I get the impression that the Lisbon Treaty is backfiring somewhat and no-one wants to talk about it too much at the moment. The Treaty was supposed to consolidate and simplify the EU’s powers and make the running of the machine more straightforward. But we can see in retrospect that the second Irish vote, in exchange for guarantees that will be legally formalised at a later date, has undermined this.
The Irish second vote created a precedent. Vaclav Klaus, in stalling on the treaty, is really only doing what the Irish as a whole did. They didn’t like Lisbon so they obstructed it temporarily until concessions were made. Klaus is doing the same, but in the Czech Republic there have been no referendums on the treaty, so he has taken what superficially looks like a different path of one-man obstructionism. But in the end it amounts to the same thing as the Irish — holding up the treaty to get particular guarantees in the national interest, in the Czech case on the Benes Decrees.
Of course if Klaus gets his way — and why shouldn’t he if the Irish got theirs? — others might start to push for their own concessions, as a recent EU Observer article explains.
But a far more serious booby-trap is waiting in Germany, where the Constitutional Court, in its judgement at the end of June, said the Lisbon Treaty did nothing to correct the EU’s “structural democratic deficit”. Because of this, the Court effectively reserved to itself the power to protect the German Basic Law and the rights of German citizens, should the EU overreach itself. In practical terms, this means the German court may overturn rulings of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), potentially putting a serious brake on further EU integration.
A test case relating to employment law is working its way through the system in Germany. The case — the Mangold case — concerns a finding against Germany by the ECJ over age discrimination. Should the German court decide the ECJ went too far and reverse the Mangold decision, it could change the balance of power between the EU and member states. I’m not sure the implications of this have so far sunk in in Brussels. The German judges are due to pronounce by the end of the year.
#1 by Barry Cahill on October 29, 2009 - 1:49 pm
The reality is the Irish didn’t stall in order to get concessions- They voted know the first time in the wake of their premier resigning under corruption allegations, a massive anti-government vote, and the most uninformed electorate to face a referendum in the history of the state, according to the millward brown research.
The Irish didn’t stall- It was a constitutional requirement.
There was a fundamental lack of trust in the government, that required legal guarantees to rectify.
#2 by Steve Peers on October 29, 2009 - 3:22 pm
I think it is too early to claim that a Treaty which is not in force yet is backfiring!
Since only the Czechs have yet to ratify, only they can argue for any further concessions – as the Slovak government has now implicitly conceded.
The Mangold case has nothing to do with the Lisbon Treaty – since it goes back to an ECJ judgment in 2005. Anyway, the position is more subtle than you suggest – since the German courts have referred identical questions back to the ECJ, they are giving the ECJ a chance to overturn or at least modify this mad judgment and thereby avoid a conflict. This isn’t completely new though – you can find examples of this sort of dialogue between the ECJ and national courts on various issues since the 1960s and ’70s.
#3 by DOCM on October 29, 2009 - 10:44 pm
As usual, Steve Peers is right. The likelihood of the German Constitutional Court doing as he suggests is greatly increased by the disastrous showing of the instigators of the court’s Lisbon judgement, the Bavarian CSU, in the recent federal elections.
As the Constitutional Court was evidently bending to what it thought was the prevailing political wind in adopting it utterly vacuous judgement in the first place, no doubt it will also note that the wind has changed direction.
#4 by Marcel on October 30, 2009 - 4:16 pm
Barry Cahill, that’s nonsense. There was more than enough time between the exit of Ahern and the entry of Cowen, who enjoyed rather high popularity in the run-up to the 2008 referendum.
EU-philes just never want to admit that the peoples don’t share the drive for more integration, so they always come up with those bogus reports that it had something to do with lack of understanding. Hogwash! Those ‘investigations’ as to why people voted no were all done by people who themselves favored the yes. People voted no because they didn’t like the treaty, and no amount of lying by EU-philes trying to explain it away is gonna change that fact. The peoples of Europe do not favor more political integration, which is why Sarkozy, Barroso and Merkel bullied governments to cancel referendums.
The fact is, the more debate there is (was) in a country regarding the treaty, the more people were against it. France (2005), Netherlands (2005) and Ireland (2008) are all examples of that. Politicians don’t want us to know how the EU works because that would involve explaining why they’ve been undermining national parliamentary democracy.
#5 by Jean-Baptiste Perrin on November 2, 2009 - 10:04 am
Sorry Marcel, but you assume a lot and don’t prove anything. Actually, all polls consistently show that a majority of Europeans want more European integration. Per country, of course, there are major variations (the UK is clearly against it), but the global picture is a consistent 60% in favor of more integration (in Pew reports ??), if my memory doesn’t fail me.
#6 by Mitov on November 2, 2009 - 3:42 pm
The Lisbon bargaining is nothing compared to the forthcoming problems and they are not yet on the agenda:
http://www.holistic-evolution-spiral.com/wakeup.html
#7 by Volker Haferkorn on November 3, 2009 - 12:51 am
The Germans seem to have gone off the EU, choosing a 2nd-rater as a commissioner – it suggests they see the EU being steered by the Council of Ministers (i.e. Germany). Perhaps we didn’t need Lisbon after all?
#8 by bikey on November 3, 2009 - 8:15 am
That ‘utterly vacuous’ judgment is probably the last meaningful thing that will be said about democracy in a public forum if things continue as they are going. Have you looked at the ‘increased input of national parliaments’? Where a national parliament finds, within eight weeks, that an EU law violates subsidiarity (talk about vacuous), AND it can get seven other countries to agree, the Council will look again. Whatever the Lisbon treaty has (and simplicity is not on the list), it only increases the democracy deficit. If that’s not important, well, then, you go, Europe.
#9 by Helen Hartnell on November 3, 2009 - 6:18 pm
Stephen, the BVerfG (German Constitutional Court) does not have the power to “overturn rulings” of the ECJ. It does, on the other hand, have the power to disagree with – and thus to challenge, provoke, and even defy – the ECJ, as it has historically done. Steve Peers & DOCM made the point well, but without correcting the author’s unfortunate choice of terminology.
#10 by Isak Andersen on November 3, 2009 - 7:56 pm
The EU has decided the democracy is inconvenient and inefficient in the 21st century and so has decided to do away with it.
But that won’t stop the EU lecturing others around the world about their wicked democractic deficiencies.
#11 by jocelyn braddell on November 4, 2009 - 2:07 am
While reading the Copenhagen Treaty I began to think that perhaps the future for Ireland under NAMA (the private sector having 51% over 49% Gov.) and the reduction of living standards we are already experiencing, and the poverty experience expected in a December budget is an experiment – an experiment for implementation of the Copenhagen Treaty.