbon Treaty, suggested he may not continue to stand in the way, as the ratification process has gone too far to stop it. Klaus said in yesterday’s Lidove Noviny newspaper that while he “can’t consider” the treaty to be positive for Europe or the Czech Republic, “the train with it is going so quickly and is so far that it probably won’t be possible to stop or return it, however much some of us would wish that.”
Read article at bloomberg.com
October 15, 2009
MEPs call for compulsory 'EU lessons' in schools
MEPs are calling for school pupils to be forced to take European Union lessons to counter "lies" about Brussels. Leaders of the centre-right EPP grouping in the European Parliament say there should be compulsory classes for 14-year-olds in all member states. The calls are being led by Mario David, a Portuguese MEP who was chief of staff to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso when he was the country's prime minister.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: Without doubt, the compulsory ‘EU lessons’ envisaged by Mario David and his colleagues would not result in school pupils being taught the real facts about the EU.
October 15, 2009
Klaus vows never to sign Lisbon Treaty on Moscow visit
Czech president Vaclav Klaus rubbed salt into EU wounds yesterday by choosing Moscow to reveal that he never intends to sign the Lisbon Treaty. The eurosceptic, who earlier this year said the union was just another USSR, made it plain that his latest objection to the treaty is not his only one.
Read article in the Irish Examiner (Ireland)
October 13, 2009
I will not sign Lisbon Treaty, says Czech President
The President of the Czech Republic has no intention of signing the Lisbon treaty, a move that might allow David Cameron time to hold a British referendum on Europe. President Klaus, the fiercely Eurosceptic Czech leader, is the last obstacle for the agreement after its ratification in the other 26 EU states but he has told supporters that he will never sign, The Times has learnt. Asked during a walkabout on Sunday not to put his name to the treaty, Mr Klaus replied: “Don’t worry, I won’t.”
Read article in The Times (UK)
October 13, 2009
Klaus keeps EU guessing on future of Lisbon Treaty
The Czech constitutional court will hear a challenge to the EU's Lisbon Treaty at the end of October. But the relief in Brussels at having a clear timetable is being undermined by the continued unpredictability of Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who holds the fate of the treaty in his hands. The court on Tuesday (13 October) said it would examine whether the treaty is compatible with the Czech constitution at a hearing on 27 October. The dramatic timing will see the discussion held just two days before an EU summit in Brussels on the text.
Read article at euobserver.com
October 12, 2009
Geldof: Lisbon referendum should have been EU wide
A referendum on the Lisbon treaty should have been held in all EU member states and not only in Ireland, Irish musician and activist Bob Geldof, who attends the Forum 2000 conference in Prague, indicated Monday.
Read article in the Prague Daily Monitor (Czech Republic)
October 12, 2009
Opposition mounts to Blair EU presidency
Some of the most virulent opposition to Tony Blair getting the new top job in the EU, the council presidency, is coming from the ranks of his own Socialists – and not just in Britain, but all over Europe.
Read article at theparliament.com
October 12, 2009
EU Lisbon Treaty: Czech Republic government caves in to eurosceptic president
The crisis over the EU Lisbon Treaty has deepened after the Czech Republic's government backed down in a battle with President Vaclav Klaus over his refusal to sign the text. Jan Fischer, the caretaker prime minister, announced a climb-down after an emergency cabinet meeting in Prague, saying he would negotiate President Vaclav Klaus's call for a new Lisbon Treaty "opt-out" when he met other European Union leaders later this month. Mr Fischer, who has been summoned to Brussels on Tuesday to explain the Czech position, was forced to admit that he was unsure whether Mr Klaus would sign the EU Treaty, even if his demand was met.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
October 10, 2009
Poland Becomes 26th Nation To Ratify EU's Lisbon Treaty
Polish President Lech Kaczynski on Saturday signed the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, making Poland the 26th E.U. country that has ratified the document.
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)
October 8, 2009
Lisbon Treaty: Czech president Vaclav Klaus sets new condition
The eurosceptic Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, has set a new condition for ratifying the European Union's new Lisbon Treaty. Mr Klaus, who has been stalling on signing the new European Union treaty for months, told the EU's Swedish presidency yesterday he "wishes to add a footnote" to the document before he gives his final approval.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
October 7, 2009
EU draws up plans to establish itself as 'world power'
The European Union has drawn up secret plans to establish itself as a global power in its own right with the authority to sign international agreements on behalf of member states. Confidential negotiations on how to implement the Lisbon Treaty have produced proposals to allow the EU to negotiate treaties and even open embassies across the world. A letter conferring a full "legal personality" for the Union has been drafted in order for a new European diplomatic service to be recognised as fully fledged negotiators by international bodies and all non-EU countries. According to one confidential paper, the first pilot "embassies" are planned in New York, Kabul and Addis Ababa.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: It is now clear that the oil and drug cartel is attempting to use the ‘Brussels EU’ as a stepping-stone towards extending its control over the entire globe. The only way this scenario can be stopped is if the people of Europe and the world are educated about both the dark roots and the strategic plans of the oil and drug cartel to turn the world into a corporate dictatorship.
October 7, 2009
Klaus Won't Sign the Lisbon Treaty
The Irish may have said Yes to the Lisbon Treaty, but the bureaucrats in Brussels have not yet won. If anything, the shameful browbeating of the Irish electorate into reversing its previous rejection of the Treaty will steel the resolve of those who oppose additional centralization of power in Brussels. Czech President Vaclav Klaus has so far refused to sign off on the Treaty that the Czech parliament has already adopted. The president is officially waiting for a decision from the highest Czech court on the treaty's constitutionality. The opponents of thet reaty in the Czech parliament hope to prolong the legal challenges until the British have had a chance to vote it down in a referendum that the Conservatives, who are set to win the next election, promised to hold midway through 2010.
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)
October 5, 2009
Europe’s plot to take over the world
Fortified by its new foreign-policy structures, the Union is staking a claim to be taken seriously as a global superpower. David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, says: “It shouldn’t be a G2 of the US and China. There should be a G3 with the European Union.” But what happens in Brussels – or even in trilateral dealings between the US, China and Europe – is a sideshow. The real key to Europe’s global ambitions is the Group of 20. Jean Monnet, the founding father of the EU, believed that European unity was “not an end in itself, but only a stage on the way to the organised world of tomorrow”. His successors in Brussels make no secret of the fact that they regard the Union’s brand of supranational governance as a global model.
Read article in the Financial Times (UK)
October 5, 2009
Last man standing
Last week a group of ODS senators filed a constitutional complaint concerning the EU Lisbon Treaty, enabling President Václav Klaus to delay signing the document until the Constitutional Court rules. The senators, led by Jiří Oberfalzer who personally delivered the complaint to Brno last Tuesday, demand that the Constitutional Court examine whether the European Union operates as an international organisation or a superstate. If the court determines EU is a superstate the senators deem any shift of competences onto the EU, as another state, would be against the Constitution.
Read article in the Prague Daily Monitor (Czech Republic)
October 5, 2009
Is it all over between Britain and Europe?
The forced Yes vote in Ireland makes it respectable to ask whether the benefits outweigh the sacrifices of staying in the EU
The Irish volte-face on the Lisbon treaty is a significant though melancholy event. It is sad because it represents another national surrender to Brussels. If the European Union fails to get the result it wants, it asks a second time and applies some extra pressure. The Irish were sandbagged by the fear that they would become a second Iceland, a financial disaster area. Britain has not even had a first referendum, as a result of an elaborate European conspiracy. This conspiracy has changed the political question about Europe more than most politicians have yet realised. It has made the “better off out” policy a respectable part of political debate.
Read article in The Times (UK)
October 4, 2009
Treaty of Lisbon: Questions about the Irish Referendum
The Irish have been asked - for a second time - to approve in a referendum the treaty that makes deep changes in the contract of the European Union. The votes are counted, and the "yes" campaign was successful. But there are some serious questions how the referendum and especially the campaign leading up to the vote was conducted. Anthony Coughlan of the National Platform EU Research and Information in Dublin, Ireland, has written to Mr Justice Clarke, the head of the Irish Referendum Commission, pointing out some of those inconsistencies...
Read article at laleva.org (Italy)
October 4, 2009
How the EU Got the Irish to 'Yes'
Too bad the rest of Europe's voters don't have a say.
Ladbrokes in downtown Dublin was paying one to 33 that Irish voters would approve Europe's Lisbon Treaty, against eight to one that they would strike it down. For non-gamblers, that means the betting chain thought the EU charter was a favorite to win—by a lot. Two doors down, patrons of the Sackville Lounge turned away from televised horse races to reveal why. After Irish voters spurned the treaty in a referendum last year, the European Commission—the EU's unelected legislative, regulatory and executive branch whose power would be cemented under the treaty—left little to chance this time around. Here is how Brussels did it:
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)
October 4, 2009
Pressure on Poland and Czechs to ratify
European Union leaders are now looking to Poland and to the Czech Republic to fast-track the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, following Ireland's endorsement. The Polish and the Czech parliaments have approved the treaty and Polish president Lech Kaczynski is expected to sign it in the coming days. However, the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, has said he will not sign the treaty until his country's Constitutional Court rules on its validity.
Read article on the RTÉ News website (Ireland)
October 4, 2009
Czech president says he will consider signing EU treaty only after a court rules on it
Czech President Vaclav Klaus says he will not consider signing the EU reform treaty until a Czech court rules on its legality.
Read Associated Press news report at google.com
October 4, 2009
Irish vote sends Tony Blair racing to EU presidency
Germany and France aim to be kingmakers as revitalised European Union prepares to give former PM Blair the top job
European leaders led by Angela Merkel of Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy of France will act swiftly to make the EU's reform charter a reality after Ireland's Yes vote, despite the lone resistance of Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic. The strong endorsement of the Lisbon treaty by the Irish after eight years of divisive attempts to rewrite the EU's rule book, has sparked the jockeying for position over the plum jobs that it creates, with Tony Blair now a clear favourite to become the first permanent EU president.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
October 3, 2009
Ireland has voted on the Lisbon Treaty: now let Britain do the same
The Irish have, at the second time of asking, delivered the result that advocates of ever-closer union wanted. They have voted in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, an agreement which gives the European Union a constitution – except that no one is allowed to call it a constitution, because that would imply that it was merely a copy of the document rejected by the voters of France and Holland in 2005.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: As this article describes, it is fundamental to any democratic system of government that no law is legitimate that does not have the consent of the governed. As such, when this principle is abandoned - as it has been so emphatically in the development of the EU - so is democracy.
October 3, 2009
Will War Criminal Tony Blair become President of the European Union?
Major media outlets from the BBC in Britain to RTE in Ireland are now reporting that the Yes side scored a resounding victory in Ireland's vote Friday on the EU Lisbon Treaty. With the treaty's ratification, the obstacles preventing the total federalization of the EU superstate are now removed. As the Daily Mail reported earlier this week, one of the first orders of business for the post-Lisbon EU will be to appoint Tony Blair as the first President of the European Union. This move has been fully expected ever since Tony Blair's highly suspect conversion to Catholocism two years ago. Of course, the many laudatory pieces (and even the adversarial ones) we are likely to read about Mr. Blair in the coming weeks will signally fail to mention that he has been accused of numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity…
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website (Canada)
October 2, 2009
EU 'homeland security' lacks democratic oversight, says watchdog
As European 'homeland security' sector stakeholders meet this week in Stockholm, a civil liberties watchdog is warning that decisions on the expansion of this lucrative new sector, hived off from public view and with minimal democratic scrutiny, are being made by the very companies that will ultimately profit from from them.
Read article at euobserver.com
October 1, 2009
Vatican issues Lisbon Treaty warning to Irish voters
The Vatican has made an unexpected last-minute intervention on the eve of Ireland's Lisbon Treaty referendum with a warning the European Union threatens the country's "identity, traditions and history".
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
September 30, 2009
Treaty text 'is well-nigh unreadable'
The Lisbon Treaty represents a continuing development of an EU constitution without adequate democratic participation, according to a group of lawyers opposed to the treaty.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
Comment: Notably, the lawyers stated that even to them, “as lawyers accustomed to dealing with abstruse documents, the treaty as signed is well-nigh unreadable.”
September 30, 2009
Betraying liberal democratic principles in the EU
On Friday, the citizens of Ireland will go to the polls to vote for the second time on the Lisbon Treaty, after apparently giving the 'wrong' answer the first time around. After agreement was reached in June on the so-called guarantees that are supposed to assuage Irish fears about the Treaty, the EU Presidency confirmed that "the text of the guarantees explicitly states that the Lisbon Treaty is not changed thereby." The Irish people are therefore being served a re-heated Treaty – even more unappetising than it was before.
Read article at euobserver.com
September 29, 2009
New Czech move to block EU treaty
Czech senators opposed to the EU's Lisbon Treaty have filed a new complaint against it with the country's constitutional court. The complaint could create a new delay to treaty ratification, even if Irish voters back the treaty in a referendum on Friday. Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a Eurosceptic, says he will not sign the treaty until the court decides. The treaty cannot take effect unless all 27 EU member states back it.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
Comment: A further welcome threat to the undemocratic Lisbon Treaty would emerge if it is not ratified prior to the UK general election, expected next April or May. The British Conservative Party are currently favourites to win power and have pledged to put the treaty to a UK referendum if it is not yet in force.
September 29, 2009
EU intervention in Irish referendum 'unlawful'
The European Commission has been accused of "unlawful" interference in Ireland's referendum after paying for a 16-page guide to the Lisbon Treaty to be inserted into national newspapers. Campaigners for a "No" vote have threatened a legal challenge after 1.1 million copies of the European Union booklet were distributed, at a cost to the taxpayer of £139,000.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
September 27, 2009
The Truth About The Irish Economy
A No vote on the Lisbon Treaty will not harm the Republic.
The Mad Hatter told Alice that "words mean what you want them to mean." He would have been at home in the European Union, where "no" means "yes" and political propaganda is passed off as information.
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)
Comment: To learn the facts about the European Union and its dark history, click here. For further information on the Lisbon Treaty, click here.
September 25, 2009
European Commission accused of breaching rules with Ryanair stunt
The European Commission has been accused of a blatant breach of neutrality rules in Ireland's Lisbon Treaty referendum after taking part in a Ryanair "Vote Yes" stunt involving airline boss Michael O'Leary. Antonio Tajani, EC vice-president and transport commissioner, is alleged to have broken impartiality rules by accepting an invitation to fly across the country on a Ryanair Boeing 737, emblazoned with "Vote Yes for Europe" logos. Ryanair is spending £445,000 on giving away free air tickets to promote the campaign as it struggles to reverse Irish referendum rejection in June 2008.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
September 25, 2009
German president signs EU's Lisbon treaty
German President Horst Koehler's office says he has signed the European Union's reform treaty — completing its ratification by the 27-nation bloc's most populous nation.
Read Associated Press news report at google.com
September 24, 2009
The only sane course is to say No to this undemocratic formula
Sixteen months ago, Ireland was the most popular nation in Europe. As news of our No vote spread, we were cheered across the continent. Bouquets of flowers were handed in to startled receptionists in our embassies. Crowds waved “Thank you Ireland” placards. Europeans felt that we had cast proxy ballots for them. We had voted as they would have voted – or, in the cases of France and the Netherlands, as they had voted. We had, as they saw it, sided with the peoples of Europe against undemocratic elites. Unsurprisingly, those elites were less pleased.
Read article by Declan Ganley in the Irish Times (Ireland)
September 23, 2009
Cameron confirms Tories' Lisbon referendum plan
British opposition leader David Cameron has written to Czech President Václav Klaus confirming his intention to hold a referendum on the EU's Lisbon Treaty should he win power next year before the treaty has entered into force. Cameron's letter to Klaus "firmly restates our current public position" on the European Union's reform treaty, a spokeswoman for Cameron said on Wednesday.
Read article at euractiv.com
September 22, 2009
Irish Elections and European Taxpayers' Money
When is politically directed state aid in Europe acceptable to the European Commission? Not when the German government tries to save jobs in the auto industry, or when the U.K. and others prop up failing banks. But these rules don’t apply when it’s Brussels itself trying to buy off a favored constituency. On Saturday, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso announced €14.8 million in aid to help 2,400 laid-off Dell workers in Ireland find new jobs. If granted final approval, the cash will account for no less than 9.6% percent of the €154 million in payouts the European Globalization Adjustment Fund has pledged since its inception in late 2006. Meanwhile, these 2,400 represent 0.01% of the EU's 21.79 million unemployed workers. What makes Ireland's jobless uniquely deserving? Our guess: Their votes. The largesse comes two weeks before Ireland decides, again, on the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, an accord that Mr. Barroso and his unelected Commission would dearly like to see passed.
Read editorial in the Wall Street Journal (USA)
Comment: To learn why the Lisbon Treaty should be rejected by the people of Ireland and Europe, click here to read the online “EU-Facts” newspaper.
September 22, 2009
Czech move could delay EU treaty
Czech senators opposed to the EU's Lisbon Treaty could delay adoption of it for months, a Czech constitutional court spokesman has told the BBC. At least 17 Eurosceptic Czech senators have signed a petition against the treaty, which they plan to submit to the court at the end of September.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
September 21, 2009
Czech Republic 'planning to delay signing Lisbon treaty'
EU leaders are said to be furious that the Czech Republic is planning to delay signing the Lisbon treaty for up to six months even if the Irish vote "yes" in their referendum next month.
Read article in The Times (UK)
September 21, 2009
Czech delay could mean British referendum on Lisbon Treaty
David Cameron might be able to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because the Czech Republic will probably delay its ratification of the agreement until after a general election in Britain, European Union leaders have been told.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: Barring exceptional circumstances, the next UK general election must be held on or before Thursday 3 June 2010. Opinion polls currently suggest that David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party, is likely to win the election and become British Prime Minister. In recent months, Cameron has pledged to put the Lisbon Treaty to a public vote in Britain as long as it has not been ratified by all 27 EU member states.
September 21, 2009
Lisbon Treaty: Czech Republic offers hope of a referendum
As we report today, the Czech Republic may be forced by a legal challenge to delay ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. This development has provoked a furious response from President Sarkozy of France. He "exploded" when he heard the news, according to an EU diplomat, and is threatening the Czechs with unspecified "consequences" if they do not speed things up. The reason for Mr Sarkozy's fury? If a Czech referendum is delayed until May, then Britain's political parties could well go into the next general election with the treaty unratified. And that would allow David Cameron, if he wins the election, to fulfil his promise of a British referendum on Lisbon, as long as it has not been ratified by all 27 member states of the EU.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
September 19, 2009
EU funding 'Orwellian' artificial intelligence plan to monitor public for "abnormal behaviour"
The European Union is spending millions of pounds developing "Orwellian" technologies designed to scour the internet and CCTV images for "abnormal behaviour". A five-year research programme, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programmes which act as "agents" to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: Unless the Lisbon Treaty is rejected, this is the direction in which the EU is headed. To sign the online petition rejecting the Lisbon Treaty, click here. To learn about the dark roots of the “Brussels EU”, click here.
September 18, 2009
New EU showcase building to cost taxpayers £280 million
A state of the art building that will cost taxpayers £280 million is to be built in Brussels to showcase the European Union's growing global ambitions and house the office of a new President.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
September 16, 2009
The most important election in Europe, but the voters are not invited
Europe has just held its most significant election since 2004: more important than Tony Blair’s re-election, or Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory, and vastly more important than the coming poll in Germany. What? You hadn’t heard? Perhaps that’s because only 736 people were invited to participate. José Manuel Durão Barroso has just been re-elected President of the European Commission. Since Brussels now generates, depending on whose figures we believe, between 55 and 84 per cent of all the legislation in the member states, and since the European Commission is the only EU institution allowed to propose laws, I’d say that makes him the most powerful man in Europe. Yet the entirety of his mandate resides in a lacklustre secret ballot among Euro-MPs, who have just approved his reappointment by 382 votes to 219, with 117 abstentions.
Read Daniel Hannan's blog entry on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
Comment: Far from being a democracy, the EU is essentially now a dictatorship. With Barroso’s re-election having been fixed up in advance by the leaders of the 27 member states during the summer recess, and ordinary citizens having no say whatsoever in the process, he was presented to the European Parliament with no alternative on offer and a majority of the votes already fixed. To learn the true facts about the EU, click here.
September 15, 2009
Treaty will worsen economic situation, says group
The Lisbon Treaty will make a bad economic situation worse, according to a group of women councillors and community leaders campaigning against the treaty. Therese Caherty, spokeswoman for the Women Say No to Lisbon – Again group, said yesterday that the treaty placed the interests of the market, not people, at the heart of the European project.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
September 14, 2009
Ganley attacks Yes campaign's 'half-truths'
There has been an “astonishing degree of misrepresentation” of the Lisbon Treaty, campaigner Declan Ganley said yesterday as he explained why he had decided to lobby again for a No vote. Speaking at a press conference in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, the Libertas leader said the Irish vote against the treaty was not being respected. “There is now clearly a lack of will for democracy in the institutions of the European Union.”
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
September 14, 2009
Corporate interests drowning out ordinary voter – Higgins
Powerful corporate interests are drowning out the input of ordinary people in the Lisbon debate, Dublin MEP Joe Higgins has said. The Socialist Party MEP said massive amounts of money were being raised from businesses to fund pro-Lisbon Treaty propaganda, but the actual content of the treaty was not being debated.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
September 12, 2009
Ganley confirms return to Lisbon debate
Declan Ganley, the Chairman of the Libertas Party, has officially confirmed that he is to campaign a second time for a no vote in the Lisbon Treaty Referendum. Last June Declan Ganley said he was bowing out of public life after failing to win a seat in the Ireland North West Constituency in the European Elections. Speaking in Ballinasloe, he said this Treaty will reduce Ireland's influence in Europe.
Read article in the Irish Independent (Ireland)
September 10, 2009
Brussels in 'frightening' grab for personal information
Civil liberties and privacy are being eroded at a "breathtaking" rate by European Union governments, according to a report. Civil liberties watchdog Statewatch criticised the EU's post-9/11 security strategy as a "frightening" grab for every aspect of individual information. The 60-page report - published on the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington - said that the EU now saw data privacy and judicial scrutiny of police surveillance tactics as obstacles to efficient law enforcement co-operation, rather than rights to be safeguarded.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: To read the Statewatch report, click here.
September 10, 2009
Whatever happened to... Fritz-Harald Wenig
It's a year ago this week that the Sunday Times reported that a high-level official from the Commission’s trade department had offered to leak commercially sensitive information in return for financial rewards. Undercover reporters from the UK newspaper posing as lobbyists for a Chinese businessman offered the official – Fritz-Harald Wenig – a payment of € 100.000. Wenig was reported to have suggested putting the money in a frozen bank account which he would be able to access after he retired. According to the newspaper, Wenig disclosed information about a pending anti-dumping case concerning a Chinese candle-making firm as well as other cases. The allegations led to Wenig being suspended and the case being investigated by Olaf, the EU’s anti-fraud agency. As the outcome of the Olaf inquiry is nowhere to be found in the public domain, Corporate Europe Observatory contacted the agency for clarification. Olaf told us it “finalised its investigation on 29 January 2009 and forwarded its findings to the European Commission as well as to the competent Belgian authorities.” But whether Olaf found Mr. Wenig guilty of any wrongdoing remains unclear.
Read blog entry on the Brussels Sunshine website
September 8, 2009
'Nothing in treaty has changed'
The People Before Profit Alliance launched its campaign for a No vote yesterday calling on voters to reject “the failed economic policies enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty.” Speakers at the launch stressed that voters were being asked to vote on the same Lisbon Treaty they had rejected before. The alliance brings together a number of groups and individuals who campaign on workers’ rights and environmental and community issues, and had 14 councillors elected in the recent local elections. Ailbhe Smyth of the group’s steering committee said: “Nothing in the treaty has changed. We have politicians telling us that this treaty will make Europe more democratic, yet they refuse to accept the clear view of the public as expressed in a referendum.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
September 8, 2009
Higgins and Daly criticise unions' 'false' Lisbon claims
Socialist MEP for Dublin Joe Higgins and his party colleague Cllr Clare Daly have criticised some trade unions for taking a stance in favour of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty. Mr Higgins said the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and some trade union leaders were wrong to say that the treaty was in the best interests of working people and their families. “It’s absolutely false for some trade union leaders . . . who now say that passing Lisbon would make a fundamental difference . . . that is absolutely false,” he said.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
September 4, 2009
Support for Lisbon Treaty in Ireland plunges
Support for the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland dropped by eight points over the summer, the latest poll revealed. The slippage is reminiscent of similar trends in the country before the debacle of the first Lisbon referendum in June last year, and the one on the Nice Treaty before that, the Irish press writes today (4 September). In a TNS poll for the Irish Times, 46% of people said they would vote 'yes', a drop of eight points since the last survey in May. 29% of Irish said they would vote 'no', an increase of one point. The number of people in the 'don't know' category increased by seven points to 25%, the Irish Times writes.
Read article at euractiv.com
September 3, 2009
EU accused over 'diplomat' costs
The European Union has been accused of spreading a federal message around the globe via a network of embassies which cost taxpayers billions of pounds a year. A survey by the Taxpayers' Alliance claims EU diplomats based in lavish residences are being publicly funded to the tune of £3.4 billion a year as part of an EU "Foreign Service".
Read Press Association news report at google.com
September 3, 2009
Irish prime minister still confused on Lisbon
Twenty-nine days until the Irish are forced to vote again on Lisbon, and the Irish prime minister still can't give more than muddled answers about what is in the treaty. Yesterday the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, launched his party's campaign for a Yes vote, and insisted again that he had read all 306 pages of the treaty. But when an Irish Daily Mail reporter asked him how Lisbon would affect employment policy in Ireland, Mr Cowen could only give a rambling reply that never answered the question.
Read Mary Ellen Synon's blog entry on the Daily Mail website (UK)
Comment: As Mary Ellen Synon correctly identifies in her blog, ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by Ireland would result in employment policies being taken out of the hands of Irish business, Irish trade unions, and the Irish government and placed instead into the hands of EU institutions.
September 3, 2009
Secrets and laws
MEPs should remember that their primary loyalty is to the people who elected them - they must cast aside the EU's secret legislative process
As the European parliament (EP) begins its new term major questions hang over the lack of transparency and accountability of its legislative process. In the previous five-year term (2004-2009) over 80% of new measures were agreed behind closed doors in secret "trilogue" sessions, meetings between the Council of the European Union (the 27 governments), the EP and the European Commission.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
September 2, 2009
Cattleman opposes Lisbon II referendum in legal challenge
A Co Tipperary cattleman has told a High Court judge he intends challenging the legality of the Government's new referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. John Burke, of Duncummin House, Emly, Co Tipperary, was granted leave to serve short notice on the Taoiseach, Justice Minister and the State of his intended challenge. Mr Burke told the High Court he believed the Irish electorate had on June 12, 2008, cast their vote in a referendum in which the result was a definite no. Mr Burke told Judge Liam McKechnie he was seeking a judicial review of the Government's October 2 referendum on the simple grounds that No means No.
Read article in the Irish Independent (Ireland)
September 2, 2009
McKenna threatens court action over 'partisan' booklet
Anti-Lisbon Treaty campaigner Patricia McKenna is considering a legal challenge against the independent referendum watchdog. But last night the former Green Party MEP refused to reveal the identity of the lawyers who told her the Referendum Commission's information campaign on the referendum is promoting a 'Yes' vote. The People's Movement chairwoman claimed an information booklet on the Lisbon Treaty from the body is "evasive", "inaccurate" and "misleading" and must be changed or withdrawn immediately.
Read article in the Irish Independent (Ireland)
September 2, 2009
TEEU calls for No vote on Lisbon
The electricians’ and engineering union, the TEEU, has said it will be opposing the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. In a statement TEEU general president Frank Keoghan said the Lisbon Treaty would ensure that the interest of the market would always have precedence over the rights of workers.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
September 1, 2009
Czech senators file complaint against Lisbon treaty-related bills
Seventeen Czech senators, mainly from the right-wing Civic Democrats (ODS), today filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court against the amendments "on special mandate" related to the Lisbon treaty, ODS senator Jiri Oberfalzer has told CTK. The special mandate prevents the Czech government from approving transfer of powers to the EU without the parliament's agreement. Apart from ODS senators, the complaint was signed by unaffiliated senator Tomas Toepfer and Liana Janackova, chairwoman for the Party of Free Citizens. The senators also plan to ask the Constitutional Court again to assess the the Lisbon treaty to reform the EU institutions as such.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
August 31, 2009
Unite trade union calls for No vote on Lisbon
One of the country’s largest trade unions, Unite, is to call on its 60,000 members to vote No in the forthcoming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The union, which also opposed the Lisbon Treaty in the last referendum, said that its opposition on this occasion was based “on the lack of any progress in the critical area of workers’ rights”.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
August 28, 2009
Voting until they get it right in the European Union
When it comes to the European Union, any vote to increase authority in Brussels is viewed as final. Any vote against consolidating power is treated as merely temporary. The Lisbon Treaty is the perfect example of such a power grab. Among other things, it shifts responsibilities from national parliaments to European parliament, reduces the number of areas where unanimity is required (eliminating national vetoes), creates a president as a person (as opposed to rotating presidencies for nations), and creates a foreign minister to push a continental foreign policy. In June 2008, Ireland voted against the treaty. Since the agreement requires unanimous agreement, the referendum theoretically killed the attempt. However, the European elite insisted that Ireland vote again. Dublin will hold a revote on October 2.
Read article by Doug Bandow in the Washington Examiner (USA)
August 26, 2009
EU commissioners 'take home more than €1m on leaving office'
A leading UK think tank claims that each of the outgoing EU commissioners stand to receive more than €1.1m in pension payments and so-called 'transitional' and 'resettlement' allowances. The 20 officials who are expected to leave their posts this autumn will receive a total of €26m in payouts, according to Open Europe, the London-based independent think tank. Open Europe, which campaigns for reform of the EU, claims that some commissioners are set to receive even bigger settlements when they step down than that paid to Peter Mandelson when the Briton left his post as trade commissioner last year to become the new business secretary in Gordon Brown's government.
Read article at theparliament.com
August 26, 2009
Furious fishermen call for 'No' in Treaty
Irish fishermen furious at having to struggle to survive financially while being forced to dump their catches at sea are planning to oppose the second EU Lisbon Treaty. The Irish Fishermen's Organisation (IFO) staged a special meeting in Cork yesterday -- and are now going to lobby for a 'No' vote after accusing Brussels of undermining their livelihoods. The IFO also lobbied for a 'No' vote in the original Lisbon Treaty ballot last year.
Read article in the Irish Independent (Ireland)
August 21, 2009
Irish punters start to bet on "No" for Lisbon
Bookmaker Paddy Power has cut the odds on a "No" vote in a second Irish referendum on the European Union's Lisbon treaty after a flow of punters gambled on another defeat, a spokeswoman said on Friday.
Read news report at reuters.com
August 20, 2009
Breakaway farmers' group calls for 'no' vote
A breakaway farmers' group has launched a campaign for a 'no' vote in the re-run of the Lisbon Treaty referendum in October. The Farmers for No organisation says it currently has 50 members who believe the treaty puts the future of Irish farming in jeopardy.
Read article in the Belfast Telegraph (Northern Ireland)
August 20, 2009
Czech senators in fresh move against Lisbon treaty
A group of centre-right Czech senators has attacked a national law linked with the EU's Lisbon Treaty and plans to ask the country's constitutional court to suspend ratification until the legislation is changed.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: In addition to asking the court to suspend ratification of the Lisbon treaty until such time as the proposed changes are adopted, the Czech senators are also preparing an additional legal challenge against the treaty itself - thus erecting a further block to its ratification. As such, with Czech President Vaclav Klaus having made it clear he is in no rush to sign the document, the battle against this deeply unpopular and undemocratic treaty is by no means over.
August 19, 2009
Opponents of treaty say that they expect slurs in run-up to referendum
Opponents of the Lisbon Treaty last night predicted plenty of mud-slinging and slurs and a more co-ordinated effort from the Yes side in the run-up to the October 2nd referendum. Sinn Féin vice-president and former MEP Mary Lou McDonald said she expected people who were against the treaty to be accused of being “isolationist and backward” and of “having their heads in the sand”. They will say by voting No we are going to cause an even greater recession and depression,” she said. “This is dishonest and cynical. We need to be united enough as a campaign to see it off and give people the facts.”
Read article in The Irish Times (Ireland)
August 19, 2009
Lisbon No side seeks equality on broadcasting
A GROUP campaigning for a No vote in the October 2nd referendum on the Lisbon Treaty has expressed concern over guidelines issued to broadcasters that remove any requirement for them to give equal airtime to the Yes and No sides in the debate. Vote No to Lisbon, formerly the Campaign Against the EU Constitution, opened its campaign in Dublin yesterday. Speaking at the press conference, Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins said there were just six weeks and three days to go in the campaign and that a lot of time was needed to clarify the issues. He said nothing had changed in the Lisbon Treaty since the referendum in June last year, but a “fresh debate” was needed.
Read article in The Irish Times (Ireland)
August 18, 2009
Voters being 'threatened' on Lisbon
The Irish electorate is being “threatened, cajoled and lied to” in relation to the Lisbon Treaty, a group calling for a No vote in the second referendum has claimed. The Vote No to Lisbon group, formerly the Campaign Against the EU Constitution, today opened its campaign calling for a rejection of the treaty on October 2nd. It claimed ‘guarantees’ secured by the Government from the EU in relation to issues such as abortion and neutrality did not alter the treaty in any way and that voters were being asked to ballot on exactly the same document they rejected in a referendum last June.
Read article in The Irish Times (Ireland)
August 18, 2009
Ireland May Reject Treaty Again Without Libertas, Opponents Say
Irish people may vote against the European Union’s new governing treaty for a second time, even without the presence of the Libertas party, according to leaders of the campaign for a “no” vote. Voters may reject the Lisbon Treaty amid concerns over workers’ rights and public services, the opponents said at a press conference in Dublin today.
Read article at bloomberg.com
August 13, 2009
Let us support democracy and reject EU superstate
For generations some Irish people have fought for Irish independence, democracy and neutrality, while others have fought for imperialism. The second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is just another battle in this conflict and, whatever the outcome, the struggle will continue.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
Comment: As this article correctly points out, having previously had their “EU Constitution” defeated by the French and the Dutch in 2005, the EU political elite simply renamed it the “Lisbon Treaty”, did everything they could to make sure that the EU’s citizens couldn’t vote on it, and expected the Irish people to roll over and die in their referendum in June 2008. The Irish saw through this deception, of course, and instead voted with the French and Dutch. As such, the repeat of the Irish referendum – which will take place on 2nd October – is not simply an Irish battle. It is a European battle fought on Irish soil, a battle between the peoples of Europe that support democracy and the elite of Europe that want an empire based upon a dictatorship.
August 6, 2009
New referendum guidelines for commercial broadcasters
Commercial radio and television stations will not have to give equal airtime to opposing sides in debates on the Lisbon Treaty referendum, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) says. BCI chief executive Michael O’Keeffe issued new guidelines yesterday for commercial broadcasters, which will come into effect from tomorrow.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
Comment: The Irish authorities are now so desperate to obtain a Yes vote in Ireland’s upcoming second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty that they are blatantly sweeping away their guidelines on media impartiality to achieve it.
July 30, 2009
Brussels burns billions of Euros on publicity – but citizens still can’t stand the EU
The European Commission and the European Parliament are beginning to feel the rough edge of voter sentiment about them. Neither institution is well regarded – and becoming less so all the time.
Read article at internationalnewsservices.com
July 30, 2009
Bad news for democracy
Swedish think-tank Timbro have this week made a much welcome appeal to the Swedish EU presidency to highlight the EU's growing use of propaganda and to take a first step towards reversing it. Back in December 2008, Open Europe, an independent think-tank with offices in London and Brussels, published the fruits of many months of investigation into the EU's unwieldy budget and concluded that it was spending more than €2.4 billion a year on a wide variety of efforts to promote European integration. This includes everything from straightforward advertising – with posters, leaflets, EU merchandise and so on – to more subtle attempts to convince people of the merits of "ever closer union" through cultural, educational and citizenship initiatives. The EU has a remarkably sophisticated machine in operation to "sell" EU integration at every possible opportunity, complete with its own "Communication Department," and an impressive budget for funding hundreds of outside organisations which are supportive of the EU cause.
Read article at euobserver.com
July 29, 2009
Sweden's Reinfeldt urged to end 'EU propaganda'
A new report by Swedish libertarian think-tank Timbro argues that the EU is using taxpayers' money to disseminate pro-integration "propaganda", and called for the Swedish EU Presidency to draw a line between factual information and biased "opinion-shaping activities".
Read article at euractiv.com
Comment: To read the Timbro report, click here.
July 28, 2009
EP opinion poll analyses 2009 European election turnout
Parliament has published a Eurobarometer survey of 26 830 people across Europe carried out in the month following the 4-7 June European elections. Citizens were asked about their reasons for choosing whether or not to vote, and, if they did vote, what factors they took into account in deciding which party to vote for. Overall turnout in the elections was down compared with the 2004 elections by 2.47 percentage points, a smaller decline than in the past. This overall figure masks major national variations, with turnout up in eight Member States, about the same in a further eight, moderately lower in seven countries and markedly lower in four Member States.
Read press release on the European Parliament website
Comment: This press release from the European Parliament dramatically understates the way in which the people of Europe used the 2009 election to signal their rejection of the EU, as almost 60 percent of the people who were eligible to vote deliberately abstained. In addition, however, a further 4 percent of the eligible electorate cast deliberate votes against the EU by voting for parties that are anti-EU and/or opposed to the Lisbon Treaty. To learn more, click here.
July 26, 2009
Czech president refers Lisbon Treaty to court
Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president, has threatened to derail attempts to see the controversial Lisbon Treaty take effect before the end of the year. Supported by 17 Czech senators, Mr Klaus, a critic of the treaty, plans to refer the document to his country's constitutional court at the start of August. In seeking a ruling on whether the treaty complies with the Czech constitution, Mr Klaus would be able to delay signing the treaty into Czech law until the court had given its verdict.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
July 24, 2009
German judgement is a call to action against the EU's democratic deficit
The German Constitutional Court issued a remarkable verdict on 30 June. It was described in the press as the Court's approval of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. However, careful reading of the judgement shows that it is a fundamental rejection of the core constitutional content of the Treaty.
Read article by Jens-Peter Bonde at euobserver.com
July 23, 2009
Klaus threatens to throw Lisbon plans off schedule
Czech president says he will make another attempt at derailing the Lisbon treaty.
Václav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, is threatening to thwart the ambitions of Sweden's presidency of the EU to see the Lisbon treaty take effect before the end of the year. If he lives up to his threat, the appointment of the next European Commission could be delayed until 2010.
Read article at europeanvoice.com
July 20, 2009
EU parliament blocks whistleblower's bid for key budget post
MEPs have blocked the whistle blowing former European commission accountant Marta Andreasen's bid to become a vice-chair of the assembly's budgetary control committee. The parliament's EPP and socialist groups joined forces on Monday to form a blocking majority in the budgetary control committee to reject Andreasen, who was sacked in 2004 as the EU’s chief accountant after exposing irregular accounting practices. Following a secret ballot, where Andreasen picked up nine of the committee's 29 votes, the Argentinian-born Spaniard, a newly elected MEP and treasurer of the anti-federalist United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) said the decision to block her was, "not a good start for this committee." She told theparliament.com that, "Today's secret vote is a measure of how much they fear me. My priority will always be transparency and accountability in public funds …this move shows neither."
Read article at theparliament.com
July 17, 2009
Call for German referendums on EU enlargement
Leaders of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) have already called for greater powers for parliament in future EU affairs to be included in a new draft of a law required to get the treaty past the constitutional court. With just two months to get the law through parliament before the general election, the CSU demands increase the pressure on Dr Merkel to get the treaty ratified in Germany before Ireland’s October referendum.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
July 15, 2009
Does Ireland want Blair? Does anyone?
How fitting. The unelected, unaccountable Minister for Europe, Lady Glenys Kinnock, has today thrown her weight behind Tony Blair becoming the unelected, unaccountable new EU President. According to PA, she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg today: "The UK Government is supporting Tony Blair's candidature for President of the Council (of EU governments)". Asked if the prospect of being Europe's president had been discussed with Mr Blair, she said: "It is the Government's position. I am sure they would not do that without asking him." It shows a blatent disregard for the Irish for the Government to be talking about grabbing the cushy new jobs in the Lisbon Treaty, before it has even been ratified. But this is also a reminder to the Irish, as they prepare to vote again, that the creation of a new EU President will substantially diminish the influence of smaller countries in Europe.
Read blog entry on the Open Europe Blog website (UK)
July 15, 2009
Tony Blair is candidate for EU president says UK Europe minister
Former Labour MEP Glenys Kinnock says ex-UK prime minister Tony Blair is Britain's candidate for president of the European council. The new UK Europe minister told journalists in Strasbourg the UK was supporting Blair for the post which will be created if and when the stalled Lisbon treaty comes into effect. Along with the commission president, it will be one of the most powerful posts in the EU.
Read article at theparliament.com
July 13, 2009
Czech senators to challenge Lisbon treaty again in two weeks
The Lisbon treaty opponents from among Czech senators are completing their constitutional complaint against the document, one of them, Jiri Oberfalzer, told Czech Radio (CRo) Friday, adding that the complaint might be lodged with the Constitutional Court in the first half of August. Oberfalzer (Civic Democrats, ODS) said that the required 17 senators have joined the initiative and several others are ready as "a reserve."
Read article on the Prague Daily Monitor website (Czech Republic)
July 13, 2009
German debate on EU decision-making powers heats up
Germany's debate on how much national say there should be over further EU integration is intensifying two weeks after the country's constitutional court handed down a significant judgement on the EU's Lisbon Treaty. The judgement was initially greeted with relief by the pro-integration camp as it did not say the EU treaty was incompatible with the German constitution. But the 147-page ruling, now scoured by legal and constitutional experts, is causing strong discussion in political circles, just weeks before a new draft law incorporating the court's points is to be published.
Read article at euobserver.com
July 8, 2009
Lisbon Treaty: what will happen next
On December 15, 2001, at the Laeken Summit, EU leaders agreed to adopt a European Constitution. The next day, I launched the “No” campaign, attacking their scheme in an article in The Sunday Telegraph. Mine was the first voice to be raised in favour of a referendum; many more were to follow. Sometimes, I feel I am trapped in a kind of Nietzschean Eternal Recurrence. For seven-and-a-half years, I have been biffing away at the same treaty. It has been killed off many times: 54 per cent of French voters, 62 per cent of Dutch voters and 53 per cent of Irish voters said “No”. But the monster just plucks the stake from its heart and carries on. However many silver bullets thud into its decomposing flesh, nothing seems to fell it.
Read Daniel Hannan's blog entry on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
July 8, 2009
Ireland announces Lisbon referendum date
Just over a year after Ireland's shock rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, Dublin has announced that a second referendum on the charter will take place on 2 October.
Read article at euobserver.com
July 6, 2009
Brussels Put Firmly in the Back Seat
Last week's ruling by the German Constitutional Court, coupled with demands by one conservative party for changes to the constitution, may not only jeopardize Berlin's schedule for the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. The Karlsruhe ruling also threatens future steps toward European integration.
Read article in Der Spiegel (Germany)
Comment: This excellent article analyzing the implications of the German Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Lisbon Treaty is a must-read for anybody still labouring under the impression that the European Union is a democracy. The European Parliament, as the German judges clearly state, is terminally undemocratic. However, the court’s ruling does not merely threaten Berlin's schedule for the ratification of the treaty: it also further erodes the very credibility of the “Brussels EU” itself. For further analysis, from an Irish perspective, describing how the judgment fundamentally changes the situation regarding the treaty, read Bruce Arnold’s insightful article in the Irish Independent by clicking here.
June 30, 2009
German court delays Lisbon Treaty
Germany's highest court set a new obstacle for the Lisbon Treaty when it ordered parliament to pass a new law before the controversial document can be ratified. In a ruling that could delay the ratification of the treaty for months, judges said it was broadly compatible with German law but they refused to grant it approval for immediate ratification. They said a new law was required to guarantee the rights of the German parliament in the European Union's decision-making process because MPs had "not been accorded sufficient rights of participation in European lawmaking procedures and treaty amendment procedures".
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
June 30, 2009
Lech Kaczyński Defending Germans Against Lisbon Treaty
It is no longer only on a successful referendum in Ireland but also on a favourable ruling of the German constitutional court that president Lech Kaczyński now makes conditional putting his signature under the Lisbon Treaty.
Read news report at wyborcza.pl (Poland)
June 27, 2009
Government has abandoned democracy to get a 'Yes' vote
Micheal Martin and Brian Cowen returned from the EU meeting on Friday, June 19 with a terrible mess of potage. They will try to sell this mess to the Irish people between now and October and it will inevitably involve further misrepresentation of the facts. 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.
Read article by Bruce Arnold in the Irish Independent (Ireland)
June 26, 2009
New poll shows 77% of German voters want a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty
On 30 June, judges at the German Constitutional Court are due to rule on the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the German Constitution. Ahead of the decision, Open Europe, in collaboration with the Institute for Free Enterprise in Berlin, today publishes a new poll which shows that 77% of Germans want to be given a say on the Lisbon Treaty in a national referendum.
Read press release on the Open Europe website (UK)
June 26, 2009
McCreevy admits most EU voters would reject Lisbon
EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy says Irish people shouldn't be ashamed about their rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. Speaking in Dublin this morning, McCreevy admitted that the treaty would have been rejected in most member states if it had been put to a public vote. He said many EU leaders were glad they had no legal obligation to hold referenda on the treaty in their own countries.
Read article in the Belfast Telegraph (Northern Ireland/UK)
Comment: Whilst some people may be uncomfortable with our referring to the EU as a dictatorship, in light of McCreevy’s admittance such concerns are unwarranted. In our opinion, given that EU leaders are trying to force this treaty undemocratically upon 500 million citizens - in full knowledge of the fact that it would have been rejected in most member states had it been put to a public vote - it is highly appropriate, even necessary, to describe them as dictators.
June 26, 2009
The EU's Latest Power Grab
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.
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)
June 25, 2009
Clarified Lisbon Treaty the very same
Nothing of substance happened at last week’s Council of Ministers discussions in Brussels on the Lisbon Treaty, writes Aengus Ó Snodaigh. Yes, we have an “international agreement” on neutrality, taxation and ethical issues to be lodged at the United Nations. Yes, we have the “promise” of a protocol on these same issues to be attached to a future accession treaty, for a country and on a date yet to be decided. And yes, we have a “solemn declaration” on workers’ rights. But have we any changes to the text of the Lisbon Treaty itself? Will any aspect of the treaty’s implementation in Ireland or across the EU be altered? Have the substantial concerns of the electorate on issues such as Ireland’s loss of influence, militarisation and neutrality, workers’ rights and public services, international trade deals, nuclear power and the developing world been addressed? The straight answer to all of these questions is “No”.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
June 25, 2009
Czech MPs mull suspension of Klaus' powers over Lisbon treaty
The Czech social democrat party is discussing the possibility of suspending president Vaclav Klaus' powers if he does not sign the EU's Lisbon treaty.
Read article at euobserver.com
June 24, 2009
Klaus pledges to be last to sign the Lisbon Treaty
Czech President Vaclav Klaus has pledged to be the last in the EU to sign the Lisbon Treaty, raising fears about the future of the document which has been several painful years in the making. The Czech parliament has approved the treaty, but the president's signature is needed to complete the process, a fact that the eurosceptic Mr Vaclav has dangled over the rest of the member states on several occasions. "I will certainly not rush," Mr Klaus told Czech Radio, reports DPA. "I will certainly wait until after all those things about which I have talked about, which include a constitutional complaint by our senators ... happen. The Irish have not voted again. Poland has not signed the Lisbon Treaty, and Germany has not signed the Lisbon Treaty. So I am not the last Mohican who is fighting against all," he said.
Read article at euobserver.com
June 22, 2009
Klaus raises new hurdle for Lisbon - ratification of Irish guarantees
There were sighs of relief on Friday after European Union leaders agreed legal guarantees to Ireland, seen as crucial if Irish ratification of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty is to succeed in a second referendum. But they haven’t counted on Czech President Václav Klaus, who’s so far refused to sign the document despite approval in both chambers of parliament and now says the Irish guarantees amount to new legal arrangements that require separate ratification in the Czech parliament.
Read article on the Radio Prague website (Czech Republic)
June 22, 2009
Irish EU deal hits U.K.
The people of Ireland now have the fate of Britain in their hands. The deal reached by Irish Premier Brian Cowen at the EU summit at the weekend allows him to call a new referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in early October. If the Irish vote "yes," and Gordon Brown's wretched lame duck of a government clings to power in London until next year, then Britain will probably remain a member of the EU. If the Irish vote "no," then Britain's disengagement is likely to begin. David Cameron, the Conservative leader who looks almost certain to win Britain's next election, has promised a separate British referendum on the Lisbon Treaty if the ratification process is not completed in all 27 EU member states.
Read article on the United Press International (UPI) website
June 22, 2009
EU security plans threaten freedom, says rights expert
People could find their liberties severely curtailed if EU plans on harmonising security measures, including the collection and storage of personal data, go ahead, according to a leading civil rights expert. Tony Bunyan, director of human rights organisation Statewatch and author of books on policing and human rights in Europe, was speaking in Dublin at the weekend at a meeting organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
June 22, 2009
Lisbon protocol a charade claims McKenna
The legal guarantees given by EU leaders to Taoiseach Brian Cowen on the Lisbon Treaty amount to nothing more than a “ludicrous charade,” former Green MEP Patricia McKenna has claimed. The impression had been given that Ireland fought long and hard in a difficult battle and then suddenly achieved something when EU heads of state agreed to a protocol enshrining the guarantees, Ms McKenna said yesterday. She claimed the public had been given the false impression of legal certainty when this didn’t exist. This was because the treaty had not changed “one iota” and would be interpreted by the European Court of Justice.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
June 21, 2009
Ireland will vote again on an identical text
In all the commentary about the "concessions" made to Ireland, the declarations on abortion, militarisation and so on, bear one fact in mind. Not one dot or comma of the Lisbon Treaty has been altered. The slightest emendation would have made it a new treaty, and thus necessitated re-ratification by the other 26 member states. This is an option their governments refused to countenance, for the hypocritical reason that their peoples, too, dislike the accord, and would almost certainly vote "No" in referendums. So, despite all the promises made by Brian Cowen, he is returning to Ireland with exactly the same treaty as before. All he has is a statement by his fellow heads of government - a press release, if you like - which will not form part of the text.
Read Daniel Hannan's blog entry on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
June 20, 2009
Czechs concerned about changes to Lisbon treaty
Legal guarantees given by the European Union to Ireland change the Lisbon treaty, Czech President Vaclav Klaus said on Saturday, opening a debate on whether the treaty's ratification process should be renewed.
Read news report at reuters.com
June 19, 2009
Cowen, you leave with nothing
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.
Read blog entry on the Open Europe Blog website (UK)
June 19, 2009
Guarantees a charade to throw voters: Higgins
Guarantees over the Lisbon Treaty are just a distraction to convince Irish voters the Lisbon Treaty has changed, newly elected Socialist MEP Joe Higgins said yesterday.
Read article in the Irish Independent (Ireland)
June 18, 2009
Irish EU minister accused of 'misleading' public over treaty
Ireland's Europe minister Dick Roche has been accused of "misleading" the Irish public over the stalled Lisbon treaty.
Read article at theparliament.com
June 16, 2009
McKenna rubbishes concept of 'legal guarantees' on Lisbon Treaty
People’s Movement chairperson Patricia McKenna has accused the Government of engaging in a cynical exercise of “political manipulation”. Speaking on behalf of the People’s Movement, which successfully campaigned against ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in last year’s referendum, McKenna said: “These so-called ‘legal guarantees’ on the Lisbon Treaty are nothing more than an exercise in creative manipulation designed to mislead the public.”
Read article in the Irish Examiner (Ireland)
June 15, 2009
Food For Thought: Gordon Brown as the EU’s First Full-Time President?
José Manuel Barroso is all but certain to be reappointed as European Commission president. But who will get the other plum European Union jobs that will soon be up for grabs? The most startling suggestion I have heard in recent days - and it came from a high-ranking EU diplomat - is that the EU’s first ever full-time president could be none other than Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK.
Read Tony Barber's blog entry on the Financial Times website (UK)
Comment: In our opinion, Brown may have been promised the job if he agrees to wait until the Lisbon Treaty has been fully ratified by all 27 EU countries before calling the UK’s next general election. Barring exceptional circumstances, the latest date he can hold this is Thursday 3 June 2010. Although Britain has already ratified the treaty, Brown’s major worry is that the main opposition party in Britain might hold a referendum on it if it is elected to power and the treaty has not yet been fully ratified in all 27 EU countries. As things stand, four countries - Ireland, the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany - have yet to ratify the treaty. In the Czech Republic, the parliament has passed it but President Vaclav Klaus has refused to sign it, as also has President Lech Kaczynski in Poland. As long as they hold out, the treaty cannot come into force. In Germany, meanwhile, the treaty's fate currently hangs on a Court Ruling. Latest reports suggest that Ireland will have its second referendum on the treaty in late September or early October and that the EU now sees the UK, not Ireland, as the greatest threat to its full and final ratification.
June 15, 2009
Second referendum on Lisbon may be held in late September
Taoiseach Brian Cowen has spoken to key EU leaders in recent days in an effort to get an agreement that will allow the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty to be held in late September or early October.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
June 12, 2009
Polish and Czech Presidents to bury Lisbon Treaty
British MEP Graham Watson, of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), has accused the Presidents of Poland and the Czech Republic of doing everything possible to ‘bury’ the Lisbon Treaty. Watson stated that Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Czech President Vaclav Klaus have teamed up with leader of the British conservative party David Cameron to bury the Lisbon Treaty. David Cameron has already announced in the UK that, if the Conservatives win the next British election and he becomes Prime Minister, Cameron will immediately write out the referendum to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. “Kaczynski and Klaus are willingly helping him and can postpone the signing of the Treaty,” stated Watson, adding that the three parties – Poland’s Law and Justice, the Czech Republic’s Civic Democratic Party and Cameron’s Conservative Party – are working together closely to create a new conservative fraction in European Parliament.
Read article on the Poland Radio website (Poland)
June 10, 2009
EU security proposals are 'dangerously authoritarian'
The European Union is stepping up efforts to build an enhanced pan-European system of security and surveillance which critics have described as “dangerously authoritarian”. Civil liberties groups say the proposals would create an EU ID card register, internet surveillance systems, satellite surveillance, automated exit-entry border systems operated by machines reading biometrics and risk profiling systems.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
June 8, 2009
European elections marked by record low turnout
The turnout in the 2009 European elections was the lowest ever since direct elections for the house started it thirty years ago, with Slovakia getting the lowest score for the second time in a row. The 4-7 June election saw 43.1 percent of the 375 million Europeans entitled to vote go to the polls, according to early results published on Sunday night (7 June) by TNS Sofres for the European Parliament. This result is more than two points lower than in 2004, which was then the lowest in the parliament's history at 45.5%.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: Turnout has now fallen consistently in every EU election since the first one in 1979. The only EU countries in which turnout is high are those where voting is required by law.
June 7, 2009
Brits, not Irish, loom as threat to the EU’s Lisbon treaty
It’s election day in Europe, but in certain respects the most important events are taking place outside the voting booths. According to a RTE/Sunday Independent opinion poll in Ireland, supporters of the European Union’s Lisbon treaty will defeat opponents by a margin of 54 per cent to 28 per cent (with 18 per cent undecided) when the treaty is submitted to a second referendum, probably in October. Such a thumping victory would not only reverse but for all practical purposes bury the memory of Irish voters’ rejection of the treaty in June 2008. Does this mean, then, that the treaty is set fair to come into effect on January 1, 2010, as almost all EU leaders hope? Not quite. The political turmoil in the UK is changing the equation.
Read Tony Barber's blog entry on the Financial Times website (UK)
June 2, 2009
Shamed MEPs take share of £20m 'farewell' payout
Three politicians accused of misusing public money will receive hundreds of thousands of pounds in pensions and benefits as part of a £20 million payoff for British MEPs who retire this week.
Read article in The Times (UK)
May 31, 2009
Globetrotting MEPs catch the gravy plane
Britain’s MEPs are spending more than £100,000 a year on fact-finding missions to long-haul tourist destinations from the Seychelles to Jamaica. On one trip, David Martin, the Scottish MEP, and Giles Chichester, former leader of the Conservative MEPs, were invited to watch La Traviata at Sydney Opera House before a dinner in Sydney harbour aboard a luxury catamaran.
Read article in The Sunday Times (UK)
May 29, 2009
A third of British MEPs employ family members on expenses
More than a third of British MEPs are paying their relatives hundreds of thousands of pounds, despite a ban by the European Parliament next month on employing family members. The wives, husbands and children of MEPs are earning up to £40,000 a year to work as secretaries and researchers at a total annual cost to taxpayers of more than £700,000.
Read article in The Times (UK)
Comment: In total MEPs can receive expenses and allowances of £363,000 a year. This includes an entitlement to £183,776 in staff allowances, £87,407 in travel expenses and £45,648 in general office expenses – despite the fact that they are provided with offices in Brussels and Strasbourg. Moreover, the office allowance is paid automatically and MEPs do not even have to produce receipts to support the expenses or repay any underspend.
May 28, 2009
The surveillance society is an EU-wide issue
The EU's new five-year plan for justice and home affairs will export the UK's database state to the rest of the EU.
Read article by Tony Bunyan in the Guardian (UK)
May 26, 2009
European elections set to become 'massive' protest vote
Next month's European elections could turn into a 'massive' protest against national governments, according to a new study.
Read article at theparliament.com
May 22, 2009
Eighteen 'phantom' MEPs will do no work for two years
Eighteen "phantom" MEPs will be elected on full pay and perks next month despite not being able to start work for up to two years due to Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. The extra candidates will be chosen in the European Union elections on June 4 despite the agreement, which increases the number of MEPs from 736 to 754, remaining unsigned.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
May 22, 2009
Anti-Europe sentiment soars
British hostility towards Europe is as strong as ever, according to a new poll out today, with overwhelming majorities favouring breaking EU rules and refusing to pay subsequent fines. There was also strong support for unilaterally reclaiming powers from the European Union and the greatest opposition to adopting the Euro since 1995.
Read article at politics.co.uk
Comment: Seventy-five per cent of those polled in Britain believe the Lisbon treaty should go to a referendum with sixty-two per cent saying they would vote against ratification.
May 19, 2009
Majority of Europeans not interested in European Parliament elections
While a majority of Europeans say they like the European Union, more than half have declared no interest in the June European elections, a fresh study has shown. When asked about the 4-7 June poll, 18 percent of the respondents said they were "not at all interested" in it, while 35 percent said they were "rather not interested," a TNS Opinion study for the French Political Innovation Foundation released on Monday (18 May) showed. Just as many (35%) said they were "rather interested," but just 11 percent said they were "very interested."
Read article at euobserver.com
May 14, 2009
Italians have worst EU parliament attendance
A new website detailing the complete voting records of MEPs reveals that Italy's 78 deputies have the poorest attendance record. Data on votewatch.eu shows Italian MEPs have an average 71.93 per cent attendance rate, 20 per cent down of the best performing countries, Austria, Estonia, Finland, Slovakia and Poland.
Read article at theparliament.com
May 13, 2009
Eurojust chief embroiled in Portuguese corruption scandal
The EU's judicial co-operation body, Eurojust, on Wednesday tried to distance itself from a scandal involving its head, Jose da Mota, who allegedly put pressure on prosecutors in order to stop a corruption probe involving Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates. "For the time being, Eurojust does not want to comment on this case. It is a national case in Portugal and Eurojust is not involved in this case," Johannes Thuy, a spokesman for the Hague-based EU body told this website.Portugal's general prosecutor on Tuesday launched a disciplinary procedure against Mr Mota following an internal investigation "of alleged pressures" on magistrates.
Read article at euobserver.com
May 6, 2009
Czech Senate approves Lisbon but Klaus holding out over putting signature to ratification
The Czech Senate approved the Lisbon treaty in a vote on Wednesday afternoon, some two months after the document was ratified by the lower house of Parliament. The Czech Republic is one of the last countries in Europe to vote on the reform document, and its ratification is far from complete, with eurosceptic president Vaclav Klaus still having to sign the document.
Read article on the Radio Prague website (Czech Republic)
Comment: Just an hour after the vote, President Vaclav Klaus appeared live on TV, saying that for him, the treaty is dead because it was rejected by a referendum in Ireland.
May 6, 2009
Klaus to wait for Czech Constitutional Court ruling on Lisbon
Czech President Vaclav Klaus will only voice his position on the Lisbon treaty after the Constitutional Court passes a ruling on it if a group of senators asks it to examine the treaty, Klaus told journalists after the Czech Senate passed it today.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
Comment: A group of senators for the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), of which Klaus is a founder and former long-standing chairman, has announced that it will challenge the treaty in the Czech Constitutional Court. Seventeen ODS senators, the lowest required number in the 81-seat upper house, have reportedly promised to join their signatures under the planned constitutional complaint.
May 6, 2009
Will the European Parliament tolerate an Official Opposition?
There is an unspoken, but universally acknowledged, double standard in Brussels. Goody-goody federalists can get away with almost anything, even open abuse of their expenses. But Euro-sceptics constantly expect to be persecuted. Recently, a British Europhile admitted that she had been taking money from a waste disposal company while steering through legislation of interest to that company. She had failed to declare her interest, in contravention of the rules. Never mind, though: she was a federalist. The President declared that she was a woman of the utmost integrity, and that was the end of the story. When, by contrast, an anti-corruption Austrian MEP made himself unpopular by filming MEPs for signing in when they had no meetings to attend, he was fined thousands of euros for, in effect, filling in a form incorrectly.
Read Daniel Hannan's blog on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
May 1, 2009
Movement wants short EU treaty, more transparency
European co-operation should be based on a short treaty of no more than 25 pages which every citizen can read, understand and use. Only elected representatives should make EU law. Commissioners should be accountable to (and be able to be sacked by) the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. Meanwhile, all MEPs and commissioners’ expenses should be published. All EU laws should be negotiated and decided in public. Savings of €10 billion should be made by the commission in the next financial year. These are just some of the “pledges” made in the draft electoral programme for the forthcoming European elections by Libertas, the anti-Lisbon Treaty, pan-European party founded by Irish businessman Declan Ganley.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
April 28, 2009
British Tories repeat call for treaty referendum
British Tories have launched a launched a new campaign demanding the UK government honours its manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on the stalled Lisbon treaty.
Read article at theparliament.com
April 27, 2009
Will the EU snub the Czechs?
It looks as if the European Union is going to postpone two key decisions rather than allow the Czech President Vaclav Klaus to take the chair at a June summit. Talks on "guarantees" to persuade to Irish to accept the Lisbon Treaty and the choice of the next European Commission President were to take place at a June 18 meeting of EU leaders. Now it is looking as if the decisions will be kicked into touch until mid-July because of the possibility that President Klaus could be chairing the negotiations as holder of the Czech EU presidency.
Read blog entry by Bruno Waterfield on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
April 24, 2009
Site on MEPs' attendance closed
Creator of website intended to increase transparency shuts down site after two days, amid protests by his own party.
After waves of protest, the Italian Liberal MEP Marco Cappato today closed the Parlorama website, which ranked MEPs based on their attendance in plenary sessions and committee meetings. Cappato announced the opening of the website on Wednesday as part of his campaign for more transparency over MEPs' performance. He wanted to demonstrate that it was technically possible to collect and process data on MEPs' attendance and participation in parliamentary activities.
Read article at europeanvoice.com
April 16, 2009
Taxpayers to plug £100m hole in MEP pension fund created by financial crisis and fraud
Taxpayers could be asked to plug a £106 million black hole in a fund providing a second pension for MEPs, to make up for cash lost to fraudulent investment schemes and during the financial crisis. The second pension perk, for 478 out of 785 MEPs, already costs taxpayers over £12 million a year, an annual bill that will increase by up to £10.6 million to meet the shortfall.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
April 14, 2009
EU elections heading for record low turnout
With European Parliament elections fast approaching, EU citizens are less interested in the poll than ever before in a situation that could see the abstention rate across the bloc hit a record 66 percent. A soon to be released survey from the European Commission's polling service, Eurobarometer, shows that interest in the election is weak right across the union, reports France's Liberation daily. The newest EU citizens, from member states that joined in 2004 and 2007, are as indifferent as their "old European" cousins, who have decades of experience in EU electoral listlessness.
Read article at euobserver.com
April 12, 2009
EU trains a new diplomatic corps - without waiting for Lisbon Treaty
The European Union was accused of "contempt for democracy" on Sunday after it emerged that hundreds of members of a new diplomatic service are being trained - even though the Lisbon Treaty that creates it has not come into effect.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
April 10, 2009
EC memo tells staff how to dodge difficult questions
European Commission officials have been told they can evade freedom of information rules by keeping two sets of documents, a "whitened" text for public release and a "separate" classified version. A leaked 15 page "vademecum" issued by the Commission's trade department to staff has been attacked by campaigners for encouraging officials "to conceal information from public scrutiny".
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: To download the leaked memo, click here.
April 5, 2009
Blair steps up fight to be crowned first 'President of EU'
Tony Blair has emerged as the leading candidate to become the first permanent president of the European Union after Gordon Brown gave his grudging blessing to the plan. The former prime minister has stepped up his campaign for the job, which he wants to use to build a bridge between Europe and the new Obama administration. His return to the global stage would be a shock to his critics over the Iraq war and dismay many in Europe
Read article in the Independent on Sunday (UK)
Comment: The European Union’s presidency job is dependant on four remaining countries - Ireland, the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany - ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, which creates the position. However, unlike the election of President Barack Obama in the United States, the president of the European Union would not be elected by ordinary citizens voting democratically in an election. Instead, he or she would be chosen by the European political elite. Moreover, under the Lisbon Treaty, not only would European Union citizens have no democratic means of choosing their president, they would also have no means of removing him. To sign the European-wide petition rejecting the Lisbon Treaty, click here. To read the proposed "Europe for the People, by the People" constitution, proposed by survivors of the WWII Auschwitz concentration camp, which calls for the right to health; the right to life; the right to natural food; the right to a healthy environment; respect for human dignity and the protection of social values for all European citizens, click here. To add your name in support of this important constitution, click here.
April 2, 2009
MEP queries legal basis for Ireland's Lisbon guarantees
THE GOVERNMENT’S plan to have guarantees on the Lisbon Treaty added to the EU treaties by means of the Croatian accession treaty has run into opposition in the European Parliament. The plan, which was announced by French president Nicolas Sarkozy last December, is intended to provide cast-iron legal guarantees to Irish voters ahead of a second referendum in the autumn. Liberal MEP Andrew Duff, who is one of three MEPs who sat on the intergovernmental conference that drew up the treaty, told journalists yesterday that adding an Irish-specific protocol with the legal guarantees to an accession treaty was not legally possible. “Adding this protocol to the Croatian accession treaty would leave the treaty wide open to attack in the courts,” said Mr Duff. He added that rules in the EU treaties governing accession treaties only allow issues pertaining to a state’s accession to be dealt with.
Read article in The Irish Times (Ireland)
March 31, 2009
Czech ODS senators still disunited on Lisbon treaty
Prague - The senator group of the senior government Civic Democrats (ODS) has not yet decided on its stance on the Lisbon treaty, their head Jiri Stritesky told journalists today. Stritesky said he believes that the ODS senators would decide only shortly ahead of the vote. He said the group wants the Senate to discuss the treaty during its regular session or in late April or early May. The Lisbon treaty cannot be ratified in the Senate unless at least some ODS members support it.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
March 31, 2009
Caroline Flint, Europe minister, hasn't read Lisbon Treaty
Caroline Flint, the Minister for Europe, has admitted that she has not read the Lisbon Treaty, the controversial document which codifies the rules of the European Union. In a surprise confession during a House of Commons' debate, she told MPs that she had however been "briefed" on parts of the Treaty, which replaced but resembles the failed EU constitution. Her honest declaration, which led to gasps from MPs, came after Miss Flint was asked during the debate if she had read the elements of the treaty that related to defence. She replied: "I have read some of it but not all of it." Critics described her admission as "extraordinary" and "unbelievable," particularly given that the minister's responsibilities include overseeing the introduction of the Treaty.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
March 26, 2009
Fears of unrest in eastern Europe grow as Czech government collapses
The collapse of the Czech government sent shivers through financial markets in eastern Europe yesterday fanning fears about the growing political unrest that appears to be sweeping through the EU's eastern fringes. Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's government narrowly lost a vote of no-confidence on Tuesday night, four days after the Hungarian leader, Ferenc Gyuarcsany, threw in the towel and five weeks after the Latvian government fell under a barrage of public protests. Most of eastern Europe's main currencies lost value yesterday as Czechs pondered the impact of Mr Topolanek's defeat, while Romania turned to the IMF for a €20bn lifeline.
Read article in The Independent (UK)
March 25, 2009
Czech threat to Lisbon treaty
Ratification of the European Union’s reform treaty could be made more difficult by the fall of the Czech government and its knock-on effect for the EU presidency, which is held by Prague, officials warned on Wednesday. In Strasbourg, Alexandr Vondra, Czech deputy prime minister, said Prague’s ratification of the Lisbon treaty, which requires the approval of all 27 countries in the EU bloc, could be more problematic after Tuesday night’s vote of no confidence.
Read article in the Financial Times (UK)
March 24, 2009
Czech cabinet forced to resign
The most immediate consequence of the collapse of the Czech government is that the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the Czech Republic will almost certainly be delayed. In general terms, it is a serious blow to the Czech presidency of the EU, and puts the Eurosceptic Czech president Vaclav Klaus in the driving seat. The confidence vote was lost because two members of Mirek Topolanek's Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and two members of the Greens - who are coalition partners - defected to the opposition.
Read article on the RTE News website (Ireland)
March 22, 2009
Klaus says Irish may not change stance on Lisbon treaty – Times
Czech President Vaclav Klaus believes that the Irish will be under "enormous, and not very democratic" pressure to ratify the Lisbon treaty, the British daily Sunday Times writes today. Klaus, a resolute opponent of the EU treaty, told the paper that the second Irish referendum might have the same result as the first one. The Irish rejected the Lisbon treaty last summer. "I believe the Irish people knew what they were doing," Klaus said about the first referendum. Klaus said in the interview that the Lisbon treaty cannot be improved by "some cosmetic changes in article x or y." "If ratified, it will represent an irreversible shift from 'Europe of states' to 'the State of Europe,'" Klaus told the paper.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
Comment: To read the British Sunday Times interview with President Klaus, click here.
March 21, 2009
EU Commissioners to take home more than £1 million each on leaving office
New research from Open Europe has found that European Commissioners leaving office later this year will receive more than £1 million each in pension payments and so-called 'transitional' and 'resettlement' allowances.
Read press release on the Open Europe website (UK)
March 18, 2009
EU commission plans to 'force' Irish to vote Yes on Lisbon
The anti-Lisbon treaty group Libertas claims the EU is "wasting" taxpayers' money trying to secure ratification of the treaty in Ireland. The group says the commission has agreed to spend €1.8m on a campaign to "inform and educate" the Irish about the benefits of the treaty.
Read article at theparliament.com
March 18, 2009
Cost of EU membership 'ten times higher' than official figures
The 'real' cost of EU membership to member states is 'many times higher' than figures quoted by the European commission, it has been claimed. According to the Taxpayers' Alliance, EU membership costs every citizen €2400 per year, compared with the €235 quoted by the commission. The UK-based lobby group says that, annually, the total cost of membership to the 27 states is €1219bn – close to ten times the official figures.
Read article at theparliament.com
March 16, 2009
Libertas' Ganley to run for EU elections
Irish businessman Declan Ganley, a leading campaigner against the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, will stand as a candidate for elections to the European Parliament in June, a spokeswoman said on Saturday (14 March). As Libertas chairman, Ganley is one of the most high profile opponents of the Lisbon Treaty, which Irish voters rejected last year amid a lack of information about the treaty and fears Dublin would lose control over policy areas such as tax. Ganley, who helped fund Libertas' 'No' campaign, has said he wants the Parliament elections to be a European-wide referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Read article at euractiv.com
March 15, 2009
Return of the East-West divide: European Union in chaos as global recession deepens
The European Union is falling victim to disputes and backbiting, with warnings that its future is in jeopardy because of divisions over global economic crisis.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
February 26, 2009
Senior MEP calls for more transparency on EU parliament expenses
British MEP Chris Davies has called for disclosure rules on MEP expenses to be tightened before this June's European elections. The demand comes in the wake of a report this week by the UK-based Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA) which said MEPs' expenses and pensions are so lavish that they can earn as much as €1.13m on top of their salaries over their five-year term in parliament.
Read article at theparliament.com
February 23, 2009
Anti-fraud European MP stands down
Dutch member of the European parliament Paul van Buitenen will stand down at the next European elections in June because of the EU body's reluctance to seriously tackle fraud. He told tv programme Reporter on Sunday that he was 'very disappointed' that no action had been taken on the cases of fraud he had brought to light. Van Buitenen was an EU civil servant when in 1999 he blew the whistle on fraud and irregularities within the EU commission. The commission subsequently resigned en masse.
Read article at dutchnews.nl (Netherlands)
February 22, 2009
Secret report reveals how MEPs make millions
A leaked internal report has revealed systematic abuses by Euro MPs of parliamentary allowances that enable them to pocket more than £1m in profits from a single five-year term, writes Jonathan Oliver. The auditor’s confidential report, suppressed by the Brussels parliament, discloses the extraordinary frauds used by MEPs to siphon off staff allowances funded by taxpayers. It shows that some claimed for paying assistants of whom no record exists, awarded them bonuses of up to 1½ times annual salary and diverted public money into front companies. An investigation into the abuses of staff allowances worth up to £182,000 a year — many of which are paid by MEPs to members of their family — was delivered in January last year but was not published.
Read article in The Sunday Times (UK)
February 19, 2009
Klaus provokes walk-out in the Parliament
Czech president says Lisbon treaty would worsen the EU's 'democratic deficit'.
Czech President Václav Klaus said today that strengthening the powers of the European Parliament as foreseen by the Lisbon treaty would worsen the democratic deficit in the EU. Klaus's comments, made in a formal address to the European Parliament in Brussels, prompted a walkout by a large number of MEPs, although he was also cheered by right-wing and Eurosceptic deputies. Klaus accused the EU of moving away from an open free-market economy and towards a “suppressed market” and a “permanently strengthening centrally controlled economy”. The Czech president attacked “politically correct thinking” which branded critics of the current institutional arrangements of the EU as “enemies of European integration”.
Read article at europeanvoice.com
Comment: The Czech president’s attack on the authenticity of the EU parliament was apparently “blistering.” Shamefully, however, many MEPs booed or walked out as he appealed for a real debate over the meaning of Europe and the European Union. To read the full text of Klaus’ speech, click here.
February 18, 2009
Taoiseach keeps door open for early poll on Lisbon
Taoiseach Brian Cowen yesterday appeared to leave the door open to an early re-run of the Lisbon Treaty, claiming agreement on guarantees could still be obtained before the local and European elections in June. "We do not have to wait until June. It may be necessary to wait until then or it may be possible to get the work done sooner. We will have to wait and see," Mr Cowen told the Dail. "We have until June to complete this work but if we can complete it sooner, all the better."
Read article in the Irish Independent (Ireland)
February 18, 2009
Is the writing on the wall for the EU?
It is going to be a sombre gathering when Europe's leaders gather in Brussels for an emergency summit over lunch on Sunday Mar 1. The European Union faces its first economic crash, a disaster that is shaping up to be a once in a century event. There is the spectre of intra-EU tensions around the Justus Lipsius luncheon table as leaders from big countries - that President Nicolas Sarkozy - tear up the rules. Hurtling towards them is the prospect that bailing out the banks has merely transferred the "toxic" contagion to nations. The coming crisis is a crisis of states not financial institutions. It will be a crisis of politics.
Read blog entry by Bruno Waterfield on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
February 18, 2009
Czech lower parliament says ‘Yes’ to Lisbon treaty
The lower house of the Czech parliament has approved the EU Lisbon Treaty – a major but not final step towards ratification. The lower chamber voted by 125 to 61 votes to adopt the document, which must now go before the parliament’s upper house. Right-wing opposition in the senate could leave the treaty in limbo. Even then, eurosceptic president Vaclav Klaus has said he will wait as long as possible before he signs it into law.
Read article at euronews.net
February 18, 2009
Czech MP says Lisbon cannot take effect without Klaus's signature
The Lisbon treaty would not take effect if it were approved by both houses of the Czech parliament but not signed by President Vaclav Klaus, deputy Marek Benda (Civic Democrats, ODS) says in the daily Pravo today.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
February 16, 2009
Czech President Klaus compares EU to USSR
Noted Eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, was quoted by a French weekly as comparing the 27-member European Union with the former Soviet Union. “One thing is sure, just as it was in the USSR, very important decisions are not taken in the countries that they concern,” the notoriously anti-EU Klaus said an interview published in Paris Match.
Read article at neurope.eu
February 15, 2009
Kenny says Lisbon poll in June would be a 'serious mistake'
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has said holding a second Lisbon Treaty referendum on the same day as the European Parliament elections in June would be a "serious mistake" and he called on the Government to confirm its original indication that the ballot will be held in October. Mr Kenny was speaking at a selection convention in Cork for the Ireland South constituency for the European Parliament elections in June.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
February 13, 2009
Cabinet at odds over June date for Lisbon poll rerun
The Cabinet has debated bringing forward the date for the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the Irish Independent can reveal. Ministers have considered holding the poll on the same day as the local and European elections -- Friday, June 5. A majority opinion within the Cabinet believes the move could prove too risky if it is seen as a stunt.
Read article in the Irish Independent (Ireland)
February 11, 2009
EU commissioners told to 'stay out' of parliament elections
Commission president José Manuel Barroso and his fellow commissioners have been warned to ‘stay out’ of the European elections. The stark warning was issued on Wednesday by senior Danish MEP Poul Nyrup Rasmussen at the launch of the Socialist campaign for the June election. Speaking at a news conference, the former Danish prime minister said, “In the remaining months of the commission’s mandate we will be watching Barroso and the other members of the commission to ensure that they stay out of the campaign.”
Read article at theparliament.com
February 11, 2009
German judges express scepticism about EU treaty
Several of the eight judges in charge of examining whether the EU's Lisbon Treaty is compatible with the German constitution have expressed scepticism about the constitutional effects of further EU integration. According to reports in the German media, the debate during the crucial two-day hearing starting on Tuesday (10 Februrary) on the treaty centred on criminal law and the extent to which it should be the preserve of member states rather than the EU.
Read article on the euobserver.com website
Comment: Article 146 of Germany's constitution says that a referendum may be called if the constitutional order in the country is changed to the detriment of Germany's current constitution – the Grundgesetz or Basic Law. As such, it is possible that the court could ask for a referendum on the treaty.
February 10, 2009
Czech Senate likely to deal with Lisbon treaty in April
Prague - The Czech Senate will probably deal with the Lisbon treaty in April as its foreign committee today proposed that the debate on the document be adjourned until the adoption of a special mandate for the government. The mandate would secure that not only the government but also parliament would have to approve possible transfers of powers to Brussels.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
February 10, 2009
EU's Lisbon Treaty Hangs on German Court Ruling
If Germany's highest court decides that the EU's Lisbon Treaty, aimed at streamlining decision-making in the 27-member block, is unconstitutional, the disputed EU initiative could potentially be buried once and for all. The Federal Constitutional Court will from Tuesday, Feb. 10, consider claims that the proposed EU treaty calls into question the basic principles of representative democracy by undermining the power of national parliaments. The complaint was brought by Peter Gauweiler, a conservative member of the Bundestag and a group of deputies from the Left party.
Read article on the Deutsche Welle website (Germany)
February 4, 2009
Czech lower house postpones Lisbon treaty vote until February 17
The Czech Chamber of Deputies today further postponed its vote on the EU's Lisbon treaty, on the proposal of the senior ruling Civic Democrats (ODS). As a result, the Chamber will take the ratification vote on February 17 at the earliest. The Chamber of Deputies, which interrupted its debate on the treaty in December, was expected to take the vote on it on Tuesday or today.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
February 2, 2009
Second Lisbon vote confirms voters' fears
Ignoring the result of a referendum is evidence of a democratic deficit at the heart of the EU
It’s been a deplorable beginning to 2009 with job losses bringing the total number of unemployed to almost 300,000 – the highest in almost 20 years. The taxpayer is being called on to rescue the banks, no one can get credit, we’ve crashed hard into a recession, and economists are forecasting that unemployment will rise to 12 per cent next year. In the midst of this meltdown what are our political representatives doing? Scheming to try to pass a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Read article by Richard Greene in the Irish Times (Ireland)
Comment: As Richard Greene sagely points out, the Irish Government is making a serious error in underestimating the resistance to a second vote on the Lisbon Treaty. And resistance is growing, since, by insisting on a second vote, Brian Cowen, the Irish Premier, has confirmed what many Irish voters already felt to be true: the people are no longer the decision makers in an increasingly undemocratic EU.
February 2, 2009
Lisbon treaty at the mercy of US and Russian missile plans
Almost 20 years after the end of the Cold War, it is sobering to see how military and security policy decisions taken in Washington and Moscow can still shape the fate of Europe. Take the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, which sets out to reform the EU’s institutional arrangements. The treaty, rejected by Irish voters last June but still viewed in official EU circles as an absolute necessity, is perhaps the last foreign policy issue on the mind of either Barack Obama or Vladimir Putin. But the US president and Russian prime minister are making overtures to each other on Europe-based missile and anti-missile shield systems that may damage the treaty’s prospects of ever coming into effect.
Read blog entry by Tony Barber on the Financial Times website (UK)
January 31, 2009
Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets
France paralysed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris resembling a debris-strewn battlefield. The Hungarian currency sinks to its lowest level ever against the euro, as the unemployment figure rises. Greek farmers block the road into Bulgaria in protest at low prices for their produce. New figures from the biggest bank in the Baltic show that the three post-Soviet states there face the biggest recessions in Europe. It's a snapshot of a single day – yesterday – in a Europe sinking into the bleakest of times. But while the outlook may be dark in the big wealthy democracies of western Europe, it is in the young, poor, vulnerable states of central and eastern Europe that the trauma of crash, slump and meltdown looks graver.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
January 27, 2009
German court handed new complaint on EU treaty
Germany's constitutional court has been handed a second complaint over the EU's Lisbon Treaty with the potential to delay the country's final ratification of the document for several months. The new legal action, running to over 200 pages, is concerned with economic as well as political issues, which the complainants say are not addressed by the Lisbon Treaty. They argue that a prognosis on European integration given by the country's constitutional court in a 1993 judgement on the Maastricht Treaty - which paved the way to the euro - has turned out to be false. Instead, EU integration has been characterised by "continuous breaches of the stability pact, a presumptuous over-stepping of power by the European Commission, unaccountable leadership and dissolution of the separation of powers," say the authors in a statement on Monday (26 January), according to German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Read article at euobserver.com
January 27, 2009
Czech house defers vote on key EU reform treaty
The head of the Czech parliament's lower house Tuesday said a vote on the European Union's beleaguered Lisbon reform treaty would be further delayed as a parliamentary body needed time to examine it.
Read article at eubusiness.com
January 22, 2009
MEP roll calls to be published online
The European parliament bureau has decided to accept a request tabled by ALDE MEP Marco Cappato to publish all the data concerning the attendance of MEPs in plenary and committee on its website.
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: A step in the right direction and something that should have happened years ago. As taxpayers, we pay MEP’s salaries and should therefore have the right to know what they are doing to warrant earning them.
January 14, 2009
UK opposition leader vows Lisbon referendum
David Cameron, the leader of the opposition Conservative party in Britain, has pledged to hold a referendum on the EU's Lisbon treaty if his party is elected later this year. Mr Cameron told the Financial Times newspaper that he believes that the Labour government under Prime Minister Gordon Brown may hold an election in 2009, possibly as early as April. Under this scenario "we could have a referendum in October," the Conservative politician said.
Read article at euobserver.com
January 12, 2009
New Czech Eurosceptic party rejects Lisbon treaty
The new Czech right-oriented party, the Party of Free Citizens (SSO), rejects the Lisbon treaty and it will seek a referendum on the Czech adoption of the euro, Petr Mach, the SSO´s initiator, said while presenting its programme and preparatory committee today. Mach, executive director of the Czech Centre for Economics and Politics (CEP) and a close aide to President Vaclav Klaus, also confirmed that he wants to cooperate with the movement Libertas of Irish Lisbon treaty opponent Declan Ganley in preparations of the European Parliament (EP) elections scheduled for June.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
January 11, 2009
Loosen Britain's ties with European Union, say two-thirds of voters
Almost two-thirds of voters want a significant loosening of Britain's ties with the European Union including an end to the supremacy of the European Court of Justice, a new opinion poll reveals. The YouGov survey for the TaxPayersAlliance and Global Vision, the Eurosceptic pressure group, shows that voters remain antagonistic towards the EU in the wake of the Lisbon Treaty, which increased the powers of Brussels at the expense of national governments, as well as towards the euro, despite recent falls in the value of the pound.
Read article in the Sunday Telegraph (UK)
January 7, 2009
EC head indirectly calls on Prague to ratify Lisbon treaty
The countries that have signed the EU reform Lisbon treaty should also ratify it, EC President Jose Barroso said in Prague after a meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus. He hinted at the fact that the EU-presiding Czech Republic is the only EU member state that has not yet ratified the Lisbon treaty, along with Ireland that rejected the treaty in a referendum in June.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
Comment: Despite Barroso seemingly trying to hint that the Czech Republic and Ireland are the only EU member states that have not yet ratified the Lisbon treaty, the facts speak otherwise. As he knows very well, the truth is that neither Poland nor even Germany has as yet ratified this treaty either. As such, the fact that Barroso apparently prefers not to admit this publicly speaks volumes.
January 7, 2009
Czech Senate postpones Lisbon treaty ratification until February
The foreign committee of the Senate, the upper house of Czech parliament, today approved a senior ruling Civic Democrat (ODS) senators's proposal to postpone the debate and ratification of the EU reform Lisbon treaty until mid-February.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
January 7, 2009
Czechs prepare for possible second Irish No
The Czech EU presidency is preparing a contingency plan for one of the most sensitive areas in the EU institutional set-up in case Ireland rejects Europe's new treaty for a second time later this year. According to the Irish Times newspaper, Prague is working on a plan for how to reduce the size of the European Commission should Irish voters once again vote No in autumn.
Read article at euobserver.com
January 1, 2009
CzechRep takes up EU presidency for six months
The Czech Republic has taken up the European Union (EU) rotating presidency on the arrival of the new year and it will speak on behalf of the EU and coordinate its activities in the next six months. After Slovenia, the Czech Republic is the second of the newcomers, admitted to the EU in 2004, to preside over the EU. It has taken over the presidency from France.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)