WELL SAID, VERNON!

A new looser European Association  (Chapter 6)

It is now Tuesday  July 19th, and I was delighted to wake up this morning to read the BREXIT analysis of Professor Vernon Bogdanor, the leading constitutional lawyer espousing the cause of a looser association of states within the EU – see at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/second-referendum-britain-eu-leaders-listen.

I say that our UK negotiating team should propose a two-stage negotiation, thus –

Stage One:

(A) To introduce key structural changes to the Lisbon Treaty, abolishing the European Court at Luxembourg, creating for the European Parliament a new system of consultative rights for all EU Treaties, strengthening the European Council as the supreme executive and treaty-making authority, and reforming the powers of the European Commission accordingly; this stage would also lay the ground for changing the style and composition of the civil service support for the Council and the Parliament, relying more on periodic national secondment than on full-time career commitment.

(B) To confirm, modify or omit the substantive content of the existing “systems of policy” – e.g. the policy of striving for “ever close union” would simply be omitted from the European Constitution; the Common Agricultural Policy, and Environmental Policies might be adopted as they stood; the Common Fisheries Policy might be modified, and the Common Market Policies amended to exclude all regulation of the movement of peoples; and the present (unsuccessful) attempts at developing a Common Migration Policy might be omitted altogether. Negotiation would determine whether or not any substantive policies could be determined forthwith as part of the Art/50 negotiations, or merely scheduled for future decision. The Final comprehensive “Policy Schedule” would move forward to provide the contractual basis for Stage Two.

Stage Two

This stage would be relatively simple. The “Policy Schedule” of Stage One would simply be transferred from the present “Lisbon Treaty EU” to a new association of European states, whose constitution could be drafted as a parallel multilateral contract (incorporating the Stage One principles, i.e. without any supranational powers. All existing members of the EU would be given the opportunity either to sign the new treaty or to leave.   And if a new settlement could be achieved along such lines, a new UK Referendum should be held.

Two years would give us plenty of time to get this drafting done.   I wonder if Vernon would agree…?

Roger Warren Evans (Barrister at law, Retd)

Tel 0044-1792-366134 23 St Peters Road Swansea SA£ 4SB