Road to 'Lisbon 2'
The Treaty of Lisbon :
- dissolves the existing European Community EC Art.2 (b)
- repeals all existing EU treaties and replaces them with two new treaties the TEU (Treaty on European Union) and TFU (Treaty on Functioning of European Union). Art.24 (a)
- creates an entirely new legal entity called The European Union Art.46A 'The Union shall have legal personality'
- referendum on October 2nd is not about Ireland being in or out of the EU but about the future direction of the EU and how it relates to all of the member states including Ireland.
- is not the 'Reform Treaty' but is in fact the EU Constitution-rejected by the French and Dutch people in 2005-rewritten with a few minor excisions and a few additions.
- gives the big member states huge increases in power-Germany's doubled-in their voting weights in the European Council while Ireland's like some other smaller states' voting weight is reduced by 50%.
- gives EU law-as contained in the new treaties and enunciated by the new ECJ-European Court of Justice-primacy over national law thereby taking precedence over our constitution Bunreacht na hÉireann.
- allows foreign contractors from other member states to continue to employ labour here at their local rate rather than the national minimum wage.
- militarises the EU even further incorporating the EDA-European Defence Agency-into the treaties Art 28A (c) 3.
- abolishes the national veto in 32 areas including international trade deals at the WTO.
- reduces the powers of national parliaments-the Dáil in our case-in 50 policy areas.
- 'legal guarantees' 'secured' by Ireland at the Brussel's summit in June of this year-in the form of a Decision by the European Council-to insert a protocol attached to a future-sometime-EU treaty does not 'change either the content or the application of the Treaty of Lisbon' and 'are fully compatible with the Treaty' -direct quotes from Brussel's Presidency Conclusions.
- extends the EU's control over our fisheries and seas. Art.37 (c)3. states 'the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, shall adopt measures on fixing prices, levies, aid and quantitative limitations and on the fixing and allocation of fishing opportunities'. Another article gives the EU 'exclusive competence' in the area of 'conservation of marine biological resources under the common fisheries policy' Art.2 B 1(d)
- gives the European Union legal personality for the first time. Art.46 A states 'The Union shall have legal pesonality' thereby allowing it to conclude international agreements itself which member states are bound to. Art.24 states 'The Union may conclude agreenments with one or more states or international organisations'. The EU assumes the status of a state.
- article 48 contains a new self-amending article section 4 which allows the EU to revise parts of the treaties without having to go through an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) as previously in the old article 48 and therefore in an Irish context a popular vote or referendum. This is referred to as "the ratchet clause" or the "pasarelle"-meaning footbridge in french. Its EU constitution equivalent was called the 'flexibility clause".
- states that, in addition to what is now termed the 'ordinary revision procedure' (which has also been modified), the treaty may be revised using the 'simplified' procedure Article 33-effectively with article 48 this sets an important legal precedent in allowing a treaty organisation to amend its own governing treaty and removing the national veto.
- Article 48 5 states 'If, two years after the signature of the treaty amending the Treaties, four fifths of the Member States have ratified it and one or more Member States have encountered difficulties in proceeding with ratification, the matter shall be referred to the European Council'.It goes on 4. 'A conference of representatives of the governments of the Member States shall be convened by the President of the Council for the purpose of determining by common accord the amendments to be made to the Treaties'.