Bonde’s Briefing for 4.06.2008
This week you can read about how the Lisbon Treaty will affect WTO negociations, voting rights, small countries and taxation, as well as find out what happened last week in Dublin at a conference on the Treaty.
Season for half truths in Ireland
I was in Ireland last week and met a wide range of half truths as always before referendums . The media are possessed by the “Yesside” and they report the half truths of ministers with no critical control of their statements while “No Sayers” are called liars when they only tell elementary facts from the treaties.
WTO – negotiations
The government insists that all member states have a veto right on all agreements in the World Trade Organisation, while the new Art. 207 and 218 TFEU insert qualified majority voting as the normal rule for all agreements.
Generally speaking, the Lisbon Treaty aims at limiting the areas where a WTO agreement may require unanimity or joint signatures by member states.
There will still be unanimity for international trade agreements on intellectual property rights and services when they contain elements which must be decided internally by unanimity.
Intellectual property rights are now explicitly included in the TFEU as an EU competence and new Article 118(1) TFEU now foresees decision-making by qualified majority. (Only paragraph 2 of Article 118 provides for unanimity for the language arrangements.) Therefore trade agreements on the commercial aspects of property rights will mainly merely require qualified majority.
Trade in cultural and audiovisual services will be decided by majority votes unless the European institutions would consider that the Union’s cultural and linguistic diversity is at risk.
Trade in social, health and education services will be decided by majority votes unless the European institutions would consider that an agreement would seriously disturb the national organisation of that service.
Agriculture is an area with no veto right internally. Therefore there is no veto for WTO agreements on agriculture. The negotiating mandate is decided by a majority vote too. If this is respected Ireland has no veto on agriculture.
I cannot find an area where the Lisbon Treaty will require unanimity for a WTO agreement forepart from the above-mentioned exceptions. Those, however, do not necessarily need to be a part of the next agreement .
Therefore the Irish government is misleading its citizens by guaranteeing Irish farmers a veto right on the next WTO agreement.
Taxes
The Irish government underlines that there is unanimity for taxes. This is only when taxes are harmonised through legislation. Distorting taxes can easily be judged away by a simple majority in the Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Is a corporate tax at 12 ½ % distorting competition? Yes, according to the Commission which has the issue on its work program for 2008! Yes, according to the coming French Presidency, where minister Christine Lagarde already has promised an initiative. No, according to the Irish government, which wants to win the referendum – with a half truth.
Good for small nations
The government also presents the new institutional rules as good for small nations. I discussed it with former minister Alan Dukes on morning radio.
He did not succeed to convince a listener that a commissioner on rotation is better than a permanent commissioner. Neither did he convince anyone that half as many votes for Ireland and Denmark in the Council is better than the doubled weight of the votes for Germany.
Two good books on Lisbon
I presented the new “Lisbon Treaty – the readable version” in a joint press conference with Peadar O`Broin who has published a consolidated version of the same treaty. Peadar’s book is clearly the best for comparing the Lisbon with the Nice Treaty.
My edition is the best for reading and understanding because we have deleted what will be deleted and only inserted the new words in bold. In addition, our book contains a 3000 word alphabetical register where readers can find what is written in the treaties on topics such as “direct investments”, “WTO”, “tax”, “abortion”, “religion” and every thing else of interest for the Irish voters – and all other interested people.
The two books together bring you what you need. Many of the words are explained at euabc.com which is now updated with the Lisbon Treaty. The two books can both be downloaded for free here and here.
The books can also be bought in the eubookshop.comhttp://eubookshop.com
