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The Lisbon Treaty, the treaty to end all EU treaties
Our shared Anglo-Celtic culture has long been a well-spring of free enterprise
(with Dutch, Swedish, and Hanseatic help in fighting European absolutism along the way), and
that is what is so threatened by the Lisbon Treaty, the treaty to end all EU treaties.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Daily Telegraph 26/05/2008
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, now the Telegraph's International Business Editor,
was the Telegraph's EU Correspondent in Brussels from 2000 to 2005.
He covered the original drafting of the EU Constitution.
The text strikes the words "free and undistorted competition" from the core objectives of the Union. Corporatist aims will enjoy a higher legal status at the European Court (ECJ) and must prevail if the two clash. The Rhineland Model has locked in a permanent advantage.
Euro-creep is already eviscerating the Common Law that underpins the British and Irish way of doing business. Lisbon quickens the pace. It upgrades the ECJ to a de facto supreme court, with broader jurisdiction. It will have the last say on a raft of new economic and social rights. Who can stop them imposing a Colbertist agenda by court rulings, if they so choose? The ECJ is beyond appeal.
Ireland is the only state to hold a vote. Lisbon gives Europe the paraphernalia of a proto-state: a full-time EU president and foreign minister; a justice department; an energy department; "legal personality" so it can negotiate treaties; etc, etc.
The other 26 EU members have ducked a referendum, their leaders hiding behind each other in an anti-democratic pact.
Some 3m Irish voters carry the lonely burden.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1961