Have You Read it? The most common question journalists ask politicians about the Lisbon Treaty. The answers became symptomatic of the problems in the Lisbon One campaign, here were a bunch of lazy politicians telling us all to vote for something but couldn’t be bothered to read it themselves. Fair enough, if you set yourself up to sell something in today’s PR conscious world you should have a grasp of it. Vincent Browne likes to jump on this bandwagon calling the Treaty impenetrable and impossible. However there is more going on here than meets the eye. The now departed (from the Lisbon campaign at any rate) Declan Ganley waved around what he called the Lisbon Treaty implying it was somehow secretive and hidden. Of course what he had in his hand was actually a propaganda tract from Jens Peter Bonde, a strange bedfellow as a former Danish Communist.
Anyway the news is you can very easily read the Treaty. I’ll say that again, you can very easily read the treaty. Now like everything this needs to be put in context. As most people know EU Treaties have been made by amending the original treaty of Rome. I’m happy to say this is ridiculous and leaves the EU open to accusations of secrecy and garbled euro legalese of which Vincent Browne is so fond. What really matters here is what is in the treaties now and what will be there after we vote. As it happens this is of course available online. Indeed you can have what the treaties will look like if Lisbon is accepted, the current treaties with changes, additions and subtractions in different colours and the actual Lisbon text . The first two are thanks to the Institute for International and European Affairs, I think all sides of this debate recognise the excellent work done in compiling these although I have to declare an interest having worked there some 12 years ago! Links are here http://www.iiea.com/publications?offset=10&max=10&sort=publicationDate&order=desc unfortunately they are no longer free but were in Lisbon 1, not sure why that is. Richard Corbett MEP has them here for free http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/assets/docs/briefing/annotatedtreaties.pdf …not sure about intellectual property rights and all that but it’s a public site.
The treaties are set out in chapters with headings….I know, I know its sooooo complex! I intend to go through most of these headings looking at the changes and the issues involved in the coming weeks. For the moment I will stick to some introductory comments
The first thing people will notice is we are actually talking about two treaties or a set of amendments to two treaties. The Treaty on European Union and The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The latter is effectively the treaties to date with their amendments (single market, freedom of movement etc.) and the former more political and cross cutting principles.
Brother Kelly used to tell me not to use a small word when a large one will do. The EU has taken this up with gusto leading to all sorts of chaos when it comes to the numbering of articles and sections in the treaties. The method of amending treaty after treaty leads to a constant renumbering. Having the two treaties doesn’t help either. The Lisbon Treaty itself contains a note on numbering which is adhered to by the IIEA and I think should be used by everybody. So if you want to amaze your friends down the pub with “Oh yeah I read that” keep logging on!