EU Summit on Irish Lisbon 'Assurances'

EU Summit on Irish Lisbon 'Assurances':
The Emperor's New Clothes

by Jens-Peter Bonde, Spectrezine, June 24, 2009

The EU Summit Strategy for dealing with the Irish No vote to Lisbon is similar to the Edinburgh Agreement of December 1992, when Denmark changed its No to Maastrict for full Danish opt-outs from some provisions of that Treaty.

First, the European Council will make a 'decision' of the Prime Ministers and Presidents of the EU member states.

This so-called 'decision' did not previously exist as a formal legal instrument of EU summits. It was specially invented to get around the Danish No to Maastrict in 1992 by the Head of the Council Legal Service, Jean-Claude Piris. It is a creative way of giving people the feeling of legal certainty which does not and cannot exist since only properly ratified EU treaties, with their Protocals, can offer binding legal guarantees in EU law.

This 'decision' of the EU summit changes absolutely nothing in the treaties. If it did change anything, even the smallest changes could only be validated through new ratifications by all 27 member states in their national parliaments, or by referendums.

Just as in the 1992 Edinburgh Agreement the Prime Ministers and Presidents state their desire 'to address those concerns in conformity with that treaty' (i.e. the Lisbon Treaty).

This is the core sentence of the Summit document. In the so-called 'Irish assurances' not one single comma in the Lisbon Treaty will be changed.

Up until now no government has been able to give a single example of a national law which cannot be affected in some way of other by the Lisbon Treaty.

This does not mean that the current generation of politicans has in mind the establishment of European laws in all areas. But in reality they could to this if they wished, with a few derogations. Decisions of the European Court could also affect every single area of what is currently believed to be a purely national responsibility.

This 'decision' of the EU Summit isn't signed by the Heads of State or Government. In legal form it is simply an Annex to a Summit Declaration.

The 'decision' is followed by a common 'Solemn Declaration' which may express the intentions of the politicians taking part. It does not prevent politicians at future Summits affecting these 'assurances'.

Finally, Ireland has its own Irish declaration. A unilateral declaration of this kind has to be interpreted as a statement of position by one state which the others do not necessarily agree with. If they did agree to it, it would have been part of the Joint Declaration or the earlier 'decision' in the name of all 27 states.

In 1992 the Edinburgh Agreement was sent to the United Nations to register it as an international agreement, giving it a certain legal value under international law, although not necessarily under EU law. It remains to be seen how the planned Brussels agreement from this June's EU Summit will be archived.

Jens-Peter Bonde was a Member of the European Parliament for the EU-critical June Movement from 1979 until 2008. He can be