Friday 9 October 2009

Klaus insists on amendments to Lisbon Treaty before ratification


Open Europe reports that Klaus seeks an amendment to the Lisbon Treaty  (a leader in the Economist describes the Lisbon Treaty as "deeply shabby"). with regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which angers EU politicos as he will not specify the amendments he seeks. Presumably, he's playing his cards close to his chest so that the politicos cannot rubbish his bid or counter it with its usual obfuscations, half-truths, outright lies and cannot therefore discredit him.

Open Europe sums it up, thus:
The Times reports that Czech President Vaclav Klaus has demanded an amendment to the Lisbon Treaty, which could pose a further delay to ratification. Klaus is seeking unspecified guarantees on the Charter of Fundamental Rights - the declaration being incorporated into EU law by the Treaty.

Polish daily Rzeczpospolita quotes a Czech source saying, "We have expertise, which shows that in accordance with the Charter it will be possible to reclaim property rights in Czech Republic. We cannot allow judges from Malta or Spain, who know nothing about our history, to decide whether Sudeten Germans have right to their property."

The article notes that Klaus' move has sparked anger in other EU capitals, with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner saying, "We are not going to change the Lisbon treaty. It has been approved by the Czech parliament and by the Czech senate in the precise terms in which everybody has accepted it." Swedish Prime Minister and holder of the EU Presidency Fredrik Reinfeldt said, "I spoke by phone today with President Klaus. I told him this is the wrong message at the wrong time for the EU. I told him clearly it is his ink on the paper that counts, and I do not want this to delay the treaty going through as soon as possible." The Independent quotes Reinfeldt saying, "We need clarification on exactly what he is asking for...As I understand, it's linked to the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It's a footnote, but he didn't define it."

Meanwhile, after a series of contradictory statements over Polish plans to sign the Treaty, several newspapers report that the Polish President Lech Kaczynski will sign it this Saturday. The Polish President's Chief of Staff, Wladyslaw Stasiak, made the announcement on TVN24 yesterday: "The president will sign the treaty on Saturday at noon".

Update:

And if you think the EU is really concerned about "climate change", then why is it colluding with the logging industry to downgrade the protection of rain forests - which, after all, absorbs C02?
The Irish Times reports that the EU has been accused of changing the text of the current REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) agreement after lobbying from the logging industry. This means "[...] that the industry could continue logging old forests, accelerating climate change", said Greenpeace's forest policy expert, Grant Rosoman.
Unscrupulous in the extreme - money changing hands, no doubt, between politicos and loggers.

Cross-posted

8 comments:

Steve Halden said...

If estimates are correct then the General Election is about six months away.

Is seems unlikely that Klaus can keep raising delaying amendments for the next six months.

Because this is the only way that the Conservatives can call the promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

If the Lisbon Treaty is ratified by the time of the next General Election, then the Conservatives will not have to call the promised referendum.

Once it is ratified, it is too late.

Huw Peach, Green Party said...

I notice that Open Europe is the source for this story.

What do UKIP bloggers think of Open Europe's league table of MEPs on 29th May 2009?

This showed which MEPs voted most frequently to promote transparency, openness and democracy in the European Parliament and to fight waste and misuse of funds.

Top of the league table was Dr Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party.

Bottom of the league table were 4 Tories, 5 UKIP members and Robert Kilroy-Silk.

wonkotsane said...

Do try and keep up.

Huw Peach, Green Party said...

So Open Europe's analysis is 'flawed' in UKIP's view. Thanks for the link, wonkotsane.

Huw Peach, Green Party said...

Any chance of you responding to some of the climate change points on this thread now?

'DCB withdraws from Leadership Election and backs Lord Pearson'

I was hoping that you or libertarian might be able to explain some of your distortions there.

wonkotsane said...

Huw you're not half as clever as you think you are. I don't intend to make the global warming scam the sole subject of discussion on this blog. This isn't because you're right and UKIP is wrong, it's because you're taking every comment thread off topic to try and make it a discussion about the global warming scam rather than about what the post itself is about.

You're very welcome to discuss the global warming scam on a post about it and I'd positively encourage you to contribute to the posts on other subjects and explain your party's eurofederalist ideals which are so far out of step with public opinion. But please stop spamming every comment thread with extremely tenuous and irrelevant diversions.

Huw Peach, Green Party said...

I'm sorry, wonkotsane. I was just trying to draw your attention here to the other discussion we were having about Lord Pearson of Rannoch.

Lord Pearson is a candidate for UKIP leadership.

So I just wanted to highlight his views on climate change (he says policies are 'pointless') and see if there were any UKIP activists who might be concerned that this line is ridiculous in light of the overwhelming message from climate scientists, untenable in the long term, embarrassingly isolationist in light of collective action in the EU and the rest of the world, and likely to make voters, particularly young ones, think of you as the nasty party.

In light of your comments on that thread about deleting my comments, I now realise that UKIP doesn't like rational challenges to its prospective line on climate change.

wonkotsane said...

Huw, most UKIP members recognise it for the scam it is. If you want to evangelise your climate change religion on a post about climate change feel free to do so but that's not what you're doing - what you're doing is spamming posts that have nothing to do with the climate change scam with comments about the climate change scam.