Åland Islands debate EU Lisbon Treaty

Fellow blogger EU Law asked me what the local Åland Islands parliament is doing with the Treaty of Lisbon today. I thought it would be better to try to answer in a separate post, not in the comments section of an unrelated blog post.

Due to time constraints this note is going to be rushed. Here are the essentials:

The regional parliament (lagtinget) debates the Treaty of Lisbon, remitted by the President of the Republic of Finland with regard to possible approval as regards Åland, with a view to sending it to committee. The local government (landskapsregeringen) has prepared a 22 page paper (meddelande, “Mitteilung”) where it stresses the importance of added influence for the Åland Islands in Finnish EU affairs.

The debate started at 13 o’clock local time and is ongoing. At least one delegate of the more separatist kind has proposed a moratorium on dealing with the proposal from the President until 15 September 2008, instead of remitting it to the committee. So, immediate or delayed remittal to committee will probably be voted upon later today.

Links for those who read Swedish are found at Ålands lagting:

http://www.lagtinget.aland.fi/


Ralf Grahn