Wednesday 20 February 2013

Barroso dismisses Cameron's repatriation of powers

Emperor Barroso has dismissed the prospect of negotiating Cameron's mythical "repatriation" of EU powers, according to Public Service Europe.

Did British Prime Minister David Cameron expect Brussels to lend a sympathetic ear to his call for power to be returned to national capitals? The notion that the power-grabbing European Commission would voluntarily debate giving up its hard-earned rights would probably have been too much to hope for. Either way, it looks as if commission president José Manuel Barroso is not particularly excited about the idea.
[...]
Barroso's newly published reply comes as close to saying "no" as diplomatic language will allow. "The Treaty of Lisbon defines already clearly the areas of competence of the European Union," he wrote. "In accordance with the principle of conferral any area not falling within the EU competence remains in the domain of the member states. EU competences are exercised in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality as set out in the treaties."
In other words, they've got the power and it's written down so tough.

The people conducting this review are going to be coming out with ideas regularly over the next year or two," said a source at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. "You are going to see two or maybe four ideas a year, I think. Cameron has to be seen to be responding to the Eurosceptic mood of the people," the source told this website
As ever with Cameron, it's about what he's seen to be doing rather than what he actually does.  As long as he's seen to be acting like a eurosceptic it doesn't matter that he's an EU-loving traitor who's greatest "eurosceptic" achievement is reducing the membership payments of every EU member state whilst ours increase.