The UK government has promised a consolidated version of the EU Treaty of Lisbon, but the answer does not specify when the consolidation is going to be available to the House of Lords and, presumably, to the public. This is from the parliamentary record of 4 December 2007:
“EU: Reform Treaty
Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will ensure that a full official consolidated text of the European Union reform treaty signed in Lisbon showing all changes to previous treaties in readable form is made available before the ratification process begins in Parliament. [HL11]
The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Ashton of Upholland): I apologise to the noble Lord for the delay in answering this Question. The House of Lords European Union Select Committee has proposed to conduct its assessment of the impact of the reform treaty on the basis of the changes it makes to the treaties which are currently in force. As the committee has requested, we will provide a comparison of the reform treaty with the existing treaties and a consolidated text of the treaties as amended by the reform treaty.”
***
If the House of Lords needs consolidated versions of the amending Treaties, so do the interested citizens.
If a consolidated version of the Treaty of Lisbon is needed in English, so do consolidations in every official language of the European Union.
Ralf Grahn
Thursday, 27 December 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Subscribe To Grahnlaw
Posts
Comments
I see you are an apologist for the E.U. You have an axe to grind then.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that the E.U. provides full rights for its citizens. I don't know if you're aware of the truth and are covering that up for your own commercial gain (I understand that there are paid bloggers to 'sell' the E.U.) or if you genuinely believe that the E.U. respects the rights of its citizens.
Why, for example, are you denying the people of Europe the right to democratic referendum?
Yours is a Marxist hegemony which will crush all dissent and you as a part of such a system are just as evil as those at the top.
Democracy, both at the national level and at EU level, is representative (in the main).
ReplyDeleteWanting to expand democratic accountability to the European level has nothing to do with marxism.
If you equate the cause of pluralistic democracy with "an axe to grind", it is your misconception.
If you took the time to read and to think, instead of launching unfounded suspicions, you might realise that I am highly critical of the current state of democracy in the European Union.
Aurora, I wonder why you chose to comment one of my posts on consolidated versions of the Lisbon Treaty.
ReplyDeleteFor, against or undecided, all citizens of the European Union should have the right to readable, user-friendly Treaties to debate.
Perhaps you could consider presenting opinions based on facts, in a civilised manner, without resorting to abusive language?
Democracy, both at the national level and at EU level, is representative (in the main).
ReplyDeleteI notice you add the proviso, 'in the main'. There is no such thing as democracy at an EU level. What you have is an unelected, completely unrepresentative group of individuals wishing to cut out the irrelevant citizens and deal only with the politicians who clearly have great power, prestige and financial gain to be had by absolute compliance while betraying their people. A huge percentage of the people of Britain are demanding a referendum and obviously Gordon Brown has turned a deaf ear to them preferring to obey his E.U. overlords.
You're right, it's not Marxist, it's a particularly ugly metamorphosis of Marxism. At least with Marxism, profit was made and redistributed to the people. This new ugly mutation seeks to grind to a halt the dynamic market so that there are no surprises out there. It makes it easier to achieve goals and objectives if nobody is making money. The twin key words are 'control' and 'power'; control of the citizens by whatever means necessary and power, who has it and how much they can achieve. In order to achieve absolute power, the rights of the citizens to such basic human rights as being able to vote for who represents their interests and against who doesn't has been taken from them.
Watch out for world wide famine and massive reductions in global population...Oh and a one person leadership once they've got rid of the rotating presidency.
You need to do some critical reading.
By the way, I commented on this post for no particular reason. If all your posts are promoting the E.U. then I disagree with them all for the same fundamental reasons.
Aurora, you could read my post on democratic principles in the Treaty of Lisbon.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am critical of the fact that important areas and decisions are outside the powers of the European Parliament, I acknowledge the fact that the EP a) exists, b) that it is directly elected by EU citizens, c) that it is a co-legislator and d)that the scope for co-legislation is widening as a result of the Lisbon Treaty.