BBC Blog Network

Listed below are comments made by Ticape between Friday, 19th June 2009 and Tuesday, 22nd September 2009.

• «Newer
• Older»

• Top Gear on BBC HD from November 15th 2:36pm on 22 Sep 2009 Great news, thanks BBC. :)
• The capital of Europe? 1:50pm on 22 Sep 2009 It's good to see that the Euroblog is back. I wish you best of luck Gavin.
  
  
• Lisbon: A Pandora's box 10:38am on 01 Jul 2009 <RICHPOST> <b>#541. Freeborn-John</b><BR /><BR />The <a ref="http://en.euabc.com/word/499">flexibility clause</a> (article 308 under the Lisbon treaty or 352 in the new TFEU) is <b>NOT</b> the <a ref="http://en.euabc.com/word/777">passerelle clause</a> (article 48)<BR /><BR /><i>You have been talking about something else completely which is irrelevant, namely the so-called right of national parliaments to object to the Commission's ordinary legislative proposals.</i><BR /><BR /><u>Can you please quote article 308.2 in it's entirely for once?</u> From the [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]<BR />308.2. <u>Using the procedure for monitoring the subsidiarity principle referred to in Article 3b(3) of the Treaty on European Union</u>, the Commission shall draw national Parliaments' attention to proposals based on this Article.<BR /><BR />Let's take a look at article 3b(3)<BR />3b.3. Under the principle of subsidiarity, in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level.<BR /><u>The institutions of the Union shall apply the principle of subsidiarity as laid down in the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.</u> National Parliaments ensure compliance with the principle of subsidiarity in accordance with the procedure set out in that Protocol.<BR /><BR />And I described "Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality" in post <b>#66</b> (for those interested in reading the protocol it's on PDF page 182 of the [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]Lisbon treaty<BR /><BR />So let me ask you if the procedure I described in post #66 is irrelevant then why does Article 308.2 refer to it? In other words it is relevant or else the Article 308.2 would not have referred it. You can always read a second opinion over at the [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]House of Lords assessment report</a> (PDF page 237) A friendly advice though, you won't find the description of article 308 under the passerelle clause chapter because it's not the same thing. :)<BR /><BR /><b>#560.</b><BR />I really want to say thank you for posting a direct link to the constitutional court ruling.<BR /><BR /><i>This therefore is one of the areas where they are requiring change to German law to prevent government ministers voting in the EU Council under the terms of Article 352 TFEU without having acquired the consent of both houses of the German parliament.</i><BR /><BR />Indeed, I guess the German court didn't find the checks on the treaty enough.<BR /><BR /><i>We have already seen how national parliaments in Europe are dominated by the executive (the national government leaders who also comprise the EU Council) so the votes in the German parliament that the German constitutional court is now demanding can be expected to be rubber-stamp votes of exactly the same type which approved Lisbon by 90 to 100 per cent in most European parliaments (including that of Germany).</i><BR /><BR />While it's true that the executive comprises the majority of the parliament the question is how that majority is reached. Is the executive ruled by a single party which is the case in Britain or by a fragile coalition of parties such as in Germany? It's quite hard to 'rubber-stamp' in a fragile coalition on sensitive issues. </RICHPOST>
• Lisbon: A Pandora's box 5:20pm on 29 Jun 2009 #464. Freeborn-John:
  I believe my original description in comment 9 was correct and remains so.
  
  Honestly the only part of the your post 9 that was correct was the direct quote from the Lisbon treaty and even that was out of context. I already pointed out (in my previous posts) why your post #9 was wrong, you simply decided to ignore and in some cases not even acknowledge most of my points.
  Or have you changed your mind and finally reveal on why you on purposely called the flexibility clause the passerelle clause which in reality have nothing to do with each other?
• Lisbon: A Pandora's box 10:17pm on 26 Jun 2009 #454 Freeborn JohnI think that if you ask any of the regular readers of these comments pages if have ever knowingly made an inaccurate statement you will not find one person who would say that I have.
  
  Here's a person who disagree with this statement. The comments you made earlier in this thread regarding the flexibility clause were quite inaccurate for one thing you wrongly called it the passerelle clause. I'm still curious to know whether or not you made this mistake by accident or on purpose.
• Lisbon: A Pandora's box 12:36pm on 23 Jun 2009 #216. Freeborn-John wrote:
  is totally meaningless when they have no power to block.
  
  Not quite, as I described in post #66 if a national parliament is against the proposal then the leader of the parliament (the prime minister) is also against it and then unanimity can't be reached in the EU council.
  
  You too can have a say, as can I and anybody else and the EU Commission can ignore us all as it can national parliaments.
  
  The EU commission can't ignore the national parliament, simply because it's not allowed to.
  
  You can endlessly repeat that it ain't so, or that the article is number 308 (which is about the ECB) but no matter how many times you say it you will still be wrong.
  
  We're both correct about the numbering, you know that. You simply use the numbering under the new TFEU and I use the numbering under the Lisbon treaty; it's still the same article. I have no idea why you're so obsessed with the numbering, it's almost as if you're trying to discredit me...
  
  oh wait you are:
  
  I am afraid you are typical of a pro-European, trying to minise the significance of a treaty before it is ratified and then later you will say, 'sorry only boy, you should have understood what you were signing up to at the time'.
  
  And now you're trying to discredit me by saying "Look guys Ticape belongs to a group of people who are known to be liars and deceivers, his words can't be trusted!". But no John, it's not me who's lying and deceiving, it's you.
  
  First you made a "mistake" by confusing the passerelle clause with the flexibility clause An honest mistake perhaps but the realist in me knows you're way too intelligent for that. You're on purposely confusing the two because the 'flexibility clause' has more lenient checks.
  
  Second you're minimizing the checks in the Lisbon treaty, not only by downplaying the unanimity in the Council but also by not mentioning the role of the national parliaments.
  
  Thirdly when I mentioned the role of the national parliaments you first pretended they were not there and when I talked about the checks of the real 'passerelle clause' you pretended I was talking about the 'flexibility clause'. Every one who read my post #160 knows I was talking about a different article but not you though.
  
  And last when all of that didn't work you tried the most effective debating technique of them all: discrediting the person directly. Heck even I'm doing that. ;)
  
  But you know what you're lying and deceiving do show the problem of the entire EU debate: it's not honest.
• Lisbon: A Pandora's box 7:35pm on 22 Jun 2009 193. Freeborn-John wrote:
  This is the general empowerment or 'passaerelle' clause.
  
  Passerelle clause is article 49 NOT article 308 (or article 352 in the new numbering, for the sake of post I will keep referring it as article 308)
  Article 308 is nicknamed the "flexibility clause".
  
  but to all the issues where the EU has competence under that treaty.
  
  Except for CFSP of course.
  
  (they do not have a veto as you claim, either individually or collectively)
  
  Now you are twisting my words on purpose. You and I both know that I wasn't talking about article 308 when I mentioned the veto powers. I was referring to the procedure under article 48.
  
  And in post #195
  2. . . . The Commission shall draw national Parliaments attention to proposals based on this article . . .
  
  Actually you should quote the entire section 2, let me do it for you:
  
  Using the procedure for monitoring the subsidiarity principle referred to in Article 3b(3) of the Treaty on European Union, the Commission shall draw national Parliaments' attention to proposals based on this Article.
  
  What is the procedure for monitoring the subsidiarity principle? I'll give you an hint, it's basically the process I described in post #66.
  
  So yes the national parliaments do have a say about it.
• Lisbon: A Pandora's box 6:32pm on 21 Jun 2009 @70 fragility
  In my example the congress wouldn't be voting to change the law but, to possibly, undo it. Are they allowed to do that? And still my example stands, why is it okay for the US congress to vote twice on the same law in a short amount of time but not okay for the Irish to vote twice on the same treaty?
  
  @101 Freeborn John
  I did not mention it for two reasons. The procedure you highlight (i) applies to something else, i.e. EU Commission legislative proposals to the Council of Ministers (which is not the EU Council that consists of heads of government that would decide using the 'passerelle clause')
  
  First off we weren't talking about the passerelle clause (which is article 48) but we were talking about article 308. Second the article clearly states that the commission must follow the procedure I described in my previous post.
  
  But hey now that we're talking about the 'passerelle clause' let's a take a closer look at it.
  
  The passerelle clause has multiple procedures, the first procedure is no different then the procedure used to ratify any of the treaties so far.
  
  The second procedure is the 'simplified procedure', the simplified procedure is not to be used to increases (or decrease) the competences of the EU, but only to change the internal workings of the EU institutions. For example changing the voting in the Council from unanimity to QMV. Now fragility doesn't like this clause (see #151) I can understand why he doesn't like it but I'm guessing he doesn't know the procedure required to get rid unanimity. Not only does it require unanimity in the Council to change the voting to QMV, every national parliament has a veto on the issue. So it requires unanimity in the council AND amongst the national parliaments.
  Eh, it's not as scary as you make it out to be... far from it.
• Lisbon: A Pandora's box 09:49am on 20 Jun 2009 #34. threnodio wrote:
  ". . . the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, shall adopt the appropriate measures . . .".
  
  So unanimity of the Council, who represent the elected sovereign governments first need a proposal from the Commission, which is appointed by the elected sovereign governments and the consent of the EP, which is elected by those of us who can be bothered to vote. What, pray, is so undemocratic about that?
  
  Actually Freeborn John hasn't been entirely truthful about the entire process.
  
  When Article 308 is invoked the commission must point out to the national parliaments that the legislative draft is from article 308. "the Commission shall draw national Parliaments' attention to proposals based on this Article."
  
  Now why is this important? Because under the Lisbon treaty every national parliament gets two votes (one for each chamber under a bicameral parliament), the parliaments can use these votes to vote against EU legislative proposals, including those from article 308. If 1/3 of the votes, which is 18 votes at the moment, a total of 9 parliaments (I'm assuming here both chambers vote the same way) the legislative proposal must go back to the commission (in this case) which can either be amended, dropped or maintained. While it can't be blocked by the national parliaments if a national parliament is against the proposal it also means that the leader of that parliament (the prime minister) is against it and unanimity can not be reached in the council.
  
  So article 308 has not two but three checks:
  - Approval of all 27 democratically elected leaders.
  - Consent from the democratically elected European parliament
  - And at least 19 democratically elected parliaments* must agree to it. *Yes I'm fully aware that there are chambers that aren't democratically elected such as the, by the party and Church of England (lol!) appointed, House of Lords.
  
  I am curious to know Freeborn John why have you decided not to inform us of this?
  
  For those who want to know more about national parliaments having voting right. The threshold is lower (14 votes) if the legislative proposal is from judicial cooperation in criminal matters and police cooperation and higher with normal legislative proposals (24 votes). With the higher threshold a proposal can be dropped if the threshold is met and the EU council or EP are against the proposal.
  
  #17.
  
  The Lisbon treaty will lead to an unchecked centralisation of power not just in the new policy fields where it gives the EU competence for the first time (e.g. coordination of employment, social and health policies (Articles 156, para. 2 and 168, no. 2), sport (Article 165, Section 2), research and technology (Article 181, Section 2), space policy (Article 189), energy (Article 194), tourism (Article 195), civil protection (Article 196) and administrative cooperation (Article 197)) but also in the policy fields beyond the common market where it first acquired powers under the treaties on Maastricht, Amsterdam or Nice.
  
  Actually the EU has already acted on all of these competences except for space policy, administrative cooperation and sport (which are new) Furthermore besides sport and energy, all of these competences fall under the "supportive" area of the EU. For example tourism, civil protection and administration cooperation falls under article 6 of the TFEU which states: The Union shall have competence to carry out actions to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the Member States. Which basically means a member state can ask for aid under these competences. What you also haven't mentioned that this treaty has the least amount of new competences for the EU (besides the Single European Act). It's not as scary as you make it out to be.
  
  #57Why the process of voting on the Treaty should be terminated after the first "yes" vote and not after the first "no"?
  
  I find this a fascinating concept, don't forget though that this doesn't just happen with "'big bad EU' forcing down their treaty on the innocent Irish, Danish and what not for the second time." The US banking bail out plan didn't go through the U.S. senate the first time, yet less then a week later they voted on it again and 'they got it right'. A similar thing has happened with the French three strikes internet law, fairly recently. Yet they didn't vote for a third time after the laws got through. Are these two examples acceptable conduct in a democracy?
• Lisbon: A Pandora's box 4:36pm on 19 Jun 2009 @Freeborn John post #9
  "If action by the Union should prove necessary, within the framework of the policies defined in the Treaties, to attain one of the objectives set out in the Treaties, AND THE TREATIES HAVE NOT PROVIDED THE NECESSARY POWERS, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, shall adopt the appropriate measures . . ."
  
  So the national parliaments have absolutely no say when the EU asks to 'increase its powers'? If so that is quite worrying.
  

• «Newer
• Older»

BBC.co.uk