Schuman Project
David
Heilbron Price
Editor
27 March 2008
EU
Presidency
Slovenian
Delegation
Delegation.si@consilium.europa.eu
Dear Sir or
Madam,
I wrote to
you on 10 February 2008 about obtaining an official version of the consolidated
Treaty of Lisbon, incorporating all the amendments into existing treaties. I
have not yet received a reply.
The
European Council has decided that a fifth freedom of movement, the freedom of
knowledge or information is essential for the Lisbon Strategy and the economy.
The most essential aspect of European intellectual property for all citizens and
entrepreneurs is to know how the European Union will function. Up till now the
Council has refused to publish the consolidated text of the Lisbon Treaty. Even
some of the authors of the treaty have said that the Lisbon Treaty is unreadable
as it comprises only a list of amendments to existing treaties. Will the Council
now publish the official, final consolidated text of the treaty?
Mr Janša
replied that some Member States had already ratified the Lisbon Treaty without a
consolidated version. This might be his view but it does not solve my problem
and those of all democratic citizens: how do we obtain a consolidated official
copy with, in parallel, the lost Constitutional Treaty? Nor does it deal with the problem of
legality of a ‘ratification’ of a treaty of prime importance when it has not
been properly presented in a finished, readable form before the parliamentary
vote. A citizens’ debate needs a text.
In my
letter of 12 March, I pointed out how the Lisbon Treaty will proliferate grave
difficulties of corruption, international conflicts and the undermining of our
democracy by cartels, external oligarchies or sovereign wealth fund States. I
asked for a public debate on this danger. At a minimum this requires that a
consolidated version of the European Treaties be immediately published.
Unofficial versions have been in circulation for some time. Democracy requires
that the Council should have published it well before the Hungarians went
through the motions of ratifying a treaty they had not seen or properly debated
on 17 December 2007.
I would
therefore be grateful for a reply to my request about the publishing a
comparative and consolidated version of the Lisbon and Constitutional treaties.
Many thanks
for your help,
Yours
faithfully,
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Letter to all 27 EU Delegations to the Council of Minsters
12 March
2008.
For more
than half a century, the European Commission has played a central and impartial
role in the unification of Europe. This impartiality assured for business,
workers and consumers that cartels should not abuse the market place.
Impartiality was originally guaranteed in the EU’s founding treaty’s Article 9.
It forbade Commissioners to take another job, paid or otherwise, in the three
years after leaving the Commission.
Last week,
discussions in the European Parliament in relation to the Lisbon Treaty draft
revealed a serious flaw with a risk of corruption on a vast scale. According to
the Treaty, the European Commission will lose its most valuable quality it has
had since its inception. That is its impartiality.
Firstly,
the proposed Treaty insists on choosing the new Commission on a party political
vote in Parliament. This excludes the original, founding concept that
Commissioners should be non-partisan. Former politicians were a minority in
early colleges. Now some 98 per cent of Europeans are to be disenfranchised from
becoming Commission President and members, simply because they wish to remain
impartial and non-political. The proposed system would disqualify Jean Monnet,
the first president of the Commission/High Authority and many others! How will
non-political citizens in other professions: lawyers, academics, trades
unionists, entrepreneurs, philosophers, NGOs or other leaders of European civil
society associations, react when the institutions eventually explain their newly
imposed exclusion from consideration? Will it increase confidence in Europe?
The only
rationale for this amendment that I have seen is that party politics are failing
to attract a good turnout at European elections, as politicians are losing the
public’s respect. Party lists for the Commission will, supposedly, cause
controversy, and therefore increase voter interest. However, politicians are
often perceived by voters as being dishonest or corrupt. Will it help?
Will political ‘reformers’ soon require all EU officials, even Court judges, to
be chosen by party membership cards to boost voting stats? The Commission was conceived to be an
honest broker and arbiter. Making the Commission a political reflection of the
partisan majority in Parliament is equivalent to insisting a football referee be
a paid-up member of one football club. It is extremely shortsighted to mix up an
impartial, supranational democratic Commission with national parliamentary
systems.
Secondly,
it was made clear in the European Parliament last week that the Parliament will
no longer be able to dismiss the Commission for serious misconduct or
corruption. This endangers not only anti-cartel action but European democracy
itself.
Thirdly,
this political distortion of the Commission, as unsackable and restricted to the
nominees of political party machines, creates an open invitation to powerful
cartels, multinationals and international sovereign funds countries to
corrupt the party machines themselves. The unwise reform amendments could
subjugate Europe to a non-democratic, external oligarchy.
I am
herewith enclosing a copy of my letter to the President of the European
Parliament, which explains this danger.
I would be
grateful if Member State governments would give urgent attention to this major
flaw in the draft Lisbon Treaty and open up a public debate on a how to
eradicate it.
Yours
sincerely,
David H
Price
Annex
Intelligent Person’s Guide to
European Treaties.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Schuman Project
David H Price
10 February 2008
EU
Presidency
Slovenian
Delegation
Delegation.si@consilium.europa.eu
Dear Sir or
Madam,
I have come
across a number of unofficial versions of the consolidated Treaty of Lisbon,
incorporating the changes listed in the Lisbon Treaty.
I would be
grateful if you could supply me with the official consolidated Treaty or
point me to where I could obtain an official copy, either electronic or paper.
An official copy supplying the consolidated treaty with direct comparison with
the Constitutional Treaty would be especially useful.
Many thanks
for your help,
Yours
faithfully,
D H
Price