Ambassador's Corner

WEEKLY MESSAGE FROM AMBASSADOR JOHN BRUTON

December 18, 2007

The Treaty of Lisbon

Last weekend, the leaders of the European Union (EU) Member States signed the Lisbon Treaty [below] to reform the way the EU works.

Their mandate derives from another summit of EU leaders, held in Laeken, Belgium, in 2001, which called for reforms to

(1) bring the EU closer to the citizens;

(2) reform the institutions to equip the EU to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The Lisbon Treaty seeks to meet the first Laeken objective in the following ways. It provides a mechanism whereby the National Legislatures will have eight weeks to review all EU laws before they are considered by the EU's own legislative bodies – i.e. the (directly-elected) European Parliament and the (indirectly-elected) Council of Ministers. It provides that the European Parliament will "elect" the President of the European Commission (on the basis of a single nomination by the European Council). The European Parliament's powers are extended on a significant range of additional subjects. Furthermore, one million EU citizens from several EU Member States will have the right to petition the Commission to introduce draft legislation on a subject.

The second Laeken objective is sought to be met by extending majority voting (instead of unanimity) in the Council of Ministers to new subjects like justice and home affairs, asylum, immigration, tourism and civil protection. (The European Parliament already adopts its decisions by majority.) With the same object in mind, a new fulltime President of the European Council is to be appointed to chair meetings of the EU heads of Government instead of a different country providing the Chairman every six months. A new Foreign Representative is to be appointed who will head a unified European External Action Service and he/she will be both a Vice President of the European Commission and a servant of the EU Council. From 2014, the size of the European Commission will be reduced to a number of members equivalent to two-thirds of the number of Member States, rather than have one member from every state.

Readers who would like to know more than this necessarily incomplete summary can consult The Treaty of Lisbon – How Much "Constitution" is Left? by Sebastian Kurpas and published by CEPS [Centre for European Policy Studies], and The New EU Treaty and the Prospects for Future Integration, published by the European Policy Centre, with particular reference to chapters by Graham Avery, Christian Lequesne and Antonio Missiroli.

Visit to West Texas

Last weekend I had a three-day visit to the west Texas city of San Angelo as the guest of the Mayor, J. W. Lown [on right, below]. San Angelo is a city of 80,000 people and is the site of a renowned university and medical centre. During the visit I also met State Representative Drew Derby, Mayor John Nikolauk of El Dorado, and Mayor Charlie Rodgers of Eden, and the Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors, Judge Brown. The visit was facilitated by a close friend of mine in Washington and native of San Angelo, Mario Castillo [on left, below].

I addressed a seminar on business development sponsored by the San Angelo Standard-Times and a roundtable discussion on international issues sponsored by San Angelo State University and the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts.

I visited a major cattle feedlot [below], which accommodates 11,000 cattle on one site. It employs 16 people and achieves very high levels of weight gain. I was shown around the feedlot by the owner, Ted Weatherford.

I was honoured to be invited by Mayor Lown to participate in the turning on of the Christmas lights [below] in the city. San Angelo has one of the most extensive schemes of Christmas of lights in the country, approximately 3 million!

I also participated in commemorative ceremonies at Fort Concho, which was a frontier fort during the late 19th century. I was invited to lay wreaths [below] in memory of soldiers of European birth who died in the US military in frontier warfare in Texas at that time. The ceremony was accompanied by a re-enactment of a parade by cavalry in period uniform and by the firing of contemporary artillery.

The commemoration was accompanied by religious services and I was delighted to meet the Bishop of the local Diocese, Bishop Pfeiffer.

In my public speeches in San Angelo, I drew attention to the fact that European investment in Texas alone exceeds all US investment in China and Japan combined. EU investment in Texas supports 228,500 jobs. The UK is the biggest European investor followed by Germany and the Netherlands.

Of all US states, Texas is the second most important exporter to the European Union, after California, and approximately 80,000 Texas jobs are supported by these exports.

Congressman Nathan Deal

Nathan Deal represents the 9th district of Georgia and his home town, Gainesville, has been described as the “poultry capital of the world” because it depends so much on the poultry industry.

Nathan Deal serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House and has a special interest in environment and food safety issues. We discussed the need to ensure that food safety legislation in the United States and Europe are as compatible as possible with one another so as to facilitate exchange of information about risks to consumers and to minimise obstacles to trade.

On the issue of US poultry exports to the European Union, I explained to him that the European Commission was working intensively to remove certain obstacles that have existed. He mentioned that increased corn prices, caused by tax incentives offered for the use of corn in ethanol production, was hitting the poultry industry in his district.

Congressman Bart Stupak

Bart Stupak represents the upper peninsula of Michigan, which is surrounded by the Great Lakes. Like Nathan Deal, he is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, so we discussed issues to do with food safety.

Bart Stupak is Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and he has conducted investigations into security lapses at the government's nuclear research laboratories, allegations of gas price gouging and outbreaks of bacterial infection in food supplies. We discussed the current activities of Congress, which are aimed at strengthening food safety. As the European Union went through a fundamental reform of its own food laws during the years 2002 – 2006, we can share some of the experiences gained during this process. When we are correcting problems in this area of food hygiene, we must be careful not to inflict unintended damage on structures that work well already or on businesses which act responsibly and who already apply high and costly quality standards.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee

Sheila Jackson Lee represents Houston in Texas and serves on the Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees of the House of Representatives.

I raised the issue of visa waiver for the EU Member States whose citizens do not yet enjoy that privilege. I stressed the need adequately to fund the new Electronic Travel Authorisation system.

As Sheila is Chairwoman of Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee, I also raised with her EU concerns about the proposed implementation of a blanket requirement that all containers shipped to the United States be subject to scanning before departure. The requirement is not reciprocal, as a similar 100% requirement will not be imposed on containers leaving the US ports. The proposed 100% requirement is also liable to add dramatically to the cost of imports to the United States and thus to prices paid by US consumers.

I stressed that the EU shared the objective of having effective protections but argued that the diversion of resources involved in the proposed blanket system might actually reduce effective protection. At the moment, scanning takes place on the basis of an intelligence-based risk assessment. In other words there is selectivity in the use of resources to minimise delays and costs.

I also raised with her European concerns about the surveillance of European communications, for example with South America, transiting through the United States. Current discussions about the extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) seem to focus on privacy rights for US citizens only.

I explained to her that this was causing concern to European citizens, and had been raised by Members of the European Parliament. I hoped that we could work together on arrangements between the EU and the US to protect legitimate private interests while maximising the gathering of useful intelligence about terrorism and crime. The Congresswoman was very receptive on this point. She had in fact also proposed amendments to the FISA Act.

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich

On my way to San Angelo in Texas, I met briefly with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a candidate for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, who was on his way to address a meeting in Reno, Nevada.

Dennis Kucinich has many connections with Europe. His district, which includes Cleveland, Ohio, has a large population of Americans of Polish, Italian, Irish, Hungarian, German, Czech and many other European descents. He himself is of Croatian and Irish heritage and his wife, Elisabeth, is English. He was first elected to the Cleveland City Council at the age of 23 and was chosen as Mayor of the city in 1977 at the age of 31. At the time he was the youngest person ever elected to lead a major American city.

Dr. Ian Paisley and Mr. Martin McGuinness

I was involved, as Taoiseach and as Leader of the Opposition in Ireland, in the process that led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and to the (eventual) durable establishment of working institutions under that Agreement in 2007. The Agreement is a complex three-stranded one under which two communities share power, peacefully within a Northern Ireland that remains part of the United Kingdom but which also has strong institutional links with the Republic of Ireland. Like many others, I spent a great part of my political life working and arguing for a compromise like this, that ends a conflict that goes back four hundred years.

It was thus with a great deal of emotion that I witnessed this visit to Washington of the joint leaders of the new Northern Ireland Administration, Dr. Ian Paisley [on right, above] and Mr. Martin McGuinness [on left, above]. There was evident warmth and respect between the two of them, which bodes well for the future.

Happy Christmas!  

Please send me your comments about this or any of my weekly messages or other EU matters. I look forward to hearing from you!


 

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