Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Saturday, October 03, 2009

EU treaty approval

Irish approval of the EU treaty makes its adoption more likely. Tony Blair may yet get a new job.

Ireland Backs Treaty to Streamline E.U.

They rejected it only 16 months ago. But in a stunning about-face spurred by economic turmoil, Ireland’s voters have overwhelmingly approved a far-reaching treaty meant to consolidate the power of the European Union and reorganize the way it does business, the government announced Saturday.

Ireland’s approval of the pact, known as the Lisbon Treaty, removes one of the biggest stumbling blocks to its eventual enactment by Europe as a whole. The treaty would give Europe a more powerful foreign policy chief and its first full-time president, and strengthen the role of the European Parliament; it is also meant to more clearly delineate the relationship between national legislatures and Europe...

Signed by European leaders in 2007, the Lisbon Treaty is the result of years of painstaking negotiations among countries trying to retain their national identities and hang on to power while ceding some control to an ever more integrated Europe. A reflection of the European Union’s rapid expansion in the past five years, to 27 members from 15, the treaty must be adopted by all members to take force. Now only two countries are left: Poland, whose approval is all but assured, and the Czech Republic, where the situation is more uncertain...

A no vote by Ireland would have buried the Lisbon Treaty for good, creating institutional chaos in Brussels...

Ireland’s Constitution required that the treaty be put to a direct national vote; the other European countries have accepted it by votes of their legislatures and executives...

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Labels: EU, International Organizations