Understanding the EU: start in transition year

AS a public representative the recent Lisbon Treaty debate has taught me that successive Governments (including one in which my party was involved) have failed in their task to address the fundamental lack of understanding of the workings of the EU institutions.

This contributed to the decisive no vote. Until we as a nation start to learn the language of the EU and understand terms such as “co-decision” and “enhanced co-operation”, we are never going to have a meaningful debate on the exact nature of treaties and both sides of the argument will manipulate this lack of understanding for their own ends.

The inter-relationship between the three institutions — the Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the European Parliament — is a complex one bound by arcane rules and a particular language. We need to unravel this language to see how it all works. One option would be to teach the workings of this relationship in our schools.