Last Monday I went to a talk by Jo Leinen in the Humboldt University. Leinen is chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of the European Parliament. The topic was the Reform Treaty and the future of Europe. In due time, you should be able to find his speech here (it will be in German).
I had the opportunity to ask Leinen about this consolidated versions problem Ralf Grahn has been going on about. Short story: the Reform/Lisbon Treaty is completely unreadable because it consists entirely of amendments to the two European treaties. No version of the treaties including the amendments (a 'consolidated' version) has been officially released.
Jo Leinen stated that the Portuguese Presidency of the Council would have published a 'Fließtext', but that this was blocked by the UK on behest of Gordon Brown, and by the Netherlands. Presumably, according to Leinen, because it would show that the treaty was very similar to the 'Constitution'.
I can't say whether Leinen meant a continuous/flowing version of the Lisbon which would make it readable, or consolidated versions of the treaties. I think he meant the latter. But Leinen is a politician, so when he uses a slightly different word you can never be sure. Either way, shame on the UK and shame on the Netherlands.
Jo Leinen intends to release and publish a consolidated version in German, in January. Professor Ingolf Pernice, who plays the host for the Humboldt University, mentioned that a German student of the university of Leipzig had published a consolidated version in German. This version (both treaties in one file) can be found here.
With consolidated versions also existing in English, Swedish, Spanish, and French we have only 18 languages to go...
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Nanne, thank you for your information.
The information that publishing has been blocked deliberately by the EU institions was corroborated further.
With about 90 million German speaking EU citizens, the German version fills a big gap, but it is incredible that the work and publishing has to be done by private citizens.
It is like a journey back to the days of the Holy Alliance (1815).
Yesterday the EU information organisation of the Finnish Foreign Ministry promised consolidated versions (presumably in Finnish and Swedish), but for some mysterious reason during the Spring of 2008. (The texts are there and a web publication could be accomplished in a matter of days.) I noted this on my Finnish and Swedish blog.
The only way forward seems to be through 'national' consolidations, and if the governments obstruct, by more or less private parties.
Shame on the Council and the acquiescing EU institutions!
The quest for consolidated versions continues.
Indeed. I'm keeping a tag on a Dutch one that's being developed by citizens in the Netherlands. Hopefully it will be finished soon.
I happened to see this morning that Jan Seifert has written a post on treaty consolidation.
Merry Christmas!
Thanks, Ralf.
Merry Christmas!
The Danish Parliament (not the Government!) has an excellent information centre called EU Oplysningen, and they wrote a consolidated text only days after the first agreements in early October. They produced updates after the summits in October and December, too. When I informed the Dutch junior Minister of European Affairs via his website www.nederlandineuropa.nl as far back as the first of August about the time it had taken before the Nice treaty had been made available in the Official Journal, I still hoped that this time things would be different. The result was as you expect: a deafening silence. Then I cut and pasted the amendments into the first treaty, after I had copied the text from a pdf file to a Word file. On13 December (!) the Dutch government had the guts (chutzpah) to mention, in a letter to the Tweede Kamer, that they want to produce a consolidated text in the next months or so. It seems so noble, but only if one is thoroughly kept in the dark about the apparent obstruction by that very same government of a consolidated text. Hopefully we can shine a much needed light here... Ries Baeten [nb als de andere, sterk gelijkende tekst, toch is doorgekomen dan graag deze tekst verwijderen]
Thank you, Anonymous, I am going to take a look at the Danish consolidation.
I noticed that Jon Worth took up the theme of consolidated treaties on his blog, calling for openness and honesty.
For those who care to take a closer look into the matter of consolidated versions, I have written numerous postings on my English, Finnish and Swedish blogs since mid-October.
The Treaty of Nice was agreed in 2000. Since then we had the Convention, with continuous reporting of proposals on the web, as well as the readable Constitution, which was published in the Official Journal and on paper.
Instant web publishing is not only possible, but in addition the number of people using the web has exploded since 2000.
For the Council to revert to old pactice is therefore both retrograde and counter-productive.
Thanks Ries. Are you in touch with the people of wijwillenreferendum.eu? They have published a consolidated version, but only of the EU treaty, as far as I can see.
Could you send me an email? The address is zwaerdenmaecker[aap]gmail[punt]com
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