Danish Legal Challenge To Lisbon

From TEAM EUROPE Blog:

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Copenhagen, 28th of September 2009


To the People of Ireland,

Many media claim that in a very short while the Lisbon Treaty will be ratified by all the EU member states – as if this ratification process was simple and unproblematic. But Poland, The Czech Republic and Germany have not yet finished their ratification. This is mainly due to law suits, documenting the profound consequences that accession to the Treaty will have for the member countries.

We, a group of citizens who have brought an action against the Danish Government, charging it with breaking the Danish Constitution, take the liberty to draw the attention of the Irish People to these pending law suits and to the serious political effects of the Lisbon Treaty that they demonstrate. The Treaty confers almost unlimited powers on the EU, thus undermining the Constitutions and the living Democracy in the member countries. It threatens the possibility of the peoples of Europe to have a decisive influence on their own societies and living conditions.

In the pending case we demonstrate that leading Danish politicians in agreement with European Heads of Government have committed an offence against the Danish Constitution. First and foremost they have hidden or explained away the real content of the Lisbon Treaty which is of so radical a character that the Treaty, according to the Danish Constitution, can only be ratified if it is approved in a referendum. This law suit is part of our fight for Democracy.

In Denmark, unfortunately, a law suit does not imply that the ratification is postponed until the Supreme Court has pronounced its judgement. In Germany however the recent judgement of the Constitutional Court means that the Treaty can not be finally ratified unless German laws are passed that will guard German Democracy. This is remarkable and clearly shows that Democracy is undermined if no clear limits are fixed to the extension of the powers of the EU. And already new cases have been brought before the German Constitutional Court, this time questioning whether the new hastily adapted laws give the required guarantees for German Democracy. The final German ratification of the Lisbon Treaty therefore is not yet certain.

A majority of you voted no to the Lisbon Treaty, and consequently the correct procedure would have been to abandon it. But this did not happen, and since then nothing has been altered in the Treaty. It is both undemocratic and inconsistent with the rules of the EU itself that you now have to vote about the same Treaty again – a scandalous way of forcing through a Treaty that the majority of European citizens are against.

It is disquieting that we in Europe have come to a point where Heads of State and Governments decide to carry out so extensive changes ignoring not only the political and legal rules of the EU but even the Constitutions and democratic practices of the individual member states.

We are worried about Democracy at both the National and the European level, and we ask the People of Ireland to bear this in mind when you vote on the 2nd of October.

On behalf of The Plaintiffs in the law suit against the Danish Government,

Helge Rørtoft-Madsen

phone number 0045-55980644 and 0045-26825562

roertoft (at) hotmail.com