National Legal Implications of Lisbon Treaty
I believe that Europe can be successful. I propose modest institutional reform, the abandonment of the political integration process and a new focus on meeting the pressing policy challenges we face. The task of our Party is to win power and build alliances across the continent to reform the culture and ethos of the current European Union. My Simplifying Treaty was published to offer a constructive alternative for Europe's future behind which our Party and country can rally. We should not be forced to accept the flawed Lisbon Treaty that is currently being hastened through.
In essence, I want to provoke a debate on the kind of Europe that we Conservatives are striving to achieve. David Cameron has made it clear that we will remain a major player in the EU under the next Conservative Government but that Europe needs to reform. It must particularly concentrate on three key issues - international poverty, global climate change and competitiveness. Such a forward-looking agenda does not require the kind of constitutional change and political integration the current Lisbon Treaty proposes. But it does require political will.
What I would like to focus on are the national legal implications that a ratified Lisbon Treaty would have, so that we are aware just how deeply the content will affect us and the governance of the United Kingdom. Indeed it is an important factor in our argument against the current situation.
There has been much debate over whether the Lisbon Treaty is in fact the EU Constitution by another name. You will not be surprised that as a Conservative I believe very little has changed and European Leaders agree with me, I quote;
As Angela Merkel put it, "The fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained in large part."
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, "The text consists, in effect, of a revival of a large part of the substance of the Constitutional Treaty."
Bertie Ahern, "Thankfully they haven't changed the substance - 90% of it is still there."
This is important as a constitution by its very nature has a legal identity. As a nation without a codified national constitution, do we really want the imposition of a European one?
Inigo Mendez de Vigo and Richard Corbett in the explanatory statement to their report on the Lisbon Treaty, perhaps unwittingly expose the ludicrous way the Treaty nee Constitutional Treaty has been presented by our Government. They deplore the fact that the new Treaty makes no reference to symbols of the Union - the flag, the anthem, the motto, the euro and Europe Day following this statement with, "Although this does not mean that these symbols no longer exist." Indeed the Constitutional Affairs Committee, on which I sit as Vice-Chair, is in the process of preparing a report on the use of the Union's symbols, which will propose changes to Parliament's Rules of Procedure designed to ensure that Parliament makes more systematic use of those symbols.
De Vigo and Corbett elaborate; "In order to placate certain member States primarily concerned to demonstrate that the amending Treaty is not simply a Constitution by another name, a statement of the principle of the primacy of Union law over national law has regrettably not been retained in a prominent position in the Treaty". I am an advocate for transparency and clarity, something that neither this Treaty, the European Institutions nor the British Labour Government are willing to deliver.
