How the EU really wants to operate

From The Guardian Comment is Free I see an article by Jacques Delors and Etienne Davignon. Mush of it is the usual Euro waffle, "Broadly, we see three areas in which Europe's policymakers at both the national and EU levels can do better: global challenges where Europe could show greater leadership, the creation and strengthening of human capital within the EU and worldwide, and improvement in the effectiveness of the EU's own political machinery. Europe needs a clearer and more recognisable global agenda. It needs to build substantially on its leadership on climate change by adopting much tougher EU goals, and then use its international economic and trade clout to champion new global emissions standards that scientific opinion can accept as meaningful." Blah, blah, blah.

The last two paragraphs are rather striking however, "Meanwhile, doubts still surround the political and institutional machinery the EU will need to realise these and other ambitious goals. Sighs of relief greeted EU leaders' mid-year agreement on a reform treaty aimed at overhauling the Union's decision-making mechanisms, but it is still uncertain whether the new pact will survive the ratification process in 27 countries.

We believe, though, that the increased use of qualified majority voting by member governments embodied in the new treaty should also be applied to the ratification process itself. That way, if a small minority of EU governments prove unable to ratify the treaty, it would not be torpedoed the way that its predecessor, the constitutional treaty, was in 2005."

So if all EU member countries don't ratify the Treaty then the EU can go ahead anyway. Why don't the majority of people in the EU get it, the EU as an organisation want power and having come so close in 2005 and then lost it, they are going to make damn sure they don't fail again. Publicise this sort of remark as much as you can so the British public learn more about these ...