Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Strengthening signs for a Sovereignty Sellout

The Telegraph's political team today return to the topic of the coming EU constitutional summit next June, the article is linked here. While short of any firm conclusion itself the following extracts surely show up enough danger signs, I have put my main concerns in bold : Although Mr Blair will attend a crucial EU summit in Brussels on June 21-22 to decide what to do with the defunct constitutional treaty, he and other European leaders will merely sign a "framework" deal that will leave sensitive issues to be thrashed out at the start of the Brown premiership. "Much of the nitty-gritty, difficult work will carry over into the IGC," said a senior Foreign Office official involved in the negotiations. "The summit will set the framework but there will be a lot left to do. It will not all be sorted by the time Blair goes." ....Mr Brown does not want to begin his premiership by blocking reforms that are seen as necessary to allowing a community of 27 nations to function.... Mr Blair is prepared to see key elements of the constitutional treaty revived, including the plans for an EU foreign minister, a permanent president, changes to the voting system to meet the needs of the large EU community, and reforms of the European Commission. There may also be a commitment to look at areas where national vetoes could be removed. It seems to this observer that the only means of meeting all the various individual objectives and contradictions mentioned in the article, plus those of the other large countries, will be for Blair to agree to a sweeping loss of sovereignty while pretending he has done nothing of the sort and Brown sweeping it through a whipped parliament in his Labour Party honeymoon period.

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