Lisbon and sovereignty

Sam Vimes

greeno wrote: »

Declaration 17. Its the first time that primacy has been mentioned in a binding treaty. Thereby giving the new European Union its own legal personality and independent corporate existence for the first time, essentially making it separate from and superior to its Member States

I haven't read declaration 17 and I'm posting on a phone right now so I'm not going to look it up but I know that EU law has had primacy over Irish law since 1973. Does this declaration make it really really really superior to ours, where now it's just kind of superior?

BlitzKrieg

greeno wrote: »

You would be if that big bit in bold didnt refer to the
the first or the second subparagraph

of paragraph 7

if you see it in the treaty

it goes like so:

7. Where the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or Title V of this Treaty provides
for the Council to act by unanimity in a given area or case, the European Council may adopt a decision
authorising the Council to act by a qualified majority in that area or in that case. This subparagraph
shall not apply to decisions with military implications or those in the area of defence.


Where the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides for legislative acts to be adopted
by the Council in accordance with a special legislative procedure, the European Council may adopt a
decision allowing for the adoption of such acts in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure.


Any initiative taken by the European Council on the basis of the first or the second subparagraph shall
be notified to the national Parliaments. If a national Parliament makes known its opposition within six
months of the date of such notification, the decision referred to in the first or the
second subparagraph shall not be adopted. In the absence of opposition, the European Council may
adopt the decision.


So lets see we have paragraph 7 subparagraph 1 and subparagraph 2 with subparagraph 3 stating nothing in 1 and 2 shall not be enforced without running it by the national parliaments. That is how its outlined in the treaty. If you look through the rest of the treaty when an article names a different paragraph say like 48 paragraph 7 it does it like so:

paragraph 3 of article 21

3. The Union shall respect the principles and pursue the objectives set out in paragraphs 1 and 2
in the development and implementation of the different areas of the Union's external action covered by
this Title and by Part Five of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and of the external
aspects of its other policies.

So to quickly recap for those with difficulties

paragraph = sections of the treaty that are numbered after the article such as article 12 paragraph 3

while subparagraphs are when those paragraphs are further broken down, like it is in paragraph 7, they are not numbered.

when identifying paragraphs within the same article they are named as paragraph X, when identifying the subparagraphs within the same paragraph they are identified by their position in the overall paragraph, first or second etc.

When identifying paragraphs in seperate aticles they are referred to as article 48 (7). I dont think there is a case of identifying a subparagraph of another article.

greeno

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I haven't read declaration 17 and I'm posting on a phone right now so I'm not going to look it up but I know that EU law has had primacy over Irish law since 1973. Does this declaration make it really really really superior to ours, where now it's just kind of superior?

It states "the treaties and the law adopted by the EU on the basis of the treaties have primacy over the law of member-states”. Before the supremacy of EU law was conditional not legally binding and enshrined in our constitution as it will now be.

hatrickpatrick

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Yes if you view any sharing of power whatsoever as "arsenic" your analogy porbably makes sense but I can see the huge benefits of such an arrangement so that's over in the wholegrain section for me. This idea that sharing of power is self-evidently a bad thing is baffling to me. It's a union, not an empire. We're sharing some of our power in exchange for some of the power of 26 other countries. It's a good thing

It removes the power of the individual citizen, and that's where I have a problem with it. The smaller the population under a government, the more power each citizen has. Therefore, every time we transfer power to the EU we are diminishing each individual's control over their country. Euromillions vs. National Lottery, like I've said before. Your ticket (AKA ballot paper in the analogy) is competing against tens of millions of people instead of just the Irish population.

Sam Vimes

greeno wrote: »

It states "the treaties and the law adopted by the EU on the basis of the treaties have primacy over the law of member-states”. Before the supremacy of EU law was conditional not legally binding and enshrined in our constitution as it will now be.

There is already a clause in our constitution specifically declaring the primacy of EU law and it has been there since 1973. Again I'm on a phone so I'm not looking it us but I'm sure someone will help me out here

Sam Vimes

I decided to look it up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

It's 1972 actually

greeno

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

of paragraph 7

if you see it in the treaty

it goes like so:

7. Where the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or Title V of this Treaty provides
for the Council to act by unanimity in a given area or case, the European Council may adopt a decision
authorising the Council to act by a qualified majority in that area or in that case. This subparagraph
shall not apply to decisions with military implications or those in the area of defence.


Where the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides for legislative acts to be adopted
by the Council in accordance with a special legislative procedure, the European Council may adopt a
decision allowing for the adoption of such acts in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure.


Any initiative taken by the European Council on the basis of the first or the second subparagraph shall
be notified to the national Parliaments. If a national Parliament makes known its opposition within six
months of the date of such notification, the decision referred to in the first or the
second subparagraph shall not be adopted. In the absence of opposition, the European Council may
adopt the decision.


So lets see we have paragraph 7 subparagraph 1 and subparagraph 2 with subparagraph 3 stating nothing in 1 and 2 shall not be enforced without running it by the national parliaments. That is how its outlined in the treaty. If you look through the rest of the treaty when an article names a different paragraph say like 48 paragraph 7 it does it like so:

paragraph 3 of article 21




So to quickly recap for those with difficulties

paragraph = sections of the treaty that are numbered after the article such as article 12 paragraph 3

while subparagraphs are when those paragraphs are further broken down, like it is in paragraph 7, they are not numbered.

when identifying paragraphs within the same article they are named as paragraph X, when identifying the subparagraphs within the same paragraph they are identified by their position in the overall paragraph, first or second etc.

When identifying paragraphs in seperate aticles they are referred to as article 48 (7). I dont think there is a case of identifying a subparagraph of another article.

I disagree, it is a grey area in the treaty and the only reason this is inserted in the treay is to simplify the revision of the Treaties and to move away from the IGCs and the signatures and ratification of a new Treaty by all Member States.
The simplified but wholly undemocratic revision procedures represent a significant increase in the power of the Union, at the expense of the Member States. The role of the European Parliament in controlling Treaty amendments will be completely undermined.

Even if you say as I doubt that national parliaments are given 6 months we are then reliant upon the taoiseach of that time to raise an objection to amend a treaty which if it was to be done now before Lisbon it would require a referendum. So again we the Irish people are losing our sovereignty. Hands up everyone who believes it is better our govt make decisions on changes in EU treaties on our behalf? Or we get the chance to vote in a referendum? I know which I would choose

BlitzKrieg

you gonna at least say I'm the better man?

I don't see how I wae wrong on Article 48(7) read the thing and tell me where it says national parliaments are consulted if you can you are a better man than me because it isn't there!

greeno

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I decided to look it up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

It's 1972 actually

Wikipedia?? I'm sorry.

After Lisbon the Irish Constitution is to be amended with a new Bill called the '28th Amendment'. This will make Ireland a subject-state to the EU Empire, putting our Nation under the control of a foreign parliament.

If the Lisbon Treaty is ratified, part of the Bill will see a new Article '29.4.11' inserted into the Irish Constitution.

Article 29.4.11 states that:

'No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by the obligations of membership of the European Union to in subsection 10 of this section, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the said European Union or by institutions thereof, or by bodies competent under the treaties referred to in this section, from having the force of law in the State.'

Never before has this been the case

Sam Vimes

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It removes the power of the individual citizen, and that's where I have a problem with it. The smaller the population under a government, the more power each citizen has. Therefore, every time we transfer power to the EU we are diminishing each individual's control over their country. Euromillions vs. National Lottery, like I've said before. Your ticket (AKA ballot paper in the analogy) is competing against tens of millions of people instead of just the Irish population.

So why not give every county a veto? Maybe every town? How about every person? What is the absolute objective best level of dilution? Is the UK not as good because their population is bigger and should it be broken into smaller countries to increase the power of each citizen?

greeno

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

you gonna at least say I'm the better man?

Admit it is a grey area. I still doubt your reading of thing but even if you are right it effectively means the treaties can be amended in nearly all areas without referendum and we are reliant on our govt who lets face have made plenty of questionable decisions over the years.

marco_polo

greeno wrote: »

I disagree, it is a grey area in the treaty and the only reason this is inserted in the treay is to simplify the revision of the Treaties and to move away from the IGCs and the signatures and ratification of a new Treaty by all Member States.
The simplified but wholly undemocratic revision procedures represent a significant increase in the power of the Union, at the expense of the Member States. The role of the European Parliament in controlling Treaty amendments will be completely undermined.

Even if you say as I doubt that national parliaments are given 6 months we are then reliant upon the taoiseach of that time to raise an objection to amend a treaty which if it was to be done now before Lisbon it would require a referendum. So again we the Irish people are losing our sovereignty. Hands up everyone who believes it is better our govt make decisions on changes in EU treaties on our behalf? Or we get the chance to vote in a referendum? I know which I would choose

The UK parliament disagrees with you in their Lisbon ratification bill.

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2008/RP08-003.pdf

Amended Article 48(7), which has been called the ‘ratchet clause’, provides for passerelle procedures. Passerelle is a French word meaning ‘footbridge’ and has been called a ‘bridging’ or ‘escalator’ clause, as it allows the parties to move from the position set out in the Treaty to a different position by means of a provision in the Treaty text itself. The present EC Treaty also contains passerelle provisions in Articles 42 TEU and 67 TEC, but Lisbon broadens the range of matters which may be transferred from unanimity to QMV. Article 48(7) provides that where the TFEU or Title V TEU (“General Provisions on the Union’s External Action and Specific Provisions on the Common Foreign and Security Policy”) stipulate decision-making by unanimity, the European Council may decide to authorise the Council to act by QMV instead. Decisions with military or defence implications are excluded from potential moves. Article 48(7) also contains an equivalent provision for those laws adopted under a special legislative procedure (unanimous voting).

In both cases (i.e. under Article 48(6) and (7)) a European Council initiative to change the voting procedure in a given area is notified to national parliaments. If a national parliament makes known its opposition to an initiative within six months the decision will not be adopted. If a decision is adopted, the European Council acts by unanimity after obtaining the EP’s consent by a majority of its component members. The new passerelles in the Lisbon Treaty require Parliamentary approval, and there is a provision in the Treaty allowing national parliaments to block these changes.

The passerelles do not create a free-for-all, since they specify procedures that must be satisfied in order for changes to be made. Supporters of the passerelle technique point to efficiency gains, as the process of negotiating a new treaty may be laborious. Others argue that a detailed process of negotiation under the terms of treaty law is necessary for substantive changes. The British Government has said of the new procedures: “We support this increased flexibility in decision-making but would only agree to its use when clearly in British interests. The UK will insist that any fundamental change to the Treaties
will still require an IGC”.13

Your flush is well and truely busted.

Sam Vimes

greeno wrote: »

Wikipedia?? I'm sorry.

Are you attempting to suggest that the third amendment of our constitution which gives EU law primacy over ours does not actually exist because I used Wikipedia to link to it?

If that amendment does exist will you drop this?

greeno

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So why not give every county a veto? Maybe every town? How about every person? What is the absolute objective best level of dilution? Is the UK not as good because their population is bigger and should it be broken into smaller countries to increase the power of each citizen?

I think the question here is are you happy to have Irish sovereignty dissolved by the sounds of it you are and in which case you will and should vote yes. The reasons people like me are voting no is because the sovereingty of our state means a lot to me. I feel we fought very hard to get our independance and our constitution so as we could make decisions of our own, not to be incumbent to some superstate

greeno

marco_polo wrote: »

The UK parliament disagrees with you in their Lisbon ratification bill.

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2008/RP08-003.pdf



Your flush is well and truely busted.

How? It is this transfer that I am opposed to. It is a way of the EU amending previous treaties without the people of Ireland having an opportunity to vote on the matter which is the case at present.

BlitzKrieg

well it seems even the british parliament agree's with my reading

The new passerelles in the Lisbon Treaty require Parliamentary approval, and there is a provision in the Treaty allowing national parliaments to block these changes.

SO I am ready to be called the better man now seeing as there is no grey area anymore..

Sam Vimes

greeno wrote: »

I think the question here is are you happy to have Irish sovereignty dissolved by the sounds of it you are and in which case you will and should vote yes. The reasons people like me are voting no is because the sovereingty of our state means a lot to me. I feel we fought very hard to get our independance and our constitution so as we could make decisions of our own, not to be incumbent to some superstate

So you want Ireland to leave the EU then?

greeno

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Are you attempting to suggest that the third amendment of our constitution which gives EU law primacy over ours does not actually exist because I used Wikipedia to link to it?

If that amendment does exist will you drop this?

What I am trying to tell you is that this is the first time that this is mentioned in an EU treaty and not case law. The EU are making it clear they want to have primacy over the constitutions of each member state, before this was conditional.

As outlined by Anthony Coughlan:

What we call the EU today is not constitutionally separate from its 27 member states. It is the member states co-operating together – in the European Community, which makes supranational European laws, and “intergovernmentally”, as EU jargon terms it, in foreign policy and justice and home affairs matters, where the member states still retain formal sovereignty.
Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), as amended by the Lisbon Treaty, would abolish the European Community which Ireland joined in 1973 and transfer all of its powers and institutions to the new post-Lisbon Union. This EU would then be given its own legal personality for the first time under Article 47, which would make it constitutionally separate from, and superior to, its 27 member states. Post-Lisbon, it would be this new European Union and not the European Community which would be responsible for large numbers of the new laws we must obey each year.
The constitutional revolution Lisbon entails would then be completed by Article 9 TEU, which would confer on the 500 million citizens of the EU member states, including us Irish, an “additional” Union citizenship, with all the implications of that, instead of the purely notional or symbolic EU citizenship that people speak of today.


What we now become is firstly European and secondly Irish. The EU is for the first time a legal personality and should we chose to accept Lisbon it will be much superior to us and whats more we will have accepted this in our constitution

greeno

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

well it seems even the british parliament agree's with my reading



SO I am ready to be called the better man now seeing as there is no grey area anymore..

Why is there no grey area this clause in the treaty clearly allows changes to be made to previous treaties (our constitution) without any referendum. Are you happy with this? Do you trust our govt's to make these hugely important decisions on our behalf? Perhaps even this same govt who have led this country into the mire!

Sam Vimes

greeno wrote: »

What I am trying to tell you is that this is the first time that this is mentioned in an EU treaty and not case law. The EU are making it clear they want to have primacy over the constitutions of each member state, before this was conditional.

As outlined by Anthony Coughlan:

What we call the EU today is not constitutionally separate from its 27 member states. It is the member states co-operating together – in the European Community, which makes supranational European laws, and “intergovernmentally”, as EU jargon terms it, in foreign policy and justice and home affairs matters, where the member states still retain formal sovereignty.
Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), as amended by the Lisbon Treaty, would abolish the European Community which Ireland joined in 1973 and transfer all of its powers and institutions to the new post-Lisbon Union. This EU would then be given its own legal personality for the first time under Article 47, which would make it constitutionally separate from, and superior to, its 27 member states. Post-Lisbon, it would be this new European Union and not the European Community which would be responsible for large numbers of the new laws we must obey each year.
The constitutional revolution Lisbon entails would then be completed by Article 9 TEU, which would confer on the 500 million citizens of the EU member states, including us Irish, an “additional” Union citizenship, with all the implications of that, instead of the purely notional or symbolic EU citizenship that people speak of today.


What we now become is firstly European and secondly Irish. The EU is for the first time a legal personality and should we chose to accept Lisbon it will be much superior to us and whats more we will have accepted this in our constitution

Is there or is there not an amendment in our constitution from 1972 that gives EU law primacy over Irish law?

greeno

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So you want Ireland to leave the EU then?

No the EU is fine as it is withour superior legal personality to us. I am aggrieved at

1 Our lose of a veto in the decision making process (we need backing of 3 other states and in other cases 35% of population of states taking part)

2 Our constitution will accept the new EU with its superior powers to have precedence over our laws.

3 Previous treaties (part of our constitution) can be amended without referendum due to Article 48(7).

4 The amount of laws for which the EU have the power to introduce or amend are increased

5 The Irish people have already spoken on this treaty yet one year later we have to vote again to the same thing. Would you call that democratic, if our govt will make us do this why won't they accept bull from EU.

greeno

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Is there or is there not an amendment in our constitution from 1972 that gives EU law primacy over Irish law?

It was in broad terms and was not literally taken from the Irish text which has precedence. 'Although the amendment shown above is that made to the English language version of the constitution, constitutionally it is the Irish text that has precedence.'


The EC as it was then did not have the law making powers of the EU after Lisbon.

BlitzKrieg

greeno wrote: »

Why is there no grey area

This has nothing to do with the grey area. You asked that anyone who can show you that article 48(7) involved national parliaments.

I did so

You tried to argue that subparagraph 3 was referring to ordinary legaslative process.

I show you it doesnt

Marco Polo provides a link that my reading of the article is identicle to the reading done by the british parliament.

So regardless that you have completely changed your stance on the issue again, which you have done on almost everything you have debated on this thread.

Your first post started with the argument that we would never have a referendum again on the EU, since then (almost a 100 posts later) you now arguing *grey areas*

Its a massive leap down, especially when you started off by saying you studied law.

I've studied history, and if there is one thing I've learned is that if I get knocked around a couple of times on my points in a debate I take that as a sign that I need to stop argueing and instead research the topic again, work in the sources of the opposing side as well as my own to compare and contrast.


So regardless of what the current debate is, all I ask is you call me the better man on the issue (national parliament's invovlemnt in article 48(7) that you stated you would call someone if they can prove it.

After that we can move on to whatever branch you are holding on to now.

greeno

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

This has nothing to do with the grey area. You asked that anyone who can show you that article 48(7) involved national parliaments.

I did so

You tried to argue that subparagraph 3 was referring to ordinary legaslative process.

I show you it doesnt

Marco Polo provides a link that my reading of the article is identicle to the reading done by the british parliament.

So regardless that you have completely changed your stance on the issue again, which you have done on almost everything you have debated on this thread.

Your first post started with the argument that we would never have a referendum again on the EU, since then (almost a 100 posts later) you now arguing *grey areas*

Its a massive leap down, especially when you started off by saying you studied law.

I've studied history, and if there is one thing I've learned is that if I get knocked around a couple of times on my points in a debate I take that as a sign that I need to stop argueing and instead research the topic again, work in the sources of the opposing side as well as my own to compare and contrast.


So regardless of what the current debate is, all I ask is you call me the better man on the issue (national parliament's invovlemnt in article 48(7) that you stated you would call someone if they can prove it.

After that we can move on to whatever branch you are holding on to now.

I'll concede and call you the better man on that one.

Do accept my sincerest apologies

It is still an incredibly dangerous clause. I do want to point out that I respect all your arguments and I am not as I might sound anti Europe, but I am extremely nationalist in my views and be it branches or not I do not want to see Ireland give up its sovereignty. You as a history man should appreciate the struggle the Irish people had to gain our constitution and perhaps the greatest aspect of that constitution was the peoples right to vote on all future amendments.

Soldie

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Why can't someone be a nationalist libertarian, why does it have to be one or the other? I believe in absolute personal freedom as long as you don't infringe the rights of anyone else who did not give permission. But unfortunately I value our democracy and our country's independence more.

Why also are you "accusing" people of being nationalist? Since when is it a bad thing to have loyalty to your country and to value your country's independence?

There are two sides to your argument on the charter anyway. Personally I do approve of the charter of rights, but it's one part of a massive treaty, much of which I don't approve of. What do we have to sacrifice in order to get these rights which most people in this country already have? Is it worth putting them into another text form and giving up so much in order to do so? I mean isn't Ireland already a member of most of the UN human rights organizations anyway? This I suppose is one of the huge issues with Lisbon - it's too ****ing big. You can like 60% of it, but detest the remainder so damn much that there's no way you can vote yes.

Nationalism tends to go hand-in-hand with forcing views upon others and, for that reason, it's largely incompatible with libertarianism. In addition, most libertarians would see the modern nation-state as somewhat illogical and redundant, so it doesn't make much sense to call oneself a nationalist and a libertarian.

marco_polo

greeno wrote: »

No the EU is fine as it is withour superior legal personality to us. I am aggrieved at

1 Our lose of a veto in the decision making process (we need backing of 3 other states and in other cases 35% of population of states taking part)

Which one bothers you teh most

2 Our constitution will accept the new EU with its superior powers to have precedence over our laws.
.

Nothing is changing on that front then, I will get back to the legal personality non argument in a moment. Since they already have primacy they cannot possibly have more primacy.

3 Previous treaties (part of our constitution) can be amended without referendum due to Article 48(7).

In very limited ways as has just been explained to you.

4 The amount of laws for which the EU have the power to introduce or amend are increased

Marginally in relatively minor areas like energy and, sport, tourism. They can only amend laws they have previously set.

5 The Irish people have already spoken on this treaty yet one year later we have to vote again to the same thing. Would you call that democratic, if our govt will make us do this why won't they accept bull from EU.

Our High and Supreme courts both think it is very democratic.

turgon

greeno wrote: »

2 Our constitution will accept the new EU with its superior powers to have precedence over our laws.

If you were versed in the Law, which you claim to be, you would realize that such a statement is already in the constitution. This is a non-issue.

finbar10

marco_polo wrote: »

The nerd inside me is disappointed that he didn't get to do it

Me too! Very disappointed!

I also checked out ConorIRL's link.
I'd have some questions about the usefulness of that simulation.
Couldn't code a simulation if a gun was put to my head but my stats/maths
are still ok!

Conor simulates a voting configuration by basically tossing 27 coins to yes or no. He's basically using a binomial distribution. If one tosses a very large number of coins and counts the number of heads versus tails you'll very likely find they are very similar in number, roughly half of each. The more coins you toss the stronger the effect. Even with 27 coins there will be a quite strong bias towards the centre = 27/2 = 13.5. If you look at actual simulated configurations you'll likely find most will have 12,13,14 or 15 yes's. The simulator will give a certain average case characterization of the voting system being studied. It will give a pretty good indication of behaviour when the number of yes's and no's is fairly closely matched. But not really otherwise. You'd really have to feed in historical or likely voting patterns for this to give a more generally useful and realistic comparison.

My blocking weight calculation is I think valid for 27 countries. It does what it says on the tin. It does have the disadvantage of not taking the four country minimum rule into account. But otherwise I think it is ok. There's the issue of whether my voting calculation still works for subgroups. It would be easy to calculate this blocking weight value for any subset of countries. And one could average this over all possible subsets. This is a different type of averaging to Conor's.

I still don't think my blocking weight calculation would be greatly affected by this averaging. If Ireland is taking part in a smaller grouping its population weight has to increase relative to the other countries simply because it is a smaller grouping. But this would also be the case for QMV under Nice. The average relative weights between Nice and Lisbon would stay roughly the same on average it seems to me.

The 55% country requirement would also become a harder to meet (making blocking easier) because of a rounding up effect, 55% x 27 countries = 14.85. One of course has to round this up to 15. And one always rounds this upwards (if rounding is necessary). Hence often the country requirement can be in effect greater than 55%. And this effect becomes relatively stronger with smaller subsets of countries. But of course the same effect also occurs with Nice QMV and its 50% country requirement. I don't think this would greatly favour one system over the other.

marco_polo

greeno wrote: »

What I am trying to tell you is that this is the first time that this is mentioned in an EU treaty and not case law. The EU are making it clear they want to have primacy over the constitutions of each member state, before this was conditional.

As outlined by Anthony Coughlan:

What we call the EU today is not constitutionally separate from its 27 member states. It is the member states co-operating together – in the European Community, which makes supranational European laws, and “intergovernmentally”, as EU jargon terms it, in foreign policy and justice and home affairs matters, where the member states still retain formal sovereignty.
Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), as amended by the Lisbon Treaty, would abolish the European Community which Ireland joined in 1973 and transfer all of its powers and institutions to the new post-Lisbon Union. This EU would then be given its own legal personality for the first time under Article 47, which would make it constitutionally separate from, and superior to, its 27 member states. Post-Lisbon, it would be this new European Union and not the European Community which would be responsible for large numbers of the new laws we must obey each year.
The constitutional revolution Lisbon entails would then be completed by Article 9 TEU, which would confer on the 500 million citizens of the EU member states, including us Irish, an “additional” Union citizenship, with all the implications of that, instead of the purely notional or symbolic EU citizenship that people speak of today.


What we now become is firstly European and secondly Irish. The EU is for the first time a legal personality and should we chose to accept Lisbon it will be much superior to us and whats more we will have accepted this in our constitution

I think that this post by Scofflaw is as good a rebuttal as any:

Scofflaw wrote: »

The point that Lisbon gives the EU legal personality? Well, currently the EU has legal personality through the EC, which is one of the constituent parts of the EU. The EC, along with the pillar structure, is being abolished, and the EU is taking on the legal personality directly.

As to the claim that Lisbon creates "real" citizenship of the EU "for the first time" - it's not based on anything at all, so there really isn't anything to refute. If you can find any differences between the EU citizenship you currently have and the new one, share them with us - the reason Coughlan doesn't do so is because there aren't any.

The sad thing is that Coughlan knows all this. He just believes that only national sovereignty is right, and in the name of that cause is prepared to trot out whatever sounds scariest, same as at every previous referendum.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I also urge you to read this paper on the Unions legal personality


http://www.egmontinstitute.be/papers/07/eu/Legal.Personality.EU-PDS-SA.pdf

Sam Vimes

greeno wrote: »

No the EU is fine as it is withour superior legal personality to us.

As I, marco_polo, Scofflaw and the Irish constitution have explained, they already have a superior legal personality to us. This is a fact regardless of anything Anthony Coughlan says. Also QMV already applies in many areas. The only way to get the situation you desire is to leave the EU