EAST WEST EUROPE | Ireland and the Wider Europe, 2008

This provides the outline of the text to be decided by referendum in the summer. This PDF link is via the Irish Times site. There will be more analysis and commentary here over the weekend.

France and EUFOR characterize their crossing into Sudanese territory as “accidental.” Conflict on the Chadian side of the border was expected - this was not. The BBC story underlines the complexity and danger of the EUFOR mission.

I have promised a thorough evaluation of the Treaty. It is taking time to get around to this. Here are some more observations on the text as I am reading it.

> Treaty defenders are right in saying that much of the document is about tidying up earlier agreements in the light of subsequent change. There are numerous cases where the revised name of the Council is added in or previous references to early steps in the Euro changeover are removed.

This supports the view that a large percentage of the document does not really represent significant change at all.

However, this prompts two further observations

What we need is a clear exposition of the new document, as is, rather than the list of amendments. The latter is also necessary but it is the new basic document (i.e., constitution) that will govern how the Union works.

Cross-referencing to other articles and protocols may be appropriate for legal clarity. But the addition of short titles or descriptors for these would make the document more readable. The inaccessibility of this maze of cross-references can also be used to hide subtle changes whose impact will only emerge in practice when the deal is done. In this context, the section on Schengen represent a barbarous assault on the English language.

The protocol on national parliaments is of fundamental importance. For defenders of the Treaty, it offers more information for national assemblies and a potential role in decision-making. On the other hand, the process by which these parliaments can input into decision-making privileges collective European rather than national interests. This is a critical point because the net effect is to negate the apparent powers granted to the parliaments. I will blog on this at greater length: there is considerable obfuscation and even deceit in the discussion of this whole area.