They're not voting because...
- If the majority of legislation come ...
If the majority of legislation come from Brussels do we need a national parliament? We're already getting so much legislation from the EU that our MPs don't have time to read it and pass it - good or bad. We going to have common defence and foreign policy so that can get rid of 2 ministerial departments quickly.
written 20th Apr 2005
As we seem to be going the EU way whether we like it or not, lets become the first nation to scrap the national parliament.
Just get someone who hasn't been sacked twice as our representative in the commission - Carol vorderman would be good, she great at Maths!
Responses
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Mike Dimmick replies: EU legislation is formulated by the Commission, true, but it is legislated by the Council of Ministers and by the European Parliament. The Council of Ministers is simply made up of ministers from the national governments of the EU member states. For most issues, each member state has a number of votes proportional to its population; for some important issues all states must agree.
If you want a say in what the EU does, you need to vote in the national election to select the government who will represent us in the Council of Ministers. Each national government also gets to say who their commissioners will be - the Commission President selects what responsibility each Commissioner will have, then the parliament accepts or rejects the new Commission as a whole.
It is not true that very large amounts of EU legislation passes without our MPs reading it. It's rare for MPs to read and fully understand every issue they vote on (I don't like it either!) Part of the EU treaties are that once legislation has passed at EU level, member states must implement it within a reasonable period, or face (financial) penalties for failing to do so. The time to object was when the legislation was being negotiated.
There are many, many issues which are not covered by the EU treaties - education, health, policing, pensions are some of the many. The EU generally only covers Europe-wide standards issues and cross-border competition and deregulation.
written 21st Apr 2005 -
Matt B replies: I understood that in 02-03 3.5% of european legislation was passed to the Standing committees for review and only 5 bills reached the floor of the House of commons whilst in this past year 50% of the legislation had legal/politcal importance, 5% went to debate with 3 hitting the floor.
written 21st Apr 2005
Also the EU seems to be increasing expanding its madate now covering policing EUROPOL, justice, EUROJUST and with new committees on health, pensions and home affiars they soon be the majority legislature. The new constitution create an EU Interior Ministry whilst it also wants a hand in formulating a co-ordination of economic and employment policies. Article 15 even says we must support the EU foreign policy.
