An analysis by Prof. Anthony Coughlan

Today the European Union leaders signed the Lisbon Treaty. This treaty gives the EU the constitutional form of a state. These are the ten most important things the Lisbon Treaty does:

1. It establishes a legally new European Union in the constitutional form of a supranational European State.
2. It empowers this new European Union to act as a State vis-a-vis other States and its own citizens.
3. It makes us all citizens of this new European Union.
4. To hide the enormity of the change, the same name – European Union – will be kept while the Lisbon Treaty changes fundamentally the legal and constitutional nature of the Union.
5. It creates a Union Parliament for the Union's new citizens.
6. It creates a Cabinet Government of the new Union.
7. It creates a new Union political President.
8. It creates a civil rights code for the new Union's citizens.
9. It makes national Parliaments subordinate to the new Union.
10. It gives the new Union self-empowerment powers.

A quote from EuroNews [the subsidized propaganda news channel of the EU], 13 December 2007

The Swiss government has a new Justice and Police Minister to replace a controversial right-wing populist who was ousted yesterday. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf was a member of the SVP party that won recent elections on the back of a campaign labelled 'racist' by the UN. […] A more hardline SVP leader, political veteran Christophe Blocher, was evicted from the post by law-makers yesterday [...], despite winning more votes than any other party in October's election.

A quote from Der Spiegel, 13 December 2007

EU leaders gathered in Lisbon on Thursday to sign the new European Treaty, hoping to put two difficult years behind them after French and Dutch voters rejected the European constitution in 2005. By presenting the new agreement as less than a constitution, many European governments have been able to argue that it does not need to be presented to the electorates in referenda.

A quote from The Local, 13 December 2007

Protests from female soldiers have led to the Swedish military removing the penis of a heraldic lion depicted on the Nordic Battlegroup's coat of arms. The armed forces agreed to emasculate the lion after a group of women from the rapid reaction force lodged a complaint to the European Court of Justice, […]. "We were given the task of making sure the willy disappeared," Christian Braunstein from the army's 'tradition commission' told Göteborgs-Posten.

A quote from EUobserver, 12 December 2007

Radio fans will from next year onwards be able to tune in to a new pan-European station, to be set up by a multinational group of broadcasters and funded by the European Commission.

A quote from Perry de Havilland at Samizdata, 11 December 2007

Yes, it is true. I am going to go and sign the treaty for the European Constitution on behalf of Belgium. [...] If the people who were voted out of office in Belgium months ago can sign the treaty, then why not me too? [...]

A quote from ANSAmed, 12 December 2007

The European Union is a growing energy market, reliable and attractive, while the Maghreb has enormous energy potential which still has not been exploited. These seem to be the conditions for a marriage which the EU hurriedly wants to celebrate, hoping that the Mediterranean partners will not want to prolong the engagement period. The content of the agreement will be established by the energy ministers of Euro-Mediterranean countries who will meet on December 17 in Limassol (Cyprus) to outline the route to a single energy market. [...]

Tomorrow the EU leaders meet in Lisbon to sign the so-called “Reform Treaty’ – the renamed EU Constitutional Treaty. What does this treaty mean? An analysis by Prof. Anthony Coughlan.

What the Lisbon Treaty – the Renamed EU Constitutional Treaty – would do:

1. It would give the EU a Federal State Constitution: The Treaty would establish a legally new European Union, quite different from what we call the EU at present, in the constitutional form of a supranational Federal State which would be separate from and superior to its Member States, just as Federal Germany is separate from and superior to Bavaria, or the USA to California. The new Union would sign treaties with other States in all areas of its competence. It would have most of the features of a fully-developed State. The Treaty would make this change by means of three key legal steps:

A quote from Simon Caldwell at The Daily Mail, 11 December 2007

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology. The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering. [...]