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Tuesday, 16 October 2007 |
That is the total amount of time that Ministers in Portugal will have today to discuss the European Constitution Reform Treaty.
And then that’s it.
Is that enough, or is this text now a done deal? |
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Tuesday, 16 October 2007 |
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OpenDemocracy’s Matthias Benz writes (here ) about the impact that referenda have on memberstates. In a paper published in the journal Public Choice, Alois Stutzer and I systematically investigated how referenda in several European countries affected citizens’ information about the EU in the 1990s …..
….. Our results indicate that people in countries which had a referendum were “objectively” better informed about the EU (according to 10 questions about the EU in the 1996 Eurobarometer) as well as feeling “subjectively” better informed about the EU after a referendum …..
….. As a second empirical test, we also looked at voter information in Switzerland, where the extent of citizens’ political-participation rights differs substantially among the 26 Swiss cantons. Again, we found that citizens living in more direct democratic jurisdictions are objectively better informed about politics A referenda increases the demand citizens have for information about the EU, and would result in them being better informed about the goings on (and relevance) of the European Union. |
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Monday, 15 October 2007 |
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This morning’s UK Daily Mail has a piece by Anthony Browne headlined Labour’s broken promise of a referendum on the new EU Treaty is a betrayal of public trust What is most interesting about this piece, is that the Mail of late, under Paul Dacre has been moving itself closer and closer to Gordon Brown and Labour. However, as various polls begin to show the Conservatives catching up on (or even overtaking) Labour, and with Gordon Brown bottling it over the referendum, the new Prime Minister has had both the press AND the opposition (as well as some of his own backbenchers) coming at him from all sides to call for a referendum. |
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Monday, 15 October 2007 |
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From this morning’s London Times Gordon Brown was urged last night to fight back against “bullying tactics” by nations determined to water down British sovereignty in the European Union treaty.
Last-minute changes to the Reform Treaty, which is due to be agreed at the end of the week, will make it harder for Britain to preserve the so-called red lines that the Prime Minister said will defend national control over justice and police systems, critics claimed.
Britain faces new penalties, including a financial price, if it uses its hard-won ability to opt out of EU policies. |
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Thursday, 11 October 2007 |
Timothy Garton Ash, writing in today’s Guardian , has an article on the five reasons that the UK should not have a referendum. Amongst the reasons not to have a referendum, he says that whilst it’s called a “constitution” it is not one, he also says that the nature of democracy is parliamentary, and not by referenda.
And the bad reason?
If we had a referendum, the government would lose it. |
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The Lisbon Treaty 
