Saturday 29 October 2011

Cameron agreed to SIX EU treaty changes - with no repatriation of powers...

Denis Cooper, on Conservative Home said...

Since the Treaty of Lisbon finally came into force on December 1st 2009, there have been no fewer than SIX piecemeal EU treaty changes put in the pipeline.

Firstly a protocol was agreed to sort out a legal pickle over the numbers of MEPs; that was quietly approved by Parliament through Part 2 of the European Union Act 2011:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/12/part/2/enacted

Then:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/wintour-and-watt/2011/sep/09/eu-euro

"There are four more treaty changes which have to be ratified by all 27 member states in addition to the ESM revision. They are Croatia's accession treaty, which must be ratified by 2013; the Irish protocol, which persuaded the Irish Republic to vote in favour of the Lisbon Treaty; the separate Irish amendment to the Lisbon Treaty, which allows every member state to keep their European commissioner; and the Czech protocol which persuaded the eurosceptic President Václav Klaus to sign the Lisbon Treaty. Cameron will not use any of these treaty changes to repatriate powers."

Hang about, what's this "in addition to the ESM revision"?

Oh, that's the other EU treaty change, the radical EU treaty change agreed by EU leaders on March 25th through European Council Decision 2011/199/EU:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:091:0001:0002:EN:PDF

which the government, and for some reason also the mass media, like to pretend never happened.

Although Hague did have to lay a statement before Parliament on October 13th:

http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/eu-section5-statement

admitting its existence and denying us a referendum on it; and on Monday a question from Mark Reckless MP forced Cameron to likewise acknowledge its existence, Column 36 here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm111024/debtext/111024-0001.htm

"Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con): The Prime Minister tells The Daily Telegraph today that we should use any treaty change to shore up the euro to get powers over employment and social policy back, yet on 25 March, he agreed to precisely such a treaty change, but did not ask for anything in return.

The Prime Minister: I have to take issue with my hon. Friend. The very limited treaty change that is about to be debated in, and hopefully passed by, the House of Commons ... "

Except that it isn't a "very limited" treaty change; it's a radical treaty change, and one which Cameron stupidly and recklessly gave to the eurozone states - more accurately, really, to Germany and France - without getting anything substantive in exchange to protect our national interests.

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Nice one Denis - thanks for the permission to repost.

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