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Sweden and the Lisbon Treaty

 Sweden and the EU  No Responses »
Oct 152008
 

According to Europaportalen  (SW) the Swedish Parliament will discuss the Lisbon Treaty on Nov 20. The Swedish Parliament is the second last one to vote on the Treaty, the last one being the Czech Republic where the Treaty has been hijacked in internal political strife. Other points of uncertainty are Germany (!) where the Constitutional Court has yet to make its ruling and Poland where President Kaczyński is playing up again. It would be a good strategy to eliminate all these obstacles before trying to solve the Irish question where premature action could do much more harm than good.

Theoretically there would be a solid majority for the Treaty in the Swedish Parliament. However, the position of the Social Democrats remains uncertain. Many leading social democrats want to delay the decision until clarity has been created Continue reading »

 Posted by Bengt O. at 8:34 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Update to the below:

 Miscellaneous  No Responses »
Jun 172008
 

It appears that the opposition leader, Ms Sahlin, has changed her mind and now feels that Sweden should continue the ratification process although there are dissenting voices in her party. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, on the other hand, is quite clear: Sweden should go ahead. On his blog (SW) he makes the point that whereas Ireland voted for Ireland,  Sweden should vote for Sweden. Back from Luxembourg he claims that “all others”, including Ireland, was of the same opinion.

It seems pretty obvious that the best way ahead would be ensure a ratification by the 26 and then find a solution for Ireland, with or without a new referendum. In spite of some well considered and argued comments to the contrary, I still fail to see that 862 415 Irishmen and -women should have the final say on this issue. As Mr. Bildt more or less put it the Irish voted for themselves and all others should do the same thing. The demand for “Proportionality” is normally very strong  in EU contexts: why don’t we hear it now?

 Posted by Bengt O. at 4:06 pm  Tagged with: , ,

France ratifies the Lisbon Treaty

 Miscellaneous  No Responses »
Feb 072008
 

The French National Assembly today voted for the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty (“The Reform Treaty”) with 336 votes for and 52 against. The Upper House, The Senate, is expected to vote later today or tomorrow, Friday. The Treaty can thereafter be formally signed by President Sarkozy.

This would make France the fifth of the 27 member states to ratify the treaty, after  Hungary, Slovenia, Romania and Malta. The French ratification takes on a special significance since the French “no” in the referendum on the original text in Continue reading »

 Posted by Bengt O. at 5:02 pm  Tagged with: ,

“Politik och EU”

 Uncategorized  1 Response »
Feb 022008
 

Utvecklingen inom EU är ju inte alldeles händelselös. Tre länder har ratificerat reformfördraget, ytterligare två är på gång. Kosovos självständighet blir en knäckfråga: enligt vissa bedömare kommer erkännandet av självständigheten att bli en utdragen process och fullständig enighet kommer inte att uppnås. Vad kommer Sverige att göra? Diskussionen om vem som skall bli ministerrådets förste långtidspresident är i full gång: Toni Blair har president Sarkozys starka stöd men meningarna om det lämpliga i att ha en brittisk president är minst sagt delade. Vilken är Sveriges inställning? Förbudet mot import av brasilianskt kött upprör känslorna: är det ett legitimt skydd för europeiska konsumenter eller bara ett sätt att gynna europeiska, främst irländska köttproducenter? Från amerikanskt håll varnas Europa för att använda Continue reading »

 Posted by Bengt O. at 8:14 pm  Tagged with: , , ,
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