News from the European Parliament

10.56.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sat 3rd May 2008

Bill Newton Dunn, MEP for the East Midlands, tells us that ratification is proceeding slowly through each of the 27 national parliaments of the EU. Hopefully the treaty will come into effect in January 2009 and will improve the EU because it will make decision-making between the 27 national governments in the EU more effective than it is now. First, however, there has to be a referendum in Ireland. The date will be in the second week of June and the result is predicted to be close. Already a Danish anti-EU MEP has been to Ireland and said that the Lisbon Treaty will make abortion easier - totally untrue, but successfully creating an unpleasant anti-EU fear.

An interesting argument is brewing. One consequence of the treaty will be the creation of a permanent chair ("President") for quarterly meetings of the European Council of 27 national leaders. In the parliament there is a rumour that national leaders want to give their new Council president a staff of sixty people, a special residence, and a private plane. The parliament is opposed to such a lavish extension of power for somebody who is unelected and unaccountable to the public. MEPs say that the "President" can have administrative and ceremonial functions but not executive powers because he is only chosen privately by the 27 leaders and will not be elected by the public.

The parliament, as the final authority on the EU annual budget, can choose to cut back these "Presidential" facilities. The problem is that, for the past fifty years, there has been a so-called Gentleman's Agreement between the two chambers (Council and Parliament), that they do not interfere in each other's own internal budgets but if next year the Council wants its new president to have lavish staff and facilities, the parliament may have to break the agreement - and risk a war of mutual cross-cutting between the two chambers.

There is a precedent : a few years back, the Council started creating a European Defence arrangement including a Situations Centre inside its own building in Brussels. The parliament insisted that the budgetary arrangements for the Defence facility must be subject to proper parliamentary budgetary scrutiny. The Council conceded that their Defence budget could be scrutinised by MEPs. Will the 27 national leaders agree to have the expenditure on their new "President" (who will not be Tony Blair) subjected to parliamentary control ? Watch what happens after the Lisbon treaty is ratified !