Lisbon and sovereignty

BlitzKrieg

IN FACT!

there is nothing in article 238 saying you even need 4 states when it comes to votes where not all the members are present.

K-9

greeno wrote: »

17 out of 27 need to ratify so in effect 10 countries could reject a proposal similar to I outlined. All I have done is take the facts from the treaty and apply them using the weightings. Whether you people care to accept it or not our sovereignty is diminished by this treaty

QMV is already in.

Examples? You have been asked already by me this question?

K-9

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

IN FACT!

there is nothing in article 238 saying you even need 4 states when it comes to votes where not all the members are present.

I'd presume that applies to countries that have opted out of areas?

hatrickpatrick

turgon wrote: »

First of all it is necessary to differentiate between the two "camps" who argue for a No on the basis of sovereignty.

The first group - including Cóir - are simply using the sovereignty issue as a reason to vote No, without any further explanation. That is to say they give no logical rationale as to why losing sovereignty is bad. In their nationalistic* scheme of the world, sovereignty being completely and totally good is an axiom which can never be doubted or questioned.

The second group would include Libertarians such as Boards user donegalfella, who I hope doesnt mind me mentioning him. Their opinion is that governmental decisions are best taken at the most local level possible. They are against the EU as a political entity (but generally not as an economic one, mind). Many would see Europe as just more bureaucracy and a wasteful way in which their tax is being spent. So because Lisbon gives the EU more competencies thus essentially transferring some decisions from national to EU level, they see Lisbon as bad.


*These peoples nationalism may of course be just put on so as to give them another reason to vote No.

You've pretty much summed up my entire view on Lisbon with both of those points. I am both a hardline nationalist AND a libertarian who believes that the smaller a democratic area is, the more democratic it becomes. I absolutely approve of the economic union, but in my opinion the EU simply should not have any say in any other policies on how the country is run. That should be up to the democratic will of the Irish citizens, and the Irish citizens alone.

Scofflaw

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

You've pretty much summed up my entire view on Lisbon with both of those points. I am both a hardline nationalist AND a libertarian who believe that the smaller a democratic area is, the more democratic it becomes. I absolutely approve of the economic union, but in my opnion the EU simply should not have any say in any other policies on how the country is run. That should be up to the democratic will of the Irish citizens, and the Irish citizens alone.

So there are no non-economic issues whatsoever that can be better handled by joint decision-making in Europe?

cordially,
Scofflaw

marco_polo

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

Ok confusion check.

He has dropped his argument on amendments being passed without referendum and is now focusing on the loss of veto and the dangers of QMV.


section 7 of article 48 does indeed offer the mechanics for the EU to move an area of the treaty to QMV. But to do this it needs the approval of the national parliaments of every member state and the majority in the EU parliament. If even one of them refuses the change will not happen.

Now what the treaty does not say and its a completely irish matter and honestly nobody here can give an answer to this unless they are on the high court is if by the irish constitution the irish parliament has the power to remove its own veto. I assume a number of interpetations of Crotty would give ground that to do so would require a referendum (its giving up of irish sovereignty in the form of a veto).

The second paragraph of section 7 is the opposite, it is the moving of legaslation back to ordinary revision process, essentially restoring a veto to an area that might not have previously had one.

To clear up I wasn't suggesting a referendum would be needed but that ratification would be subject to our constitutional requirements. As we are placing a clause in the constitution, that allows for the Dail to do this, then that is those requirements satisifed.

The making of the confusion was mine, I though that in addition to implying to ratification not being required, that QMV would apply to the decisions to make the voting amendments as well, but re-reading the relevant posts this was a misunderstanding on my part.

greeno wrote: »

Where does it state that Article 48(7) requires member states approval?

marco_polo

greeno wrote: »

No it is an instance where our veto did not stand and the law was interreted to favour the EC

So our interpretation of the European Law was incorrect, and the ECJ ruled as such.

Tarobot

Thanks Blitzkrieg, I knew I had that wrong somewhere but was too tired to figure it out.

Sam Vimes

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

You've pretty much summed up my entire view on Lisbon with both of those points. I am both a hardline nationalist AND a libertarian who believes that the smaller a democratic area is, the more democratic it becomes. I absolutely approve of the economic union, but in my opinion the EU simply should not have any say in any other policies on how the country is run. That should be up to the democratic will of the Irish citizens, and the Irish citizens alone.

What's so incredibly different about the economy that it's perfectly suited to international management but, say, the regulation of food standards isn't? Do you think that the other EU countries will force rotten food on us?

Daftendirekt

Sam Vimes wrote: »

What's so incredibly different about the economy that it's perfectly suited to international management but, say, the regulation of food standards isn't? Do you think that the other EU countries will force rotten food on us?

Good point.

When I visit Germany, I'd like to know my tasty, fat German sausage isn't any more likely to kill me than an Irish one. :pac:

PopeBuckfastXVI

Daftendirekt wrote: »

Good point.

When I visit Germany, I'd like to know my tasty, fat German sausage isn't any more likely to kill me than an Irish one. :pac:

Actually I'd be more worried about the Irish one.

Moheltenschnieu

greeno wrote: »

Do you not believe that its is great that we the Irish people are being given the chance to make choices due to our right to a referendum enshrined in the constitution. Accept or reject we have the right to choose.

I'm essentially in favour of the EU. However, if Lisbon is ratified we lose our veto and also the right to any other referendum, our constitution is effectively useless. For that reason I'm voting no.

I studied law and was always in favour of Europe esp for economic reasons. But I’ve looked at the thing inside out and we can get a better deal. As a voting power now we only have 0.8% of votes the EU will be dominated by countries like France and Germany who as much as 17% say.

Declaration 17 states that all law made in the EU is binding on Ireland and we can’t have any more referendums to veto these laws after Lisbon, Ireland will have basically no power to influence changes. If that doesn’t effect sovereignty I don’t know what does.

The upcoming referendum on changes to the Irish Constitution will enable the government to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. What else will it allow them do I wonder?
Can you ( or anyone) tell me what exactly is the change and to what article. I found some info on article 28 but it was couched in so much waffle that I gave up.

Daftendirekt

Moheltenschnieu wrote: »

The upcoming referendum on changes to the Irish Constitution will enable the government to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. What else will it allow them do I wonder?
Can you ( or anyone) tell me what exactly is the change and to what article. I found some info on article 28 but it was couched in so much waffle that I gave up.

Here you go.

Basically, it allows the Irish goverenment to ratify Lisbon, as per the Crotty judgement.

More info on Wiki, if you need it.

Edit: Just a note. The links I've posted are from last years referendum, but I don't think it's changed since then.

Purple Gorilla

It won't allow them to do anything else. Every time we vote on an EU Treaty, an amendment is made to the constitution to allow us to ratify it. Nothing else

O'Morris

Daftendirekt wrote:

My understanding of the necessity of Lisbon, is that while Nice allowed the EU to expand eastwards, it was something of a rushed job and wasn't entirely effective in adopting the changes necessary to facilitate the accession of the new member states. This resulted in an awkward and inefficient decision making process for the EU, leading to a sort of bottleneck of power from the top down.

This has been disproven by a London School of Economics study by Professor Helen Wallace on the EU since 2004. Here is a link to her report. Some highlights from it:

Enlarging the European Union: Effects on the new member states and the EU wrote:

..a relatively agreed overall picture emerges from across these studies. They indicate that the ‘business as usual’ picture is more convincing than the ‘gridlock’ picture as regards practice in and output from the EU institutions since May 2004. Some changes and variations can be observed, although not all of these can be tied to the impact of enlargement as such. It is also clear that there are some differences across policy domains, which need further exploration. These become more apparent once attention is turned to the implementation phase and the ways in which EU policies and rules are put into practice inside the new member states.
The key data on output from the EU institutions:
Over the period 1999-2003 an average of around 195 legislative acts were adopted each year (but only 164 in 2002 and 165 in 2003); around 230 were adopted in 2004 (with a surge in April 2004 just before the EU15 became the EU25); some 130 were adopted in 2005: and 197 in 2006 . Data need to be added for non-legislative decisions, increasingly important in fields such as foreign policy and some aspects of justice and home affairs, where activity levels have been high. Mattila(forthcoming 2008 ) reports that some 942 acts other than legislative decisions were agreed between May 2004 and December 2006. Of the 360 (Hagemann and De Clerk-Sacchse 2007) legislative decisions adopted between May 2004 and December 2006 some 43 were identified as revisions to existing legislation to incorporate the new member states. Settembri (2007) reports that decisions taken show an increase in ‘ordinary’ or ‘minor’ subjects, and a decrease of 11% in what he classifies as the more ‘important’ topics.
In the context of the ‘less is better’ objective of José Manuel Barroso as President of the European Commission (an objective shared by the Council) we can observe only a modest drop in the number of proposals for legislative acts made by the Commission: 2003-491; 2004-526; 2005-411; 2006-482. In 2006 the Commission withdrew 68 proposals and put forward 33 ‘simplification’ proposals and 22 ‘codification’ proposals. In 2006 the Commission also tabled 324 communications and reports, 10 Green Papers and 2 White Papers (covered in the Annual Report 2006, published in 2007).
There has been a reduction in the time lag between proposal and decision on both those subject to the unanimity rule and those based on qualified majority voting (QMV) treaty articles. This is so especially for decisions under the consultation procedures with the European Parliament (EP), including many on agricultural issues, where the data indicate a 5% reduction in the time taken to reach agreement. Issues subject to codecision take somewhat longer than before (Settembri (2007) notes that during the one-year period which he covers that this means some 22% more days). Interestingly, however, a rising proportion of decisions subject to codecision have been reached at first reading: 2003-34%; 2004-45%; 2005-64%; 2006-59%. In 2006 a revised joint declaration was adopted by the EU institutions, designed to improve the efficiency of the codecision procedure.
There is no evidence of declining ‘productivity’ in the judicial system of the EU, at least as regards the work of the ECJ (Naômé forthcoming 2008 ). On the contrary numbers of cases completed and pending compare favourably with the period before enlargement, one in which there had been rising concerns about the existing overload on the judicial system, even without the added impact of enlargement. There is no significant increase at least yet in the number of new cases. The length of Court proceedings also shows a downwards trend. The Court of First Instance (CFI) has not adapted so easily to the increased pressure of cases combined with its backlog of prior pending cases.

marco_polo

O'Morris wrote: »

This has been disproven by a London School of Economics study by Professor Helen Wallace on the EU since 2004. Here is a link to her report. Some highlights from it:

What page did you stop reading at? At best the paper seems agnostic on the question.

looking at the long and at times torturous path of accession negotiations between the Eu and its new members, one might therefore be tempted to conclude that “all’s well that ends well”. The long period of preparation – both in the institutions and in the new member states – seems to have contributed to an outcome which meant that, once the date of accession was reached, the system would continue to work. ‘Breakdown’ has been avoided, the activities of the institutions of the Eu continue pretty much as before, and the result is ‘business as usual’ in the enlarged Eu.

Such a conclusion would, however, be both simplistic and premature. Four important dynamics have been observed across the studies that require a more detailed treatment at this point: first, the way in which the interaction between formal and informal arrangements has been affected by enlargement; second, the impact that enlargement has had on the relative weight of decisions taken in the political and administrative spheres of the Eu’s institutions; third, a growing trend of ‘presidentialisation’ which sees those chairing meetings and heading institutions assuming greater power; and, fourth, a pattern of enlargement turning out to be the catalyst in the search for greater efficiency.

Scofflaw

In fact, Wallace's conclusions don't do anything as striking as 'disprove' the idea that Nice hadn't quite finished the job of adapting to enlargement - instead, she concludes that the impacts of enlargement weren't as great as initially feared, and that the EU had adapted to the pressure at least partly by evolutionary rather than formal treaty-based changes. That's not quite the same as saying that Nice fully adapted the EU for enlargement - if it had done so, there would be no evolutionary pressure on the institutions.

The finding that there is evolutionary pressure on the institutions is echoed in more recent studies:

We must therefore conclude that enlargement is best characterised as a combination of assimilation (of the new member states into the EU system) and adaptation (of the EU system for its operation with/for 27 member states). While there is no evidence of any fundamental transformation of the EU’s institutions, the EU has adapted many of its working practices, internal rules of procedure and informal arrangements to the presence of new members and a greater number of actors.

In particular, the conclusion is that the pressure of enlargement has resulted in a greater bureaucratisation of the existing decision-making procedures - the result of maintaining the same workload with the same systems, and a greater number of participants:

Enlargement, in such cases, is probably best be seen as the ‘last straw that breaks the camel’s back’: inefficiencies in the running of the institutions, and in their relations with one another, might have been bearable until then, but were not acceptable any more afterwards.

cordially,
Scofflaw

View

O'Morris wrote: »

This has been disproven by a London School of Economics study by Professor Helen Wallace on the EU since 2004. Here is a link to her report. Some highlights from it:

Originally Posted by Enlarging the European Union: Effects on the new member states and the EU

...
Settembri (2007) reports that decisions taken show an increase in ‘ordinary’ or ‘minor’ subjects, and a decrease of 11% in what he classifies as the more ‘important’ topics.
....

A decrease in the ability to make decision on the "more important" topics would usually be classified by most reasonable people as meaning that the decision making process was in need of reform. Oddly enough, that is what the Governments of the EU decided to do in the Reform Treaty (i.e. Lisbon).

So, on the one hand, we have the opinion of the people who operate the EU decision making processes (i.e. the Governments) that it needs reform, and on the other hand we have the opinion of people like you.

Why on earth should we take your word over that of the people who have represented Ireland in the EU's decision making processes?

finbar10

greeno wrote: »

17 out of 27 need to ratify so in effect 10 countries could reject a proposal similar to I outlined. All I have done is take the facts from the treaty and apply them using the weightings. Whether you people care to accept it or not our sovereignty is diminished by this treaty

The following is a comparison of proposed and existing QMV
voting systems. Unanimity primarily gives us blocking power.
So it seems natural to compare QMV procedures according to
the blocking power they would still give us.

For voting by country:
Under Nice:
14 countries (50% of countries needed to pass) out of 27 must vote against to block.
We'd have 1 vote out of 14 blocking votes -> 7.1% of required blocking vote.

Under Lisbon:
12 countries (55% of countries needed to pass) out of 27 must vote against to block.
We'd have 1 vote out of 12 blocking votes -> 8.33% of required blocking vote.

OK, this is a modest increase in our blocking power in this component.

For population based voting:
Under Nice:
More than 90 votes out of 345 needed to block. We have 7 of these.
Blocking voting weight 7/90 -> 7.77%

Under Lisbon:
More than 35% of population needed to block.
We have 0.9% of the EU population
voting weight 0.9/35 -> 2.6%

So a substantial fall in population based blocking power.

So this means a modest increase in country based QMV blocking power from 7.1% to 8.33% but a substantial fall in population based blocking power from 7.77% to 2.6%.

Please correct me if any figures/assumptions are wrong here.

Sam Vimes

Tbh that looks to me like the difference between buying a lotto ticket and buying 20 lotto tickets. Either way your chances aren't good. Our power is not based on the percentage of the vote we have, as a small country that's always going to be small, it's based on the fact that the EU does everything through negotiation and everyone's voice is heard whether they have 3% or 30% of the population. Even in the areas where QMV currently applies unanimity is the norm and we're keeping our veto in contentious areas like taxation and defence. The fact is that some things make sense to be run at an EU level and some things don't.


And remember that we're losing some blocking power but so is everyone else. The power is not being given up, it's being put in a common pool for everyone to draw from. We're giving some power to Europe in exchange for them giving us some of their power.

finbar10

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Tbh that looks to me like the difference between buying a lotto ticket and buying 20 lotto tickets. Either way your chances aren't good. Our power is not based on the percentage of the vote we have, as a small country that's always going to be small, it's based on the fact that the EU does everything through negotiation and everyone's voice is heard whether they have 3% or 30% of the population. Even in the areas where QMV currently applies unanimity is the norm and we're keeping our veto in contentious areas like taxation and defence. The fact is that some things make sense to be run at an EU level and some things don't.


And remember that we're losing some blocking power but so is everyone else. The power is not being given up, it's being put in a common pool for everyone to draw from. We're giving some power to Europe in exchange for them giving us some of their power.

It's true the populational blocking percentage has gone down. Only just over 26% was required to block legislation under Nice. Under Lisbon this has gone up to 35%. This makes it harder to block things. And the current Nice system already over represents the smaller states. The new system would be purely by population. This favours the more populous states. The minimum four state requirement does counter this a little. But overall despite a modest increase in terms (from 12 to 14) of countries it's essentially a transfer of voting power from the smaller countries to the bigger countries. Under Nice it would have been much easier to form a group of small to medium countries to block legislation.

Sam Vimes

finbar10 wrote: »

It's true the populational blocking percentage has gone down. Only just over 26% was required to block legislation under Nice. Under Lisbon this has gone up to 35%. This makes it harder to block things. And the current Nice system already over represents the smaller states. The new system would be purely by population. This favours the more populous states. The minimum four state requirement does counter this a little. But overall despite a modest increase in terms (from 12 to 14) of countries it's essentially a transfer of voting power from the smaller countries to the bigger countries. Under Nice it would have been much easier to form a group of small to medium countries to block legislation.

Yes blocking thing would be easier under Nice but remember that they still need to get 15 countries to agree to something before it can go ahead. This won't be Germany, France and the UK dictating to everyone. This is a more democratic system that makes the EU more efficient by making changes easier to achieve

K-9

finbar10 wrote: »

It's true the populational blocking percentage has gone down. Only just over 26% was required to block legislation under Nice. Under Lisbon this has gone up to 35%. This makes it harder to block things. And the current Nice system already over represents the smaller states. The new system would be purely by population. This favours the more populous states. The minimum four state requirement does counter this a little. But overall despite a modest increase in terms (from 12 to 14) of countries it's essentially a transfer of voting power from the smaller countries to the bigger countries. Under Nice it would have been much easier to form a group of small to medium countries to block legislation.

Does it really though?

The 65% population criteria is met by the biggest 6 countries anyway, so 9 small countries are still required.

marco_polo

K-9 wrote: »

Does it really though?

The 65% population criteria is met by the biggest 6 countries anyway, so 9 small countries are still required.

Under Nice the bottom 14 countries can only muster a total of 88 votes (up as far as Sweeden), so already the > 50% of countries criteria has not been met . To get to 100 votes, past the blocking total of 90, one needs Hungary as well for a total of 15.



Hungary 12
Sweden 10
Austria 10
Bulgaria 10
Denmark 7
Slovakia 7
Finland 7
Ireland 7
Lithuania 7
Latvia 4
Slovenia 4
Estonia 4
Cyprus 4
Luxembourg 4
Malta 3
Total 100

finbar10

K-9 wrote: »

Does it really though?

The 65% population criteria is met by the biggest 6 countries anyway, so 9 small countries are still required.

Well suppose under a Nice a group of small countries wanted to block something. If one ranks the countries in terms of population it would require adding the votes from all 15 countries from smallest Malta all the way up to Hungary to make up over the 90 vote requirement. But this would also exceed the 15 number of countries required to block. So at least one bigger country would need to be involved to make a exercise of this power meaningful.

But look at the same situation under Lisbon. It would require 21 of the smallest countries (from Malta all the way up to Romania) to make up a 35% blocking quota. Obviously it would be even more necessary to involve some of the 6 largest countries to make up a meaningful populational blocking quota.

Edit: OK have only spotted Marco Polo's post now with similar info

K-9

marco_polo wrote: »

Under Nice the bottom 14 countries can only muster a total of 88 votes (up as far as Sweeden), so already the > 50% of countries criteria has not been met . To get to 100 votes, past the blocking total of 90, one needs Hungary as well for a total of 15.



Hungary 12
Sweden 10
Austria 10
Bulgaria 10
Denmark 7
Slovakia 7
Finland 7
Ireland 7
Lithuania 7
Latvia 4
Slovenia 4
Estonia 4
Cyprus 4
Luxembourg 4
Malta 3
Total 100

Exactly, when you get down to what it means in practice and forget the "sacred" principle, there really is no significant change.

finbar10

K-9 wrote: »

Exactly, when you get down to what it means in practice and forget the "sacred" principle, there really is no significant change.

It means it is still relatively easy for a block involving big countries (as long as more than 4) to block, but much harder for a group of small to medium sized countries.

K-9

finbar10 wrote: »

Well suppose under a Nice a group of small countries wanted to block something. If one ranks the countries in terms of population it would require adding the votes from all 15 countries from smallest Malta all the way up to Hungary to make up over the 90 vote requirement. But this would also exceed the 15 number of countries required to block. So it would need at least one bigger country to also vote against to make this power meaningful

But look at the same situation under Lisbon. It would require 21 of the smallest countries (from Malta all the way up to Romania) to make up a 35% blocking quota. Obviously it would be even more necessary to involve some of the 6 largest countries to make up a populational blocking quota.

Edit: OK have only spotted Marco Polo's post now with similar info

Yes, but if 21 smallest block, it fails anyway.

Realistically it would need 3 big countries and because of the way the EU works, this situation wouldn't even arise as it wouldn't stand a hope of getting this far.

K-9

finbar10 wrote: »

It means it is still relatively easy for a block involving big countries (as long as more than 4) to block, but much harder for a group of small to medium sized countries.

But as Marco_polo pointed out, practically, it is a very small change from Nice.

You need to look at it from the point of view that the majority of countries are small, less than 11/12 million people and there are only 6 big countries, who rarely agree anyway.

finbar10

K-9 wrote: »

Yes, but if 21 smallest block, it fails anyway.

Realistically it would need 3 big countries and because of the way the EU works, this situation wouldn't even arise as it wouldn't stand a hope of getting this far.

I would guess that in practical terms it would mean that in a situation where formerly one of the top 6 would be needed to help form a blocking quote now 2 will be needed, or where 2 would do now 3 of the top six would be required.