Considering the fact that some of the most active political debaters here are from Europe, I thought this could spark some interesting discussion.
As you probably know, the people of Ireland gave the EU the middle finger by voting "No" to the Lisbon treaty. This should put the treaty in the fridge, but apparently the EU s going to continue the ratification process, with Ireland being the only country letting the people vote about this very inportant question.
Personally I'm happy with the result In Ireland and I would also like to give my middle finger to the power hungry aristocrats in Brussels and the national governments as the whole thing pretty much proves how distanced from the people the elite in the EU has become. The Treaty of Lisbon is pretty much exactly the same as the European Constitution which was voted down in referendums in France and the Netherlands. The major differences this time is is that the "national symbols" are removed and the national parliaments, not te people (except Ireland) will decide wether or not to ratificate the treaty.
Here are some of the major changes, taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Treaty where you can read pretty much everything about the treaty.
A European Council President
with a 2½ year term de facto
replacing the rotating presidency.
A single foreign affairs post
created by merging the External
Relations Commissioner with the
CFSP High Representative.
Charter of Fundamental Rights
from 2000 made legally binding.
Pillars merged to 1 legal person
increasing the EU's competence
to sign treaties.
European Council separated
officially from the EU Council.
Legislative meetings of the EU
Council to be held in public.
Commission reduced
to less than one commissioner per
country. Nationalities would rotate
regardless of country size.
More powerful Parliament
by extending codecision with the
Councils to more areas of policy.
Further enlargement enabled
by removing the Nice Treaty
limitation to 27 Member States.
More double majority voting
to new areas of policy in the
European Council and the
EU Council, from 2014 on.
Common defence foreseen
in that the ESDP leads to one
when the European Council
unanimously decides to.
National parliaments engaged
by expanding scrutiny-time of
legislation and enabling them to
jointly compel the Commission
to review or withdraw legislation.
Mutual solidarity obliged
if a member state is object of a
terrorist attack or the victim of a
natural or man-made disaster.
Citizens' petitions
to be considered by the
Commission if signed by
1 mill. citizens.
Combating climate change
explicitly stated as an objective.
An EU Public Prosecutor
An External Action Service
Membership withdrawal clause
I'm not completely anti-EU, and this new treaty isn't completely bad, but I really think the EU needs to stop this attempt at making the EU more like a state and start listening to the peole, especially considering the rather strong anti-EU sentiments in countries such as France and England (not to mention Sweden).
I'll elaborate more on some points later, as I have limited access to a computer at the moment. Hopefully this threas will still be alive then
