EU's Treaty non debated as usual, in Britan

[Kernunnos]

Again from teh useful and well meditated telegraph, a nice report on the usual non debate on teh new EU treaty.

MPs\' debate on EU treaty is a scandal - Telegraph


and again, pls look at the worried comments at the bottom of the original page
"MPs' debate on EU treaty is a scandal


By Philip Johnston
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 11/02/2008

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The House of Commons is about one third of the way through its debate on the Treaty of Lisbon. Have you noticed? You could say this is the media's fault for obsessing about MPs' expenses and the politics of another country. But the parliamentarians themselves are hardly enamoured of their own discussion.
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A glance around the chamber on the fourth day of the 12-day "debate" was to find 30 to 40 MPs at most, with many of the usual suspects in their places. One reason for this is the way the Government has deliberately organised the business in order to diminish its importance and to avoid the procedural trench warfare that characterised the Maastricht debates 15 years ago.

It has achieved it through rewriting the rules that guide the way the Commons deals with legislation. Most people know how a Bill usually progresses through Parliament. It is published (the first reading), the measure's general intent is debated (the second reading) and then the Bill's details are considered, line by line, in a standing committee.

When a Bill has constitutional implications - as ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon clearly does - its committee stages are taken in the chamber itself.

The purpose of the committee stage is to test the legislation for flaws and weaknesses; to explore aspects that could cause difficulties for those seeking to implement it or for the courts wishing to interpret it; and, especially where an international treaty is concerned, to ensure it does not disadvantage the United Kingdom and that its consequences are fully understood.
Conventionally, this is done by tabling amendments to specific clauses and debating them in fine detail.
But this is not happening and it is a scandal. It is proof of the supine nature of national parliaments within the EU.
After signing the treaty in December, Gordon Brown said: "Parliament will now have an opportunity to debate this amending treaty in detail and decide whether to implement it. We will ensure that there is sufficient time for debate on the floor of the House, so that the Bill can be examined in the fullest detail and all points of view can be heard."
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As with the referendum, this is another promise Mr Brown has not fulfilled. Instead, 12 days have been allotted for the committee stage and each day has a subject for a four-and-a-half hour general debate decided by ministers.
So far, these topics have included energy policy, the single market and justice and home affairs. The traditional line-by-line scrutiny of the legislation has been squeezed into 90 minutes at the end of each day, so many aspects of the treaty are not being debated.
When Mr Brown was challenged about this in the Commons last week, he said: "We are considering the European Union (Amendment) Bill day by day in the House of Commons in great detail."
Day by day, but not line by line. The cynicism is breathtaking. During the 2005 general election campaign, the Government deflected any serious debate on the EU constitution by insisting the issue would be discussed fully during the referendum it had promised in its manifesto.
Now it has circumscribed the opportunity that MPs have to debate a matter of the utmost constitutional importance.
But what is public opinion where the "ever closer union" envisaged in the Treaty of Rome is concerned? The people or their representatives are ignored, lied to, treated with contempt and generally considered an irksome impediment to the ambitions of an arrogant political elite.
On Friday, the French parliament ratified the treaty that its own people had emphatically rejected. two years ago. Unlike our government, at least the French concede that the treaty is virtually the same as the old constitution. Only Ireland will now hold a referendum; and if the Irish vote "no" it can be guaranteed they will be marched back to the polling stations, as they were once before, to give the correct answer.
Leaving aside the procedural jiggery-pokery, the treaty's ramifications would still not be clear even if there were a line-by-line committee stage. Take but one example. Article 61 states: "A standing committee shall be set up within the Council in order to ensure that operational cooperation on internal security is promoted and strengthened within the Union."
This sounds unexceptionable. Yet what is envisaged here is a powerful new EU interior department, called the Standing Committee on Internal Security (COSI).
When MPs recently debated the treaty's justice and home affairs provisions, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, did not even mention COSI. She sought to define this aspect of the treaty solely in terms of enhanced cross-border cooperation against crime and terrorism, as though that cannot be achieved without setting up an EU Interior Ministry that will rival, or exceed, her own department in importance.
Internal EU documents uncovered by our Brussels correspondent indicate how COSI might develop. One discussion paper states: "Internal security should at least include... the prevention and combating of crime, the prevention of the terrorist threat, intelligence exchange, public order management, the prevention and combating of criminal offences such as illegal immigration and trafficking in persons, the provision of an integrated management system for external borders and crisis management with cross-border effects within the EU."
The EU already has an embryonic police force (Europol), a courts arm (Eurojust), a paramilitary riot squad (European Gendarmerie Force), a European Arrest Warrant, and will now, under Lisbon, have a European public prosecutor and what could become an interior ministry (COSI) to pull it all together.
For many years, these matters were regarded as off limits for the EU. Yet with the barest of debate in our supposedly sovereign parliament, and with ministers clinging to the fraying life-line of their negotiated opt-outs, we are about to hand control of our criminal justice system to the European Commission and the European Court of Justice.
Some people have argued against a referendum because we are a parliamentary democracy and the proper place for debating these matters is the Commons. What are they thinking now, or does nobody care any more?"