I have often compared the European Union to a cartel – a cartel of governments, engaged in a permanent conspiracy against their own electorates and parliaments. This analysis seems to have been dramatically confirmed by the Lisbon Treaty, signed last week, which replaces the defunct “constitution” rejected in referenda in France and the Netherlands in 2005.

If all goes well, Belgium, the host country of the European Union, will have a new government by Sunday. Today, on the 192nd day since the general elections of last June 10th, outgoing Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, the big loser of the June elections, announced that he has succeeded in putting together a government coalition of five parties – his own Flemish Liberal Party, the Flemish Christian-Democrat Party, the Walloon Liberal Party, the Walloon Humanist Party and the Walloon Socialist Party.

Belgium is a multinational country of 10 million inhabitants, consisting of 60% Dutch-speaking Flemings and 40% French-speaking Walloons. The new coalition has a two third majority of 101 of the 150 seats in the Belgian Federal Chamber of Representatives. The coalition is predominantly Walloon, backed by 53 Walloon seats (out of a total of 62 French-speaking Representatives) and 48 Flemish seats (out of a Flemish total of 88 Representatives).

Last Thursday, the heads of government of the 27 member states of the European Union convened in the Portuguese capital Lisbon to sign the EU Reform Treaty. That "Treaty of Lisbon" is almost identical to the European Constitutional Treaty, the so-called EU Constitution, which was rejected two years ago in referendums in major EU member states.

The EU rules stipulate that treaties only become effective when they have been ratified in all 27 member states. The "no" votes in the 2005 referendums killed the constitution, which would have transformed the EU from a supranational organization of 27 sovereign member states into a genuine single European federal state with 27 provinces. It was clear from the outset, however, that the peoples of the various European states were not willing to renounce their national sovereignty for a "United States of Europe."

A quote from Maria José Figueiredo at the Gates of Vienna blog, 18 December 2007
 
José Sócrates, the Portuguese prime minister, is still trying to decide in what way is his government going to ratify [the European Reform Treaty]. During the last couple of years, he has declared repeatedly that he would call for a referendum on the treaty, [...] Alan Lamassoure, Sarkozy’s adviser for European matters has said that, were Sócrates to call a referendum, that would be a ‘betrayal’ (sic) on his part; for, on that scenario, Gordon Brown would hardly be able not to do the same, other countries would follow, and some country or other is bound to say no to the treaty.

The people really are stupid. Well at least that is what our Government in Brussels thinks of us. Jens-Peter Bonde MEP, Co-President of the Ind/Dem Group in the European Parliament happened to be in the room as the Heads of Government signed the Treaty of Lisbon (that is apart from Macavity Brown of course).
 

A quote from The Independent, 18 December 2007

Other than the language, nothing much changes when you criss-cross the linguistic frontier [in Belgium]. One thing, however, blatantly changes.

A quote from EUobserver, 18 December 2007
 
Hungary on Monday (17 December) became the first of the 27 [EU] member states to ratify the bloc's new treaty, making the move just days after the document was formally signed off by EU leaders. A parliamentary vote saw 325 votes in favour, 5 votes against and 14 abstentions for the new set of rules, according to Austrian news agency APA.
 
Reacting to the vote, Hungary's prime minister praised the "historic achievement" of his country. In taking the ratification step so quickly, Budapest has stolen the crown from Poland and France, both of whom had indicated they were aiming to be the first.

A quote from the Huntsman at his blog, 17 December 2007

[T]hey have already started to implement the [EU] Constitution, before anyone has had a chance to ratify it let alone for all 27 member complete their individual ratification processes. For, as the Telegraph reports, the unelected EuroNabobery has already taken the creation of an EU Diplomatic Service as read and appointed its first ‘Ambassador’, who will speak on behalf of the EU with African states from a base in Addis Abbaba. The Telegraph adds that Belgian Koen Vervaeke will also speak for the EU's 27 member states in Africa.

A quote from eNews2.0, 16 December 2007

According to the Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia, the Spanish football club Barcelona is altering its famous badge in some Arab countries in order to avoid offending Muslims.

The badge is especially altered in Saudi Arabia or Algeria, where the Barcelona shirts are being sold without the red cross of Saint George, the patron saint of the Catalan region which Barca claims to represent, the La Vanguardia newspaper found in a private investigation.

The badge, which was created in 1906, features a single vertical red line in Saudi Arabia and Algeria, due to the fact that there, the red cross represents the symbol of the brutal mediaeval Christian crusades against Islam.

A quote from the National Science Foundation, 4 December 2007

A really inconvenient truth: divorce increases the environmental footprint of families [...] A novel study that links divorce with the environment shows that a global trend of soaring divorce rates has created more households with fewer people, that, in turn, take up more space and gobble up more energy and water. [...] A remedy to counter the statistics: Fall back in love. Cohabitation means less urban sprawl and softens the environmental hit. [...]