What happens if the Lisbon Treaty enters into force, when the European Parliament has been elected under the modified Nice Treaty rules? Here are some suggestion for discussion. *** On 4 to 7 June 2009 the citizens of the European Union elect the members of the European Parliament for the term from 2009 to 2014 according to the Treaty of Nice as amended by the 2003 Act of Accession. The total numb...

A new, pan-European campaign called Europe Says No: No to Lisbon, Yes to democracy has been launched. The campaign is being organised by a wide range of people across Europe, and across the political spectrum, who want to see the Lisbon Treaty rejected. In advance of Ireland's outrageous repeat referendum on 2nd October, Europe Says No aims to show how many people across Europe would themselv...

The FT reports that a second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty appears unlikely to take place before the European Parliament elections in June 2009. Following Irish Europe Minister Dick Roche’s comment earlier in the week – in which he said that a second vote was "appropriate” – the Greens, members of the Fianna Fail-led coalition, as well as Fine Gael and Labour, the m...

We have gone through a bewildering array of numbers of the members of the European Parliament in the media during these last years. Proposals by the European Convention, intergovernmental conferences leading to the Constitutional Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon, ten new EU member states in 2004 and two newcomers in 2007. And then back to the Treaty of Nice, when the Lisbon Treaty was stalled, and ...

The European Parliament works to overhaul its Rules of Procedure. Some of the revised rules are intended to take effect when the new Parliament convenes after the European elections in June 2009. Others are being crafted to take effect if and when the EU Treaty of Lisbon enters into force, because implementing the new treaty will require adaptation by all institutions. (The EP seems to be the only...

Open Europe informs us that  Europe Minister Caroline Flint admits she has not read the Lisbon Treaty During questions yesterday in Parliament, Europe Minister Caroline Flint admitted that she had not read the Lisbon Treaty in its entirety. Following a series of vague answers on the implications of the Treaty for European ...

Irish Times Political Editor Stephan Collins has an article in the paper arguing that "a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is doomed to almost certain defeat." He therefore suggests that the core of the Treaty should be passed through the Irish Parliament, with a far more limited referendum held on certain points of controversy: "If a referendum cannot be won, the only solution is for the D" ...

The governments of the member states and therefore the EU Council are responsible for the Treaty of Lisbon and for preparing implementation. The Commission would have to present new proposals and practical measures. But the European Parliament seems to be the only institution actually doing anything ─ and in the open. Monday evening 9 March 2009, the European Parliament’s Committee on Cons...

An all-party parliamentary report published in Dublin yesterday cleared the way for a re-run of the failed 12 June Lisbon Treaty referendum in Ireland, which threw the Union into crisis.

In Ireland the Government, the Parliament and the expert community have been busy at work trying to find a solution to the Lisbon Treaty predicament. Declan Ganley is as busy trying to kill the Lisbon Treaty, which by now has been approved by 25 EU member states’ parliaments. *** Government Ahead of the December European Council, the Irish Government is now close to internal agreement on how...