Following on from Cameron’s politicking on the Eurozone crisis I wasdelighted to have sight of a leaked copy of the ‘vetoed treaty’ from ITV News.
On my Masters of Laws degree in European Union Law, which I studied over 3 years atthe University of Glamorgan, graduating in the Top 5%, I must have looked at manyof the over 80,000 pages of EU legislation, so as you can expect, themisrepresentation over the significance of this treaty to anyone outside ofacademia and journalism now I have seen it is frustrating.
Before the Lisbon Treaty was passed, the European Union was split into three ‘pillars’; the ‘European Community’, the ‘Police and Judicial Co-operation in CriminalMatters’ and ‘Common Foreign and Security Policy’.
Ever sincethe Maastricht Treaty in 1992, it has been UK Government policy to have as few ‘pillars’as possible. John Major reduced it from six to four, Tony Blair to three and Gordon Brown to one.
This Treaty, called the ‘Reinforced Economic Treaty’ would have created an extra pillar, ‘the euro area Heads of State or Government’, so there would be two pillars. This goes against UK Government Policy, which is why Cameron most likely vetoed it. If Cameron were to listen to me then he would see how the treaty could be achieved and keep one pillar, and have no effect on the UK – using ‘enhanced co-operation’ so the other EU countries could get on with it without him interfering, trying to be in-bed with the EU but with no blanket!