Plans afoot to break Nice Treaty Rules on EU Commission

A move to break the Nice Treaty provisions regarding the formation of the next EU Commission in an attempt to get the non-ratified Lisbon Treaty to prevail has been long expected and is now underway, read here. Once again we have proof that there is no ploy nor illegality to which the EU will not stoop to override the stated will of the people of Europe. The article amazingly enough has the nerve to state the following: “If the Commission is invested before 31 October, according to the treaty, its mandate is five years. So the EU would be stuck with a small, Nice, Commission for five years,” said a senior official, adding: “This would not honour the promise to the Irish that each member state is guaranteed a commissioner.” This senior official is apparently content to now state that the EU would for five years be " stuck with a small Nice Commission" yet streamlining the Commission was the principle raison d'etre for the Laeken convention and resulting Constitutional Treaty! How devious can warped minds become?

Latest Irish proposals breaches Lisbon's provisions

Details of how the unscrupulous EU plans to illegally break the Lisbon Treaty to try to bribe the Irish into a second referendum giving the "correct" result are published by the political editor of the Irish Independent in his newspaper this morning, linked here. I have posted on what IS and what IS NOT possible under the terms of Lisbon and Nice regarding Commissioners, which summaries are linked here , here and most importantly HERE. Ireland cannot have a permanent EU Commissioner under the terms of an unamended Lisbon Treaty although such is perfectly legal and feasible under the terms of the Nice Treaty which continues as the latest enforceable EU Treaty.

Nice and Lisbon on Commissioners

The question of Ireland's situation under Nice versus Lisbon on having its own Commissioner seems to be becoming a live issue. What say the Treaties? The facts provided by the EU itself, linked and quoted below, clearly show the Irish will be much more likely to retain a Commissioner under the terms of Nice, which following their referendum now remains in force. As Nice requires unanimity on the number of Commissioners which are to be less than the total number of the 27 member states Ireland can quite sensibly insist those terms are met if in future Malta and Cyprus alternate one Commissioner. No such option appears to be possible under the Lisbon Treaty which requires a reduction to 18. NICE (From EU link here)

Article 4 of the Protocol on the enlargement of the European Union, annexed to the Treaty of Nice, specifies that as of 1 January 2005 the Commission shall include only one national of each of the Member States. The Treaty of Accession, signed in Athens on 16 April 2003, amended this provision because the new Commission will take up its duties on 1 November 2004 and will include, as stipulated, one national of each Member State.

The Protocol on enlargement also provides that, when the EU consists of 27 Member States, the number of Members of the Commission shall be less than the number of Member States. The exact number of Members of the Commission is to be set by the Council, acting unanimously, and Members will be chosen according to a rotation system based on the principle of equality, the implementing arrangements for which are to be adopted by the Council, acting unanimously and in accordance with the following principles:

• Member States shall be treated on a strictly equal footing as regards determination of the sequence of, and the time spent by, their nationals as Members of the Commission; under no circumstances may the Commission include two Members of the same nationality;
• each successive college shall be so composed as to reflect satisfactorily the demographic and geographical range of all the Member States of the Union.

This rotation system will apply as from the date on which the first Commission following the date of accession of the 27th Member State of the Union takes up its duties (i.e. in principle as of November 2009). In other words, the Commission which will take up its duties in 2004 will therefore be extended to include one national of each country which has joined the Union by that time.

LISBON (From EU link here)

European Commission

Its main job is promoting the European public interest. The new treaty reduces the number of Commissioners - from 2014, only two thirds of member countries will have a Commissioner (e.g. with 27 countries, there would be 18 Commissioners), but the posts will rotate between all countries. The number of Commissioners can also be changed by the European Council (by unanimous vote).

In another major change, there will be a direct link between the results of the European elections and the choice of candidate for president of the Commission. (Ed. - This bit was news to me!!)

The president will also be stronger, as he/she will have the power to dismiss fellow Commissioners.

EU's Sarkozy in Dublin

A good summary from the Irish Times is here. Another view is in the Irish Independent from here. It appears that the reality now is that the Treaty of Nice will provide the legal basis for the EU for years ahead, while quite illegally that institution will choose to operate as if Lisbon had been ratified thus bringing the anti-democratic wannabe super-state into ever growing public contempt. Most immediately the June 2009 elections to the European Parliament will be on Nice Treaty membership that I listed below last week. The French President who has been offering the carrot of an Irish Commissioner continuing as a reward for Lisbon Treaty ratification by the Irish, was yesterday confronted with the fact that Nice states the reduction from 27 to 18 Commissioners requires unanimity. Refresh your memories on the late-night end to the Nice Treaty negotiations and what we are now lumbered with from The Economist article "So that's all agreed then, Dec 14 2000: NICE" from here. Almost exactly three years later I was commentating on Ironies, linked here, on the Presidential ambitions of the evil Tony Blair for even the planning to foist what became the EU Constitutional Treaty/EU Reform Treaty/ Lisbon Treaty upon Britain, which I planned to merely selectively quote, but is here in full to better illustrate how much we owe the Irish and how grateful we must remain that at least we are presently only burdened with the dreadful Nice Treaty and its equally obnoxious forerunners: Blair's Presidential Ambitions Several commentators, including this blog, have tended to assume that Blair's enthusiasm for the provisions and directions of the document drawn up in the Convention led by Valery Giscard d'Estaing were motivated by his possible ambitions to fill the presidential office it envisioned. The apparent total disregard of his government for the historical democratic rights and individual freedoms of the people of this country, including the gross misrepresentation of the nature of the proposed treaty by his Foreign Secretary and himself to Parliament, left little other logical explanation. Suspecting such duplicity as being solely driven by personal ambition is one thing, but suspicion is what it would normally have to remain when dealing with the inner desires of another man. Extraordinarily, however, in the statement issued by Number 10 of the press conference delivered by Blair and Straw, following the breakdown of the IGC, we now have more or less concrete evidence in the Prime Minister's own words that such is indeed his ambition. Among what is mostly incomprehensible double talk, if not at times just plain gobbledegook, is this statement: I don't think in the near term it is going to be a dramatic problem, but I think as time goes on, unless Europe has a really effective way of working, and I think that means that you need a full time coordinator of these Council meetings, you know you can see with what has happened today and in the past few days, I mean the Italian Presidency has performed heroics, but it is difficult for them, each successor country to take that on, so I think there are areas there where in time it will be extremely important, for Europe to operate effectively, that we have this new agreement. It could perhaps be argued that the Prime Minister is merely suggesting any competent coordinator or President could fill such a role, but that case for me is weak. To argue a negotiation failed for the lack of something only a successful outcome could deliver is somewhat disingenuous. The point being made also seems to me irrelevant to the question asked, indicating this was the item already at the forefront of Blair's mind. What Blair said boils down in essence to this: 'Europe can't work without a strong leader' Blair as PM sees himself as such. No strong leader envisages himself working for another - Blair must therefore consider himself as the man to lead the EU. In my view, therefore, to create an EU Presidential Post became Blair's principal objective and the remaining constitutional treaty terms under which the people of Britain and all other nation states in Europe would lose many of their democratic rights became matters of minor importance. I believe that it is up to the people of Britain who have seen their own institutions of government and political conventions despoiled by this self-driven, but otherwise directionless man, to ensure he is exposed and removed from power before he has further opportunity to coordinate a similar fate for the whole of Europe. Hutton and other looming difficulties happily make this appear an increasingly practical proposition. Britain, to my mind, certainly cannot afford a resumption of constitutional negotiations while its negotiating team is headed by one who so obviously displays his own personal agenda lies with the 'opposing' side. The entire Press Release is linked from ( here) (The link no longer works and merely reaches a statement from Patricia Hewitt) Luckily I quoted the section that best illustrates the point of the posting. President Sarkozy it will be recalled first backed Blair as first EU President for it was only through the conspiring of the timing of handover between Brown and Blair that Parliament could be best delivered for sacrifice. When such was accomplished Blair's name was removed from the prospective Presidential candidate list, as I also frequently predicted on my blogs, thus making the planned trashing of the nation's democracy, liberties and sovereignty somehow even more grotesque. When and how will Blair and Brown be brought to account?

Treaty of Nice European Parliament Membership

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT Legislative powers : Zero Costs: Astronomical Member States EP seats Germany 99 United Kingdom 72 France 72 Italy 72 Spain 50 Poland 50 Romania 33 Netherlands 25 Greece 22 Czech Republic 20 Belgium 22 Hungary 20 Portugal 22 Sweden 18 Bulgaria 17 Austria 17 Slovakia 13 Denmark 13 Finland 13 Ireland 12 Lithuania 12 Latvia 8 Slovenia 7 Estonia 6 Cyprus 6 Luxembourg 6 Malta 5 Total 732