Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Finland, Poland and Germany the next headaches for the Lisbon Treaty

Noone has ratified the treaty in awhile so my list is still up-to-date. It has passed in a few houses around Europe, but not the completed its passege (eg, UK House of Commons and the Belgian Senate) Now back on topic, Finland its' self isn't causing the hassle it is its Autonmous Province of the Aland Islands'. Now what are they worried about? 'Snus', what we would call snuff! Mark Mardell has a nice post on it.

Now Poland, remember Jaroslaw Kaczynski? Who used to be prime minister and wanted extra votes for Poland because of WW2 deaths? Well he is now opposing the treaty in the sejm. He went from traising the treaty as PM to now opposing it. Why? well its a classic case of part of his party wants a referendum on the treaty. Via Spiegel

Kaczynski had originally been expected to support ratification of the treaty, as he had helped to negotiate it while prime minister and boasted of his success at the time. However he has now said his party would only back the treaty if the ratification bill included a statement affirming that Poland's constitution takes primacy over EU law and that Poland has the right to leave the union at any time. Analysts say he was forced to change his position due to pressure from his party's Eurosceptic wing.


Part of it sounds familiar to me about some amendments tabled in the UK House of Commons (Referendum and Supremacy of Parliament). The primacy part would be struck down by the courts as it is well known that EU law takes supremacy over national laws since the 1960's, something Poland dosent have a chance of hell of changing it.

Then to the surprise mention, the scrapping of the treaty could be down to the German Constitution Court in Karlsruhe. Die Linkie and a CSU politican, Peter Gauweiler, will lodge a case against it just like Gauweiler did in 2005 against the Constitutional Treaty. That did have an effect with the German President refusing to sign until the case was heard. This could happen again. The German Parliament is set to ratify the treaty in May.

More and more hurdles seam to be raised in the path of the Lisbon Treaty, but is it fit enough to 'jump' them? Only time will tell.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous8:53 a.m.

    In the meantime, do what you can:

    Vote YES or NO at www.FreeEurope.info

    ReplyDelete

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Stephen