[pp.int.general] La Quadrature du Net: Amendment 138 dead by lack of courage of the Parliament

[Nicolas Sahlqvist]

I also have a bad feeling about it and what you say is concerning, but I am
chasing more extensive arguments. In PPSE's principle 3.3 program (not yet
translated to English) a quick translation gives us:
"Pirate Party does not consider the fact that Sweden is a member of the EU,
but now that we are there we have the right to require it to be democratic.
The democratic deficit in the EU must eventually be addressed, and the first
step is to prevent it from being perpetuated by ill-considered
constitutional. The draft EU constitution that Dutch and French voted no to
the should not adopted, either in its original form or with cosmetic changes
such as the Lisbon Treaty as Ireland voted no to."

http://www.piratpartiet.se/principer

On the 26th of April CE populated his blog a month before the EU election in
Sweden with loads of arguments such as it is a jungle of rules where new
rules are added on a regular basis making it even more complex, this makes
the whole thing unreadable and we should not agree or even sign something
that we can't comprehend. He continues to dismantle the argument that it
makes EU more democratic by saying the changes are just cosmetic. He also
describes the case of process of implementing a EU-directive for software
patents that he worked against as a activist in 2004-2005:

"It has been suggested that the new Lisbon Treaty would give the EU
Parliament more power because more questions would be taken under the rules
of "codecision procedure". It is the variant that gives parliament the
greatest influence. But the software patents issue which I followed was
already such an issue. And it turned out that Parliament had been extremely
difficult get their way anyway because the voting rules in the "second
reading" is designed so that it is almost impossible for Parliament to go
against the Commission and Council. (Now, it worked this time, but it was
really a lucky strike.)

It has also been suggested that national parliaments would have more power
because they must be able to comment after the political agreement reached
in Council, but before it is formally adopted. But when several national
parliament wanted to pull the emergency brake on the issue of software
patents they were told by the EU that a political agreement could not be
changed and the formal decision just was just a formality. There was not
even any reason to take the formal decision at a meeting with the correct
ministers, but the decision on software patents was taken by the Ministers
of Fisheries. This is how things are done in EU.

So when two of the main arguments for the new constitution / Lisbon Treaty
proves to be untrue or at least substantially exaggerated, then I think it
is enough to be skeptical about the rest too."

He also wrote blogs on how the democratic deficit is caused by
the Parliament listens while the Council just runs them over as they are
currently doing with the Telecom package Amendment 138 and how corrupt the
process of electing a EU president since it is a exclusive power elite
choosing. The process explained in a quote from Henrik Brors (Swedish
political journalist):

"One thing however is right with Tony Blair, he has for several years been
part of the Group of Heads of State and Government in Europe that have
gotten to know each other well. It is only those who have a chance at this
job."

The last argument is addressing the current situation of the Lisbon
Treaty (quick translation again where I slightly changed the first sentence
in order to avoid quoting several other paragraphs):

"If they manage to push through Lisbon the the existing structures will be
cemented, in the worst case for a long time. The same structures that gave
us a stronger copyright protection extended periods, IPRED, Data retention
directive, Acta, Future Group, PNR proposal (Passenger Name Record) and the
telecoms package. To name a few."

http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/replikskifte-om-lissabonfordraget/
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/ett-bra-nej-for-europa-igen/
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2007/10/17/eus-demokratiska-underskott-i-praktiken/
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/att-utse-eus-president/

Phew, that took some time.. We still need to find out details how this will
affect our issues in practice, who is up for making a analyze of the 272
pages Lisbon Treaty?

http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/full_text/index_en.htm


- Nicolas


On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 1:47 AM, Jeremy Morton <admin at game-point.net> wrote:

> I have baaad feelings about Lisbon passing.  It's going to weaken the power
> of the member states, and hand more to the European executive, an
> organization I don't even see the need for.  What a shame our political
> system allows Labour to cling on to power until it's too late.
>
> Best regards,
> Jeremy Morton (Jez)
>
> Nicolas Sahlqvist wrote:
>
>> Does the treaty of Lisbon have any effect on this?
>>
>>
>> - Nicolas
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 12:22 AM, El Tres <pirat at eltres.de
>> <mailto:pirat at eltres.de>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>    Am 23.10.2009 um 00:16 schrieb Eric Priezkalns
>>    <eric.priezkalns at pirateparty.org.uk
>>    <mailto:eric.priezkalns at pirateparty.org.uk>>:
>>
>>
>>        [UK]   A constitution may exist, even if it is unwritten.  Such
>>        a constitution may be stronger than one written on a piece of
>>        paper, but where people don't do what the words on the paper say.
>>
>>
>>    Hear, Hear!
>>
>>    El Tres
>>
>>
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>>
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