Treaty of Lisbon: State of Play, not an update really

John over at Semper Idem has an interesting post about the pitfalls that face the Treaty of Lisbon in the 22 countries left to ratify the Treaty where it may be used as a political football like in Slovakia at the moment.

John also has a post about the YFG Lisbon poster competition that I was going to post about but he beat me to it! So I'll just link to him instead!

A body I have left out is the European Parliament which will vote on the Treaty this month according to wikipedia, upon looking at the Draft agenda the a report from the constitutional affairs committee will be debated on Tuesday 19th of Feb. The motion I eventually found on the Legislative Obsevatory!

The Motions conclusion is as follows:

7. Believes that this Treaty will provide a stable and lasting framework for the future development of the Union;
8. Endorses the Treaty and hopes that all Member States of the Union will be in a position to achieve its ratification by 1 January 2009;
9. Is aware that an amending treaty is inevitably less clear and readable than a codified treaty, but looks forward to the rapid publication of the consolidated Treaties as revised by the Treaty of Lisbon, which will provide citizens with a clearer basic text of the Union;
10. Reiterates its request that all possible efforts be deployed, both by EU institutions and national authorities in accordance with the principle of sincere cooperation, in order to inform European citizens clearly and objectively about the content of the Treaty;
11. Instructs its committee responsible to prepare the necessary changes to its Rules of Procedure and to assess the needs for further implementing measures;
12. Instructs its President to forward this resolution and the report of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to the national parliaments of the Member States, to the Council, to the European Commission and to the former Members of the Convention on the Future of Europe, and to ensure that Parliament's services, including its external offices, provide ample information about Parliament's position on the Treaty.

The motion refers to a report that I cannot find. Must email an MEP then.

The motion also contains concerns which is interesting to read:

Concerns
6. Is aware of the widespread regrets that, following the results of the referendums in France and the Netherlands, it was necessary, in order to secure an agreement amongst the 27 Member States, to:

– abandon the constitutional approach and certain of its features, such as a new, single and structured text, the clearer terminology to designate legislative instruments, the symbols and the designation of the High Representative as “Foreign Minister”;

– postpone the implementation of important elements of the new Treaty, such as the
entry into force of the new voting system in the Council (accompanied by special
provisions for postponing votes known as the “Ioannina compromise”), and add restrictive mechanisms like "emergency brakes" to the ordinary legislative procedure
in some policy areas;

– incorporate into the Treaty measures specific to individual Member States, such as
the extension of the “opt-in” arrangements for the UK and Ireland to police cooperation and criminal law, the protocol limiting the effect of the Charter on the
domestic law of the UK and Poland and the extra parliamentary seat attributed to
Italy in derogation of the principle of degressive proportionality;

– modify the wording of several passages of the Treaty, or of the declarations annexed to it, entailing an unjustified shift to a negative tone, which gives an impression of mistrust vis-à-vis the Union and its institutions and thus sends a wrong signal to the public;

Interesting balance for a Parliamentary motion.