Lisbon introduces rejected EU constitution by the back door

THE EU is not a legal or corporate entity in its own right for it does not have legal personality.

The name “European Union” at present is the descriptive legal term for the totality of relations between its 27 member states and their peoples.

In 2005, the people of France and the Netherlands voted against the European constitution. In both countries debate had been intensive and voter turnout was high. While voters were prepared to support an economic union, they opposed to the creation of a new European Union.

The Lisbon Treaty, although based on the existing treaties, does not have “constitutional characteristics”. This means that the title “constitution” is no longer used and no longer appears in the text of the amended treaties. However, the legal effect will be to implement, indirectly rather than directly, virtually all the provisions of the original EU constitution. As a result, the French and Dutch votes are ignored, and five governments have cancelled a promised referendum (Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland, Portugal and Britain).

A multitude of European government representatives have admitted that the Lisbon Treaty retained all of the “important” features of the EU constitution.

On February 20, 2008 the European Parliament approved the Lisbon Treaty. But that was not all that happened in parliament that day. The so-called Corbett-de Vigo report on the Lisbon Treaty included some amendments, which had to be voted on before the whole treaty was put to a vote.

One of these amendments (no 32) asked that the European Parliament “undertake to respect the outcome of the referendum in Ireland”.

In other words, should the European Parliament respect the result of the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? This amendment was rejected by 499 MEPs. Only 129 voted in favour of this motion and 33 abstained.

The Lisbon Treaty says that if more than one million citizens from a representative number of member states (15) petition the commission, then it should consider the request. But it does not have to act. And the petition can only relate to the proper implementation of the EU treaties, not something people might object to in the treaties. In practice, this will have little impact on the workings of the EU.

On June 12, 2008 the Irish people rejected the Lisbon Treaty – 46.4% voted for and 53.6% against, with a turnout of 53%. A second No vote in Ireland is not going to stop the other 26 EU countries from implementing the treaty, but it will be the last time to have a say.

Klaas Vos

River Towers

Lee Road

Cork