Revised treaty and the charter of Fundamental Human Rights 

 

The signing of the treaty in Lisbon was the culmination of much political friction at EU and national levels but it was also recognition of the pragmatic steps necessary to move forward. Arguments between countries as to how to proceed with the very function of operating the EU were more than mechanical but this Treaty is far less political in content  for example than the Maastricht Treaty signed in 1992, by John Major. That this should be the case lends itself very well to addressing the concerns of many whom have called this a turning point of a "federal style of Europe"  it is not a referendum issue just as the Maastricht Treaty was never put to a referendum.  Furthermore, there is in the Treaty much that attends to the  so called "democratic deficit" - in particular the reference to the Yellow-Card, where national Parliaments will have to approve the Commissions up-stream proposals before the other Institutions get to amend them and make them laws. This is of genuine importance for the creation of a higher threshold of scrutiny by member states national representative bodies, a kind of return of sovereignty. Of course it is the same national bodies whom care to consider themselves both scrutinizers of public policy making and government as well as legislators whom can decide to take a country to war who should rightly have the central role of deciding to agree this treaty.