Democracy my B0lllox!!!

Freeborn John

Scofflaw wrote: »

Lisbon doesn't create a federal state, and it doesn't come anywhere near creating a federal state (see, for example, the German judgement). A huge amount would have to change before the creation of such a federal state became possible, and, frankly, while there's usually a couple of federalists amongst Europe's senior politicians, there is no political will to do so.

The German court ruling says that the EU is being constructed along the pattern of a federal state...

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German constitutional court ruling paragraph 296 ----

"The Member States follow the construction pattern of a federal state without being able to create the democratic basis for this under the Treaties in the form of the equal election of a representative body of representation of the people and of a parliamentary European government that is based on the legitimising power of a people of the Union alone."

http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/es20090630_2bve000208en.html

Freeborn John

Scofflaw wrote: »

It's a risk, certainly - there are people who would like the EU to become a federal state. Then there is the majority, who wouldn't,

The minority however, are the people who wrote the Lisbon Treaty, which certainly achieves the autohor's design goal of advancing European federalism.

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"We know that nine out of 10 people will not have read the Constitution and will vote on the basis of what politicians and journalists say. More than that, if the answer is No, the vote will probably have to be done again, because it absolutely has to be Yes. " — Jean-Luc Dehaene, Former Belgian Prime Minister and Vice-President of the EU Convention, Irish Times, 2nd June 2004

"The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal State. " — Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian Prime Minister, Financial Times, 21st June 2004

"Our constitution cannot be reduced to a mere treaty for co-operation between governments. Anyone who has not yet grasped this fact deserves to wear the dunce's cap. " — Valéry Giscard, President of the EU Convention, speech in Aachen accepting the Charlemagne Prize for European integration, 29th May 2003

"For the first time, Europe has a shared Constitution. This pact is the point of no return. Europe is becoming an irreversible project, irrevocable after the ratification of this treaty. It is a new era for Europe, a new geography, a new history." — French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Le Metro, 7th October 2004

"This Constitution is, in spite of all justified calls for further regulations, a milestone. Yes, it is more than that. The EU Constitution is the birth certificate of the United States of Europe. The Constitution is not the end point of integration, but the framework for - as it says in the preamble - an ever closer union." — Hans Martin Bury, the German Minister for Europe, debate in the Bundestag, Die Welt, 25 February 2005

"The European Constitution will be an essential stage in the historic process of European integration." — Gerhard Schröder the Chancellor of Germany and President Chirac of France, The Nantes Franco-German summit joint declaration, 24th November 2001

"We have to give ourselves a constitution which marks the birth of Europe as a political entity. " — Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, Brussels, February 2002

"Creating a single European state bound by one European Constitution is the decisive task of our time." — German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, The Daily Telegraph, 27 December 1998

"This is a legal revolution without precedent. " — Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio, Irish Times, 14 June 2003

"Monetary union is there, the common currency is there. So our main concern nowadays is foreign policy and defence. The next step, in terms of integration of the European Union, will be our constitution. We are today where you were in Philadelphia in 1787. " — French ambassador to the US Jean-David Levitte, press conference, 3 April 2003

"Our task is nothing less than the creation of a new constitutional order for a new united Europe. " — Peter Hain, MP, Financial Times, 22 March 2003

"The European Union is a state under construction." — Elmar Brok, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Let's see.

Here's the parts of your post that relate to Lisbon:

realcam wrote: »

And how is Lisbon not a significant step towards it? We are about to ratify a document that has constitutional character in many ways. As a matter of fact, the first attempt of nearly the same document was actually called constitution. The CIA calls it a constitution

All I see is a claim that Lisbon is a 'constitution', is it any more a 'constitution' than Nice, Amsterdam or Maastricht?

Everything else in your post is about the character of the EU in general.

I remain unconvinced.

Give me article numbers and I may change my mind...

marco_polo

realcam wrote: »

...since it's such a nice summary...

How is this not going towards a United Europe eventually? And how is Lisbon not a significant step towards it? We have political bodies in Europe that govern our governments in many respects. Are in fact responsible for a significant number of the laws we already adhering to. We have a European parliament whose members are elected by us. We have the same money. We have practically no borders. We are about to ratify a document that has constitutional character in many ways. As a matter of fact, the first attempt of nearly the same document was actually called constitution. The CIA calls it a constitution. Look at how it started in 1957 and what the intentions were then. Look at what we have today and what we are about to do. So now imagine what it will be like in another 50 years.

This what I mean with obvious. If this is not obvious, I don't know what is.

I don't get you.

In support of your position all you have done is have highlighted the statement "An eventual union of all Europe"

It is no secret that the EU is a union of European countries, in fact there is a big clue in the name.

What I am asking is that how, relative to the current status quo of the EU does Lisbon move closer to a federal state?

ixtlan

x MarK x wrote: »

With all due respect, your talkin shi.te. Did we already say no? Would we be asked to vote again if we'd said yes. There is your answer on the EU.

Yes, we will be asked to vote again if the answer is yes. Just as this is asking again after the yes to Nice... and Nice was asking again after the yes to Maastrict... and Maastrict was asking again after the SEA... and so on...

ix

PopeBuckfastXVI

Sorry all I see is...

Freeborn John wrote: »

2nd June 2004

21st June 2004

29th May 2003

7th October 2004

25 February 2005

24th November 2001

February 2002

27 December 1998

14 June 2003

3 April 2003

22 March 2003

Remind me not to use you as a source on current affairs...

:rolleyes:

marco_polo

Freeborn John wrote: »

The German court ruling says that the EU is being constructed along the pattern of a federal state...

---

German constitutional court ruling paragraph 296 ----

"The Member States follow the construction pattern of a federal state without being able to create the democratic basis for this under the Treaties in the form of the equal election of a representative body of representation of the people and of a parliamentary European government that is based on the legitimising power of a people of the Union alone."

http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/es20090630_2bve000208en.html

I commend you on a master class of selective quoting (In fact you continued it into the next post). But I think you will find there you keep going there is a is a pretty big BUT after that point, and I can only surmise you are trying to imply, using such tactics, the opposite of what the judgement concludes.

In fact I can safely say you are probably the first person in the world to attempt to use it as supportive evidence for a Federal state creation, so you certainly are unique .

Freeborn John

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

Sorry all I see is...



Remind me not to use you as a source on current affairs...

:rolleyes:

That is the time frame during which the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty was written, so these quotes reflect the aspirations of the people who wrote the text that was rejected in France and the Netherlands in 2005, by the Irish in 2008, and has not changed one word since the first Irish referendum. The 'community method' is federalism, and the Lisbon Treaty 'coallpases the pillar structure' that previously restricted the community method to common market regulations. In this way, it introduces federalism to general matters of politics for which it is not suited.

When people say that Lisbon does not create a federal state, they are only correct to the extent that it does not create a classic Westphalian state. Lisbon does make the EU more federal though in two ways (i) it extends federalism into political matters, and (ii) it reduces the blocking threshold to make it easier to overrule the policy preferences of national electorates. The result will be more EU law in more politically sensitive policy areas that is imposed on nations against their wishes.

Scofflaw

Freeborn John wrote: »

The German court ruling says that the EU is being constructed along the pattern of a federal state...

---

German constitutional court ruling paragraph 296 ----

"The Member States follow the construction pattern of a federal state without being able to create the democratic basis for this under the Treaties in the form of the equal election of a representative body of representation of the people and of a parliamentary European government that is based on the legitimising power of a people of the Union alone."

http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/es20090630_2bve000208en.html

That is a really outrageous piece of selective quotation and interpretation. Here's the full paragraph:

ee) The development of the institutional architecture by the Treaty of Lisbon not only contains rights of participation and improves the transparency of decision-making for instance as regards the legislative activity of the Council. It also contains contradictions because with the Treaty, the Member States follow the construction pattern of a federal state without being able to create the democratic basis for this under the Treaties in the form of the equal election of a representative body of representation of the people and of a parliamentary European government that is based on the legitimising power of a people of the Union alone.

which makes it clear that all that is being stated is that the member states, in constructing the European Union, used as their template the democratic pattern of a federal state. That is certainly not the same as what you are attempting to imply!

Here is the German judgement at rather greater length on the subject:

a) With the present status of integration, the European Union does, even upon the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, not yet attain a shape that corresponds to the level of legitimisation of a democracy constituted as a state.

Not only from the perspective of the Basic Law, the participation of Germany, however, is not the transfer of a model of a federal state to the European level but the extension of the federal model under constitutional law by a dimension of supranational cooperation. The Treaty of Lisbon has also decided against the concept of a European federal Constitution in which a European Parliament as the body of representation of a new federal people that would be constituted by this Constitution would be the focus. A will that aims at founding a state cannot be ascertained. Also measured against the standards of free and equal elections and the requirement of a viable majority rule, the European Union does not correspond to the federal level in a federal state. Consequently, the Treaty of Lisbon does not alter the fact that the Bundestag as the body of representation of the German people is the focal point of an interweaved democratic system.

The European Union complies with democratic principles because a qualitative look at the structure of its responsibility and of its rule reveals that it is exactly not laid out in analogy to a state. The allegation made in the pleadings of the applications and the constitutional complaint which is the focal point of the challenges, namely that the Treaty of Lisbon exchanges the subject of democratic legitimisation, is incorrect. Even as an association with its own legal personality, the European Union remains the creation of sovereign democratic states. With the present status of its integration, it is therefore not required to democratically develop the system of the European institutions in analogy to that of a state. With a view to the continued validity of the principle of conferral, and interpreting the competences newly accorded by the Treaty of Lisbon according to their letter and their spirit, the composition of the European Parliament need not do justice to equality in such a way that differences in the weight of the votes of the citizens of the Union depending on the Member States’ numbers of inhabitants are forgone.

I'm not going to highlight bits of that - it's all relevant, and highlighting might suggest that I am emphasising particular parts. You, in contrast, have literally chopped half a phrase out of the judgement, and pretended that it says something the judgement doesn't say.

regards,
Scofflaw