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Monday, August 06, 2007

Freudian slip

A couple of weeks ago Gordon Brown accidentally talked at a press conference about how he had discussed "the Constitution" with the Irish PM.

But he isn't the only one making that Freudian slip. It turns out that the Portuguese presidency of the EU have also left in a couple of references to "the Constitution" in the new text of the Constitution "Reform Treaty".

Article 4 of the "new" treaty (a.k.a. Article I-14 of the Constitution) states that "The Union shall share competence with the Member States where the Constitution confers on it a competence which does not relate to the areas referred to in Articles [I-13 and 17].

Article 188c(6) of the "new treaty (a.ka. article III-315 of the Constitution) states that: "The exercise of the competences conferred by this Article in the field of the common commercial policy shall not affect the delimitation of competences between the Union and the Member States, and shall not lead to harmonisation of legislative or regulatory provisions of the Member States insofar as the Constitution excludes such harmonisation."

Ooops.

God knows how a reference to the rejected Constitution slipped into this totally-spanking-new, never-seen-before, amending-institutional-mini-reform treaty. We blame the eurosceptics.

2 comments:

The Huntsman said...

Fancy that!

Well spotted.

Anonymous said...

I have been trying to get MPs to answer specific questions about the EU, to no avail, they will only respond with vague generalities. So I've put a dozen questions on a website where anyone can vote, and then the results can be brought to MPs attention. I should be grateful if you would direct members to the site and, perhaps, put a link on your site. If anyone would like to download the file and send it to their MP, and a letter to the local newspaper urging readers to vote, it would be even more helpful. Thanks.
Don Anderson www.EuPoll.org.uk