Signing The EU "Treaty" Anyone got any Tippex?
So Gordon Brown has signed the EU Constitution “Reform Treaty” today, even if several hours after everyone else had. But the point I want to make here doesn’t rely on whether you are pro, anti, or ambivalent towards the treaty, or whether you support parliament or the people deciding whether or not we should sign up to it.
The point is simple: why has Brown - or any other national leader - signed the treaty before it has been ratified?
Whether you think that parliament or the people should vote on it, they have not yet, so why has it been signed? What right does any government have to sign this sort of treaty [or any sort of treaty] before it has been ratified? Until the vote has been cast, the outcome cannot be known. It can be guessed, but not known.
You could claim that Brown’s signature was signalling the intent of the current British government to push for ratification of the treaty, but you would be wrong. Intent can be signalled by means other than a signature on the bottom of a document.
As Brown has already signed Britain up to the EU Constitution “Reform Treaty”, what can he do if parliament declines to ratify it? Say “oops, anyone got any Tippex?” Simply, signatures should be applied to a treaty only after it has been ratified. No matter how you believe it should be ratified, if you claim to be a democrat then you can’t support this.
Sources: BBC, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian
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Because international treaties are signed before they are ratified.
Good point Thunderdragon, now blogged on.
Why dio we let the politicians do that? Any other document, we write Subject to Contract to ensure it isn’t binding until agreed.
grahnlaw, international treaties don’t usually tend to change the entire way in which a country is governed and hand control over important aspects to the control of others.
What is the point of signing it if there is then to be a vote on whether to ratify it or not? It should only be signed after it has been ratified.
It’s the greatest disgrace since 1066.
First of all, you should read the Treaty. It almost totally about improving the inner workings of the European Union, in the use of existing power, not new ones.
In international treaties “subject to contract” or whatever is done by signing the agreement between the governments and then ratifying the treaty.
Article 39 of the amended Treaty of Lisbon says: This Treaty shall be ratified by the High Contracting Parties in accordance with their constitutional requirements.
Standard procedure.
The “Reform Treaty” is 90%b the same as the Constitution - the one that was voted down by the people of France and the Netherlands.
What the Treaty DOES is take away powers from national government, by abolishing vetoes and making those decisions by majority voting instead. that IS a loss of control for national governments.
The EU is a failing and undemocratic institution. It cannot be reformed in it’s current state, and certainly not from within. The EU has a HUGE democratic deficit, and this “treaty” doesn’t reduce it in the least. The EU is unworkable. It needs to be torn down and started again.
It is NOT democratic in any sense of the word to sign a treaty and THEN subject it to ratification. It should be signed only AFTER it has been ratified. Whether it is convention of whatever to sign them before ratification, it simply isn’t democratically defensible. Any any real democrat would see that.