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-- Why Haven't Any of the European TA's Been Talking About The Lisbon Treaty?


Posted by Trancer-X on Sep-23-2008 04:37:

Why Haven't Any of the European TA's Been Talking About The Lisbon Treaty?

I was just curious because it seems as though the Irish are against having their national sovereignty completely destroyed
while everyone else has remained pretty silent about the whole thing.

I did a search and didn't find anyone on here posting anything about it.

Does anyone know what's up?



Here's an interesting video that I found from this past July in regards to it:



Here's some more:


Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde elaborates:


Posted by Trancer-X on Sep-23-2008 11:24:

Does anyone even know anything about the Lisbon Treaty? Apparently the citizens of Ireland were the only ones who's government gave them a say in it and with that they staunchly voted "NO!"

One of my friends wants to move there now because of it. lol. He says that the Irish seem like the only ones who aren't totally clueless.


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


Posted by George Smiley on Sep-23-2008 11:45:

I know loads about it! Anything you need to know you come to me!

I thought there had been a (not very popular) thread on the Treaty, or maybe just the EU in general?

BTW, the Irish didn't say no "staunchly" the result was 53.4% no to 46.6% yes. Interestingly, 10% of those voting "no" thought it was a good treaty for Ireland, and 10% voting yes thought it was a bad treaty for Ireland so go figure!


Posted by Trancer-X on Sep-23-2008 12:10:

quote:
Originally posted by George Smiley
I know loads about it! Anything you need to know you come to me!

I thought there had been a (not very popular) thread on the Treaty, or maybe just the EU in general?

BTW, the Irish didn't say no "staunchly" the result was 53.4% no to 46.6% yes. Interestingly, 10% of those voting "no" thought it was a good treaty for Ireland, and 10% voting yes thought it was a bad treaty for Ireland so go figure!


Have you actually read it? I hear that it's 300 pages of amendments which can't be read by themselves.


Posted by George Smiley on Sep-23-2008 12:18:

quote:
Originally posted by Trancer-X
Have you actually read it? I hear that it's 300 pages of amendments which can't be read by themselves.

Technically every EU treaty following the Maastricht Treaty is just a set of amendments to the treaty that preceded it. So yes, the Lisbon Treaty is just a list of amendments but each time a new treaty is agreed they also produce a consolidated version of the Treaty where all the amendments are put in their place. The British Foreign Office produced a version which you can read here: http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/...ted-eu-treaties

To answer your question, no, I've not read it, but I know what it contains and more importantly what it doesn't contain...


Posted by Trancer-X on Sep-23-2008 12:25:

quote:
Originally posted by George Smiley
Technically every EU treaty following the Maastricht Treaty is just a set of amendments to the treaty that preceded it. So yes, the Lisbon Treaty is just a list of amendments but each time a new treaty is agreed they also produce a consolidated version of the Treaty where all the amendments are put in their place. The British Foreign Office produced a version which you can read here: http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/...ted-eu-treaties

To answer your question, no, I've not read it, but I know what it contains and more importantly what it doesn't contain...


That's impressive! So how are you so well acquainted with it without first having read it?

Isn't it pretty in-depth?


Posted by George Smiley on Sep-23-2008 12:45:

quote:
Originally posted by Trancer-X
That's impressive! So how are you so well acquainted with it without first having read it?

Isn't it pretty in-depth?

I work for an MEP


Posted by Trancer-X on Sep-23-2008 14:27:

quote:
Originally posted by George Smiley
I work for an MEP


So do you just know it or do you actually understand it?

Is it socialist in nature or not?


Posted by George Smiley on Sep-23-2008 14:35:

quote:
Originally posted by Trancer-X
So do you just know it or do you actually understand it?

I've spent pretty much the last year and half of my life trying to explain it to people so I know it pretty well!

quote:
Is it socialist in nature or not?

It's hard to put an ideological tag on it because the treaties are just the rule book of how the EU works. The ideology comes when decisions are taken within the boundaries of those rules, rather than the rules themselves

Was there anything particular you wanted to know about the Lisbon Treaty?


Posted by jerZ07002 on Sep-23-2008 14:39:

quote:
Originally posted by George Smiley
Interestingly, 10% of those voting "no" thought it was a good treaty for Ireland, and 10% voting yes thought it was a bad treaty for Ireland so go figure!


That means at least 20% of the irish people are stupid! Looks like that plague doesn't just infect the US.


Posted by Trancer-X on Sep-23-2008 14:46:

quote:
Originally posted by George Smiley

Was there anything particular you wanted to know about the Lisbon Treaty?


How is the central bank modeled?

How come they no longer have a dedicated commissioner for each individual member state?

What sort of accountability is there in case of any malfeasance?

What is the major advantages for the countries signing the treaty and can you talk about any of the disadvantages like the apparent erosion of national sovereignty?


Posted by George Smiley on Sep-23-2008 14:59:

quote:
Originally posted by Trancer-X
How is the central bank modeled?

No idea about the Central Bank! For a start I'm British so it does not apply to us which possibly explains why I've never bothered to look into it!

quote:
How come they no longer have a dedicated commissioner for each individual member state?

Because the EU doesn't have a definite number of members. It started with 6 and now has 27. There are also 3 countries that have applied to join and something like 50+ countries in Europe that I suppose have the potential to join. Commissioners are like heads of individual government departments, and there will be one govt dept for each policy area, so you can see that every time the EU expands there will have been too many Commissioners for each policy area (unless they dilute the existing policy areas)

quote:
What sort of accountability is there in case of any malfeasance?

You mean against corruption?

quote:
What is the major advantages for the countries signing the treaty and can you talk about any of the disadvantages like the apparent erosion of national sovereignty?

Jesus whole books have been written on that!

Well in a nutshell every policy area the EU has responsibility for takes that responsibility away from national governments, and therefore, a bit of sovereignty is lost. That's not automatically a bad thing, and those arguing it is good say it's not "lost" sovereignty but "pooled" sovereignty. It basically wrests around the principle that in some areas, one country acting alone cannot solve certain problems, but acting together many countries can overcome the problem

As for what the major advantages for signing the Treaty is, in very simple terms, the Lisbon Treaty was supposed to streamline the EU to make it more efficient to make sure the decision making process did not grind to a halt with 27 members (when the previous treaties were written for 15 members)


Posted by Trancer-X on Sep-23-2008 15:24:

quote:
Originally posted by George Smiley
No idea about the Central Bank! For a start I'm British so it does not apply to us which possibly explains why I've never bothered to look into it!


Because the EU doesn't have a definite number of members. It started with 6 and now has 27. There are also 3 countries that have applied to join and something like 50+ countries in Europe that I suppose have the potential to join. Commissioners are like heads of individual government departments, and there will be one govt dept for each policy area, so you can see that every time the EU expands there will have been too many Commissioners for each policy area (unless they dilute the existing policy areas)


You mean against corruption?


Jesus whole books have been written on that!

Well in a nutshell every policy area the EU has responsibility for takes that responsibility away from national governments, and therefore, a bit of sovereignty is lost. That's not automatically a bad thing, and those arguing it is good say it's not "lost" sovereignty but "pooled" sovereignty. It basically wrests around the principle that in some areas, one country acting alone cannot solve certain problems, but acting together many countries can overcome the problem

As for what the major advantages for signing the Treaty is, in very simple terms, the Lisbon Treaty was supposed to streamline the EU to make it more efficient to make sure the decision making process did not grind to a halt with 27 members (when the previous treaties were written for 15 members)


Yeah, against corruption or any other kind of abuse, really.

And would you say that it's further creating the building blocks that will eventually lead to world government or do you not have any idea about that?


Posted by George Smiley on Sep-23-2008 16:02:

quote:
Originally posted by Trancer-X
Yeah, against corruption or any other kind of abuse, really.

Well there are lots of corruption allegations aimed at the EU. Not sure exactly what the Treaty does to combat that any more than what the EU is already permitted to do? There are three institutions of the EU, the Parliament, Council and Commission. As member states governments make up the Council, I guess corruption in this area is a matter for national law. In the Parliament, corruption comes in the form of bent MEPs fudging their finances to get extra money. They're cracking down on this as there were a few incidents in the press recently (but again, this is a matter for the police forces of whichever country the MEP is from). Most corruption charges are against the Commission, but usually this comes about over the EU's accounts never being signed off (which for the most part is because money given the member states through structural funds is mismanaged by the actual member state, not the Commission department). The Commission is accountable to the Parliament (ie the European people) which can sack the entire Commission if they don't like them

Accountability is something the Lisbon Treaty tried to improve, but not really sure that's in the field of corruption, more regarding openness in the decision making process (making the Council meet in public whereas before they often met in secret) and making the publicly elected Parliament joint decision maker in all areas of community law (where previously the Council had sole decision making responsibility)

quote:
And would you say that it's further creating the building blocks that will eventually lead to world government

Nope!


Posted by pkcRAISTLIN on Sep-23-2008 22:54:

the EU is a socialist conspiracy for world government is the dumbest thing ive ever heard.

i wish the marxists i hung out with at school could see this nonsense, they'd get to LOL as much as i have.


Posted by George Smiley on Sep-24-2008 08:30:

quote:
Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
the EU is a socialist conspiracy for world government is the dumbest thing ive ever heard.

i wish the marxists i hung out with at school could see this nonsense, they'd get to LOL as much as i have.

Well the "extremes" certainly don't like the EU.

The far left say it's a capitalist plot to take over the world, while the far right say it's a socialist/Catholic conspiracy to finish what Hitler or Stalin couldn't!



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